Pharmacy Technicians

A Day in the Life

As a pharmacy technician in a drugstore pharmacy, you'll work regular shifts at varying times during the day. Assuming that most of your hours fall during the high-volume midday period, you'll arrive for your shift by 10 a.m. to handle the coming rush of customers looking to fill prescriptions on their lunch breaks. You'll greet the other employees at your drugstore and check in with the pharmacist on duty. Since he's your direct report, you must follow his instructions carefully and ensure that the facility remains error-free.

The day begins rather uneventfully. Since your drugstore receives most of its orders from the nearby medical professional building, you won't see a lot of business until late morning. By the time you start seeing customers, most doctor's offices in the area have been open for at least two hours. You're sometimes grateful for a job that doesn't get busy until lunchtime.

As business picks up, you assume your position at the cash register near the front of the pharmacy. This lets you greet new customers as they approach and answer phone calls from doctors and patients.

Throughout the course of the morning, several doctor's offices call to request that certain prescriptions be filled. You carefully take down the name of the drug, its dosage size, and the prescription's quantity and duration. To ensure that you don't misplace this information, you also enter it into your pharmacy's electronic database. After all, it's your responsibility to maintain accurate and up-to-date records of all of the prescriptions that your pharmacy issues.

By 30 minutes to noon, several customers are standing in line. You alert the pharmacist of the rush and let him take your place at the register. While it's busy, it's your job to retrieve filled prescriptions and bring them to the counter. Since your pharmacist is legally required to verify that each prescription is correct before giving it out, he'll need to take each batch of medication from you in order to finalize the transaction. You work contentedly in this manner for about an hour.

After lunchtime, it begins to slow down. You use this downtime to fill some of the prescriptions that came in earlier. Before counting and dispensing each medication, you verify the accuracy of the prescription with your pharmacist.

At around 3 p.m., the pharmacist must show you how to mix two medications with which you have little experience. You appreciate the guidance and thank him for his help. As you resume your work, you think about how nice it is to have a boss who can teach you something new every day.

You stay at work until after the pre-dinner rush has ended at around 6:30 p.m. Since you're paid by the hour, you're not particularly concerned about working a few extra hours here and there. Since your pharmacy is a 24-hour facility, you take a moment to greet your replacement technician and let her know how the day went. Finally, you bid the other drugstore employees farewell and leave.