Where Attempted Humanizing and Dehumanization Intersect. . . or Irony in a Bottle

Here’s a blog that will never make the Walgreens Boots Alliance Webpage under their glowing stories of commitment where they state they are “determined to do right by our customers, patients, and each other.”

My local Walgreens now has a sign in the window of the drive-through with pictures of two smiling people and the words:  “The person caring for you is also someone’s loved one. Please be kind and refrain from disrespectful behavior.”

Note the italics selling us to humanize their staff and the well-mannered begging for the customers to be kind.

I’ve got a question. Why is it that Walgreens Corporation – or Walgreens Boots Alliance (more on that later) doesn’t follow their own advice? Why don’t they think of their employees as someone’s loved ones? Why aren’t they also trying to be kind to their employees? Why are they disrespectful to them? And by extension to the customers. Why is it that WBA doesn’t have to toe the line – only the people literally waiting in the lines and working behind the counters?

For anyone who has ever visited a Walgreens Pharmacy, you’ll know what I’m talking about. I seriously doubt this is a Minneapolis-based problem. For if WBA (hey, CEO Tim Wentworth – I’m talking to you) only had a problem in Minneapolis, you would think corporate would scratch their heads and look into it. What’s going on there in Minneapolis? Golly! We should fix that.

But the problem being ignored is simple. The pharmacies are understaffed. I can’t speak for the employee’s compensation, because I don’t work at Walgreens, but I’m going to Sherlock through this one. If the wages for the employees were super great, there might be more applicants. Right? So I gotta assume that the wages aren’t great, and Walgreens either can’t find enough people to work in the pharmacies because of that…. or…. they have a hiring cap to keep wages down. Which is it? Both? Logic is telling me both. Another big factor is working conditions. Who knew that was a thing?

The lines are long at the Walgreens pharmacy. And the harried staff is exhausted. Hence the sign. Think about that. Conditions are so tense, that they had to post a sign to remind people that their employees are human. Do you see the irony? These people go to work and stand through their entire shift. And the phone rings the entire time, and there are cars lined up in the drive-through, and people staring at them, itching to get to the counter. There is no letup for the pharmacy staff. The last time I was in there, the staff tearfully told me that no one cares. They said that they have begged for help, but . . . (talking to you now, Rick Gates, Senior Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer, Walgreen Co.) no one is listening to them. Hey Rick, were you the one who came up with the idea to put a sign in the window to remind the teaming masses of healthcare customers to be kind? Do you have that sign in your Deerfield, IL stores where your headquarters are located? Ever hit the drive-through and see that? And assuming you do see that, how does it make you feel? Do you throw up your hands and shrug, thinking, there’s nothing I can do?

Hey Rick (either one), did you read your mission statement? I’ll list it here for you. Living our purpose, vision, and values. (I added the comma after vision, cause you didn’t). Further breaking that down, you listed your Purpose as: More joyful lives through better health. Okay. How is the mental health of your employees? They are literally crying at the checkout and apologizing for the long delays. No joy there! Your listed Vision is:  To be the leading partner in reimaging local healthcare and well-being for all. How do you think that is going? Have you taken the temperature lately? Was printing signs that asked for customers to humanize the staff a clue? And lastly, your written values are: Courageous, Connected, Committed, Curious. Who the hell thought of these? Okay, Courageous – how are you manifesting that? By spending billions on acquisitions but not helping the mass chaos and trauma in your stores? Connected. Um, have you been to Walgreens Pharmacy lately? Have you spent any time with the employees and listened to their problems? Oh, wait – yes you did. You gave them a sign to post. Committed. To what exactly? And lastly, Curious. Yeah, I am too.

My son had kidney stones last week. Hey, Rick, have you ever experienced that? It’s painful. You’re going to want some pain medication. And while you wait for three hours for that prescription to be filled, there is cold comfort from the Walgreens mantra that you’re determined to do right by your customers, patients, and each other.

Rick Wentworth, and Rick Gates, and maybe even Tracey Brown—another retail executive I chose from the list of top dogs—will probably never read this. But I’m going to steal a part of your vision statement and live with my purpose, vision, and values, by going all out in an effort to be heard. Since, according to your governance, the company’s corporate secretary reviews all communications sent to the board, I decided to become a stockholder.

In order to become legit, I opened a brokerage account and bought shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance. I’m now a corporate stockholder and according to WBA—they value an open dialog with stockholders. Inspired by the great movie Dumb Money which told the story about everyday people who bought stock in GameStop to get rich and fuck with Wall Street, I thought I’d try to manage this stock purchase by myself and not go through my regular guy. I set up an account with Robinhood and funded it so I could invest in the market and make some trades. If I’m reading it right, WBA currently has a dismal downturn in its stock. At the time I purchased it, WBA was selling for $8.99 a share. Walgreens added the Boots Alliance bit after they purchased 45% of the Swiss Pharmaceutical Wholesaler for…. $15.3 Billion. They purchased the rest of the company in 2014 – and, again, if I’m reading this right, spent another $10.7 Billion for the last 55%. That’s a lot of cheddar, yo. Wait. No. That’s an insane amount of cheddar. I don’t know how that purchase is going for Walgreens, but a lot of people got rich. As a stockholder, I suppose I should spend some time trying to figure out how that investment is going. But for now, I really don’t care.

Here’s what I know. Walgreens Boots Alliance had BILLIONS of dollars in their pocket to expand their business. And a big part of that business is Walgreens. So take care of it, Ricks. Read your vision statement.

Your employees are someone’s loved ones and not your corporate chattel. You’ve got your customers by the throat and you’re strangling us. We need healthcare and medicine. You’ve set up the corner shop to do that. And you wrote some mighty fine words about how you want to conduct that business. So do it.

For those of you interested, you can email the board of directors for WBA at:  WBABoard@wba.com

You can also reach them at: Corporate Secretary, 108 Wilmot Road, MS #1858, Deerfield, IL 60015

#helpwallgreensdotherightthing #wallgreenscorpsucks #wallgreenscorporategreed #wallgreensdehumanization

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