Perhaps having to know everything about all medications and actually retain the knowledge? Not to mention all the education that’s required.
Being responsible for everything you and your pharmy tech’s hand out over the counter is a big part of it. Pharmacists have to know how every drug interacts with other drugs, how much of the drug to give(the doctors seem to mess this up a lot), etc…
I would like her salary, but would not want the hassle of being responsible for someone’s life. If i screw up at work, someone can’t print a document or connect to the internet. If a pharmacist screws up, someone can die.
That’s what I figured…still a ton of $$$ tho.
Yeah if I mess up, my company may be out of some serious cash, but chances are it can be rocovered and people will not die.
Dom’s aunt and uncle are both pharmacists. I know his uncle had an issue with a coworker forging his name on some legal documents. There is definitely a lot to be held accountable/responsible for with that job.
Yeah with the pharmacists i work with, the job is cake but the most common complaint i hear from them is nowhere to move up to and boring work. I would have considered being a pharmacist if it wasnt for 7 years of school. on top of that alot of the pharmacists i work with said they wouldnt do it again.
I understand nursing is not pretty at all. stinky patients, complaining, drug abusers, overworked alot. But i just think that since its in such high demand i would be able to sign a contract to work somwhere when i graduate and then they will pay me to go to school instead of me paying and its only 22 months of school to come out making 20 somethign an hour. I’m not scared of hard work which i know it is going to be but i want financial freedom which i do not have now for my family. the car work idea is gone for me as of now and the research ive been doing over the last couple days. though i would like to learn more about working on cars but only for hobbie.
I have a lot of buddies in the industry, and I’m sure it’s somewhat different out here (CA). You will never make good $ as anything but a owner at a performance/body/tuner/blah blah shop. If you’re not an owner you need to be Master ASE certified and get into a GOOD dealership. I have a really good friend that works at Lexus as a master tech and makes in the six figures. I think he made more than me this year, bastard! He works 4 10 hour shifts, which often turn into 12+. But in a typical 10-12 hour shift he’s going to “book” 15-20hours.
Two of my buddies also started very successful performance shops (catering to the LSX world in their cases, but the basics apply) with VERY different mentalities.
One guy, let’s call him Rick, is rolling in the coin raping ‘vette owners for $1k header installs (made up number, but probably not far off) and pushing useless parts at a huge margin on the “too much money, no taste, gotta be faster than so and so” crowd.
His wife has done an amazing job of promoting the business (they have calendars w/ their own girls every year, girls at their dyno days, promote themselves with the girls in tow at any racing event around etc.). They make big money, no doubt. But he’s also lost a lot of friends and respect in the process.
He pretty much had to sell his sole to be hugely profitable. He started out working for my very very good friend Dave who has since passed, doing basic Fbody stuff in Dave’s garage. Dave was meticulous to say the least, and his cars always put out the best numbers for their mods and were spot on in every way. Rick now has a massive shop and a few employees but his cars put out shit numbers (even though he over-inflates them on his Dynapack, as soon as they go to a different dyno they are down on power compared to similar cars… my 442RWHP car walked one of his 480RWHP cars easy) and are a joke amongst the “real” community. None of them are fast at the track. But he has a loyal group of nut-riders.
Now, his employees are a whole other joke. To keep profits high any perf shop like that can’t pay very good wages, nothing like a dealer can. All he can really hire is guys who’ve maybe done headers or a cam on their own car in their garage. You get these guys in a real shop environment and expect them to turn out QUALITY work in a timely manner and it just doesn’t happen. I have plenty of buddies that had their cars f-ed up by Rick’s shop. Sure, they installed the shifter in my buddy’s GTO but they used fuckin’ channel locks on the stainless knob and ripped the shift boot, and it wasn’t adjusted right. Sure they can install a N20 kit for you, but the wiring looks like shit, your bottle is all scratched up etc.
The other guy is the exactly the opposite. He stayed solo for a long time because he couldn’t afford to hire anybody good enough to work at his level. Eventually he picked up one guy, and then another. But that was after trying a lot of ppl. He just got lucky and found guys w/ no formal training or background (therefore cheap to hire) who were actually good and put pride in their work. And he’ll pay them the extra hour to make an install clean vs. just slapping it together. He just bought a second shop building, and he’s booked for months out. However, he figures he hardly cleared $50k this year (pretty bad in the Bay Area). Of course, he reinvested a lot of money into his facilities but he’s not rolling in it like Rick.
So what do I suggest for you? I guess I really don’t know. How much wrenching have you done? I enjoy wrenching on my car and buddies in small enough doses (a good weekend thrash is enough for me) but I couldn’t see myself doing it every day. If you don’t see yourself having the drive/funds/skills/passion to open your own shop working at a dealership is your only option to make a respectable income. So can you do 30k services and the same recalls all day, every day for the rest of your life? Can you handle knowing you’re going to need to do jobs in about 50-75% the “book time” so you can make good money? You can’t take your time, and every f-up that slows you down for a while is money out of your pocket. If you take a 4 hour job and turn into 8 hours of work you just gave away 4 hours for free (or reduced your hourly pay by 50%, however you want to look at it).
A lot of us have a passion for working on cars and modifying them. But it makes a good career for very few of us.
-TJ
Yeah, I’m gonna stick to playing around with routers and switches and what not.
Certs certs certs, get your certs. My buddy got in directly w/ Cisco after finishing his ISM degree at UCSC. He couldn’t hack CS or CE (I did CS) and even w/ the known “easy way out” degree of ISM he got right in because a) he had lots of certs b) when it came to routing and Cisco technologies he really, really does know his shit. Cisco doesn’t care that he can’t code an OS or do advanced calc… cuz that’s not what they need. Now he’s got a great job with them making darn good money (for the Bay Area) that he can take to one of their many locations w/ the same pay (huge money outside of CA).
-TJ
I’m 17, A+, Network +, and CCNA cert’d. I’m plugging at it, haha.
Not bad son! Stay with it. :bigthumb:
-TJ
If you are really thinking about nursing, shoot me a pm tomorrow and we’ll talk. As far as them paying for school after you graduate…UPMC pays 100% of my tuition. If you work for UPMC, they will provide tuition assistance to you as an employee. Otherwise, you can sign a contract saying you will work for them as a nurse for 2 years after graduating. Obviously, I’m biased toward UPMC. I’ve worked at lots of other places and this is by far the best employer thus far. However, lots of other hospitals offer tuition assistance as well. I highly suggest that anyone interested in nursing take a job as a nursing assistant for a while before starting nursing school. This really gives you a good idea of what is involved and if you will like the field. I hate to see people enter nursing school with no clue of what’s to come and then drop out after either one semester (they drop like flies during A&P) or the first clinical rotation.
I work at the upmc pharmacy in oakland so i guess im in the same position then. i wasnt sure how it all worked but im gonna call HR today and see what I need to do.
Right now the main problem is between my wife and I we make just enough to live. Her car will be paid off in august which then she wants to pay off her 5 grand of credit card debt then she said it would work for me to go to school and she could pick up some of my bills so i can go part time at work.
Then there is my 4 year old. I cant afford daycare and the only people available to watch her for free live 45 minutes away from me.
I have alot to figure out…
those are some good ideas!