Let me just start by saying I'm grateful to have a job. In this economy, with jobs and businesses dropping like flies, having a paycheck is a great thing.
That being said, the transition from Albertson's to Associated Foods is not going as planned. Well, at least it's nothing like I planned. Maybe they planned to make every one of my patients angry. If so, they didn't inform me.
Just to bring everyone up to speed, at the end of July, I was asked (told) to join a conference call where SuperValu (owners of Albertson's) announced they had sold all Utah Albertson's to Associated Foods. So many things became instantly clear. Since coming on as the pharmacy manager, I had to install safety handles on my behind so management could safely ride me over everything...labor hours, inventory, warehouse utilization, etc. The minute SuperValu announced the sale, I saw the past 6-7 months with striking clarity...essentially I was an auto-detail boy. I was polishing up the hubcaps and shining the hood...getting this baby ready for sale. I am certain SuperValu has been courting buyers for sometime now, and all I was doing was making it look more profitable to potential buyers.
I tried to approach the sale with optimism. Associated agreed to hire virtually 100% of Albertson's employees, and keep our payrates the same. We would also retain our seniority and vacation time. So far, so good...
Then, we learned of the new computer system with which we would be throttled. I had a little personal experience with it from working at IHC. I was employed with them when they transitioned to this computer system, and I witnessed the pharmacy lose about 1/4-1/3 of it's business over about a year. Of course, decisions about which computer system to use is never posed to the people in the trenches. Those decisions are made by accountants and people who don't work in the pharmacy.
Regardless, I chose to try to remain optimistic. Associated sent us to some (4 hours) of training for the new system in August, assuming the transition would occur soon after. Anyone familiar with corporate buy-outs knows what happened next...it got delayed. Then, it got delayed again, and again, and again....
In the mean time, 3 new computers got delivered to my pharmacy to replace my 7 I currently had. I'm no math whiz, but I immediately fired off e-mails informing them that 3 computers would not sufficiently replace 7 computers. I was assured more computers would be installed before we went live. About 2 weeks before we went live, I e-mailed again stating I still only had 3 computers and was assured I would get more. After much delay, the transition began last Sunday. They picked the first Monday of the month (busiest day of the month) to go live with all 34 stores at once. We closed on Sunday while inventory was taken and the new computers were installed. If you're a student of foreshadowing, you know what happened. In their defense, they did install 3 additional computers for a total of 6...not quite an even swap, but 6 isn't bad.
Come Monday morning, 2+ months since our 4 hours of training for the new system, we fired up the system and...we had 3 computers working. The other 3 didn't even have the software installed on them. We were supposed to be open and running by noon. I didn't even try to open my doors until 4 p.m. Talk about a mess...Where was the voice of reason in all of this? Where was the rational individual to stand up in their planning meetings and tell them the first Monday of the month is the worst possible day they could have picked even if they weren't trying to do all 34 stores at once?
We are now 3 days into the new computer system. Things are getting a little better. We now have 6 computers working. We are actually better off than many of the other pharmacies. We had a trainer on site who was suppose to be with us through Thursday. He had to leave us on Tuesday and go to Salt Lake to a pharmacy that still couldn't open as of Tuesday evening. Right now, we have cookies and punch in front of the pharmacy in the hopes it will apease a few people. It's not uncommon for folks to wait an hour or so for their prescriptions. I just hope people will give us another chance after we learn the system, although I'm not sure they will. I fear the choice to open before all these bugs were worked out will result in losing a lot of customers.
The worst part is that none of this is mine our my techs fault. Nobody asked our opinion about when to go live or what system to choose. But, it is us who gets yelled at and is spending 2+ hours after closing time just trying to get caught up.
I want/have to believe that eventually things will get better. From a management standpoint, I think working for Associated will be VASTLY better than it was for SuperValu. They are much more laid-back and don't seem to ride their middle-management like SuperValu did. I think it will be a great thing for the grocery end of things...prices are already dropping. I just hope we still have any customers at the pharmacy once this all gets worked out.
