The only thing CVS hates more than it’s customers is it’s employees

With the death of Brian Thompson, horror stories poured out over social media of people’s experiences. I want to share mine as an employee and member

So, how long does it take you to use the restroom? It seems like an absurd question, especially at the start of a shiny new publication. I promise it will make sense in just a few more moments. Just keep that question at the back of your brain.

A little about me, to start. I switched jobs a few years ago, to a great job that I loved and where I was treated with respect and dignity. Then I was laid off. Desperately I applied to every single job I could, and received no response. Finally, I found a job posting for CVS. That was the first time I realized it is completely acceptable to lie about wages as long as there is a “range”. The range was decent, and with years and years of experience and the timer on my unemployment running out, I applied.

Turns out the wage was a lie, I was getting the bottom of the wage scale, no negotiation, no experience taken into account, no nothing. But I had applied to hundreds of jobs by this point, and this was one of the few that got back to me. I accepted the position and desperately tried to find somewhere else before my start date. I had Aetna’s god-awful Meritain insurance before, and I was still paying off the medical debt. I already had a terrible experience, why would I want to actually work for this company?

You can guess what happened.

Now to the question I posed in the beginning. On day 3, when we had completed our remote work set-up, one of the other people in my training class advised that they were stepping away. Our trainer, who was wonderful, didn’t care. Our training manager, a Gen X/Boomer training manager comes roaring into the chat like like the police pulling over a Black man in a nice car and said “You are not allowed to leave your desk unless it is during your break or lunch.”

We were all floored. We asked what we were expected to do. He didn’t have a good answer.

By the way, It takes me between 1-3 minutes to use the restroom, Usually 1 minute because I am rushing. I go to the bathroom anywhere from one to five times per hour, depending on various factors. The medication I am on also makes bathroom breaks much more frequent.

This metric is called AUX. To qualify for a bonus, your “Aux” time must be 2% or less. Maximum time is 7 minutes, and this only counts if you’re on the phone line. Have a 30 minute meeting and then an hour training? Now you have 5 minutes. Aetna, a purported “Health and Wellness company”, conveniently ignores the mountains of evidence that shows that being sedentary for this long causes numerous health issues. Ones which I now have to fight to get treatment for because Aetna is now riding the AI train to profit town.

Did I accidentally apply for Amazon?

Now. I thought that this sounded illegal as fuck. I’m working from home. I drink a lot of water, and I have a gnat bladder. I found their advice and counsel and asked them about this policy. I asked them why the company thought this was OK. I asked them about what I’m supposed to do about using the bathroom. They gave me bullshit excuses of “Well people would abuse it,” and “If a lot of people went at the same time…” We didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was profit. I was already a progressive and socialist, and this radicalized me further.

In my many, many years of work experience, I never in my life was told that my bathroom usage, of all things, was restricted. I guess there is a first time for everything.

Advice and Counsel and HR were both condescending, snide, and of course, gave zero fucks about how awful this policy was on mental and physical health. They advised me that this was policy so people didn’t “abuse” the system. They stated I needed accommodations to be able to use the bathroom. I looked up my state laws. Guess what? It’s 100 percent legal! Because low-wage workers don’t have rights, and your job can be abusive and there is no recourse. Welcome to greatest country on Earth, folks.

Now, most doctors will charge about $100-$200 for this type of form completion, if they will do it at all.

See, not being able to hold your bladder for 3 or so hours at a time isn’t a disability. It’s biology. I was pretty much laughed off the phone for wanting to be treated with dignity. I have never felt so dehumanized. I was nothing but a replaceable cog, and there was nothing I could do. With the job market the way it is, and with most of my experience being a CSR, finding another job is damn near impossible at this moment.

And that, my dear reader, is what brings me here.

This is the type of company that United, CVS, BCBS, every other insurance agency is.

They do not give a shit about you. You are either a walking piggy bank, or an exploitable tool. Here is a ruling from the Ohio Board of Pharmacy that found CVS had understaffed their pharmacies to such a degree that it was a danger to the public.

So, to make an incredibly long story short, I ended up attempting to get accommodated for bathroom usage, as the position I was in had decided to open a phone line.

Before this point I was at least not inbound, and could get up and walk around. Not anymore. It took months to get the paperwork. The paperwork was rejected multiple times, and I had to call every other day for months to speak to my “case manager” I decided that I was done, and changed positions.

This is what you have to remember when you call your health insurance company.

Many of us try so hard to make things right, but we’re not given the tools to do so. In fact, we’re here to take the heat for policies they created, and problems they perpetuate. They’re too busy counting stacks of cash to be bothered.

The vitriol around Thompson’s death and the industry at large is justified, as is the indifference or glee at his murder. But please don’t forget we’re stuck here too. The job market is full of scams, fake postings, and liars who post “ranges” for salaries in bad faith, so desperate people get stuck. I can’t speak for everyone, but a majority are in solidarity, despite the scare tactics the police and media are using. Part of this is to make get a light shown in the darkness. The other is to look out for my fellow workers.

Don’t forget, we really are in this together.

I hope that you take something good from this. With everything that is happening in this country and the world at large, we need to stand together. Remember, the only “Us vs Them” are the CEOs vs the rest of us. Solidarity will win the day, if we let it. And we need to. We weren’t meant to be wage slaves serving corporate masters.

I will leave you with this “Fun Fact” about CVS.

Back in 2022, when Karen Lynch had taken over the company, we saw her receive $20 mil in salary and compensation while inflation devastated the working class coffers. To celebrate her new position, and again, while paying close to starvation wages to staff, she rented out all of Epcot for a private concert with John Legend for herself, the investors, and executives. Here is a link to Wendell Potter’s post, video included. Keep in mind how much fun they’re having the next time they deny you critical care.