Sometimes It’s the Owner

I was asked to examine a currently operating Pharmacy for a client who was interested in purchasing. There was no other pharmacy for five miles in every direction, yet this one seemed to be more odds and ends than medication.  

This pharmacy should have had five or six full time pharmacists and half the floorspace should have been the RX department. Instead of magazine and cards and baby things, and books, and shampoos and lotions and over the counter medication, and hair dye, gifts and stationery. After all, one can buy many of these items at the supermarket or one of the haberdasheries.  Hence, I journied to the Pharmacy in the guise of a customer.

I entered the premises to see a rather surly cashier at the front of the store, a lurking security guard, as I made my way to the rear where the Pharmacy proper was met  another surly clerk. Behind her were the pharmacists to whom she would pass the prescription.

I busied myself with the novels noticing how the process went and could see nothing truly offensive although the attitude of the clerks was not friendly. One of the customers went to pay by credit card and was told that the phone line was “busy”.  At this point I pushed myself over with my credit card as if to buy a book and was given the same response. I made a bit of a fuss and was told that the owner was on the phone.

“Yes, but I want to pay for this book.”  I say loudly.

“You’ll have to wait.” Snapped the clerk.

“Why don’t you tell the owner that the line is needed?”  I persisted.

The clerk looked at me as if I had asked her to perform unspeakable acts with a goat. I realized the problem with this concern was the owner.    Although I didn’t look at pay slips, I had the feeling the staff felt underpaid. Although I don’t know the owner,  the fact that she didn’t have a separate line for the credit card suggested she was rather a Scrooge type.  That the staff was “afraid” to “disturb” her while she was on the phone, even when  the cost was a lost sale, seemed sufficient “proof” to me.

The other credit card customer, emboldened by my remarks, began to talk loud and go through a litany of how many times he’d come here and it was the same delay. I left the Pharmacy, wrote a report for my client, basically indicating that there was no “good will” in that business.

The price of purchase, by necessity, dropped. My client purchased the Pharmacy and whatever he did, within a few weeks the surly cashier was gone, the sour clerks were smiling, and another phone line, dedicated to credit cards, was installed.

The Pharmacy Section was jammed and the new owner decided to sell off a lot of the odds and ends to gain a bit more space for that area.

Sometimes a business isn’t doing well because of the person who owns it.