Were very good, but situation has deteriorated in last several years
Pros
Good pay, with good sign-on bonus when I started. Support staff was friendly and helpful for the most part. I was disabled by a car accident and was given 6 months of short-term disability with no hassle at all, and kept on insurance and other benefits for a year. Would have been able to return to my position with no problem at that time if I had been physically able. I would have qualified for very generous long term disability with a few more months of employment but I had only been with the company for less than a year (my 28 years of experience was in other pharmacies).
Cons
I came to the pharmacy at a very stressful time, the pharmacist-in-charge was on medical leave and I took over those duties as well as trying to integrate the prescriptions generated by the purchase of another pharmacy's files. The corporate management had not properly prepared for the large increase in prescription volume, so the stress level was very high due to short-staffing. They also had a pharmacy technician who could only be described as a toxic employee but it took months to get corporate management to recognize that she was the source of many problems and to remove her. I have kept in touch with pharmacists within the company (different location) and the last few years have resulted in more stress in all pharmacies with decreased support staffing while prescription volume as well as pharmacist duties have increased. Safeway is now considered one of the worst chain pharmacies as a pharmacist employer, when they previously had a reputation for being one of the best.
