On Oct. 11, the Rite Aid on South Orange Avenue, well-known to many SHU students, had officially become Walgreens.
Glenda Macon, a member of the transition team, said that several Rite Aids were bought out by four different companies, one of them being Walgreens, in 2017. She spoke of the long transition process, which included paperwork, rights and employee contracts, to finally become Walgreens.
Macon, who hails from Michigan, is working at the South Orange location for two weeks to train the employees.
“All the technology is different,” Macon said. “We train mostly on technology, especially pharmacy and how to process scripts. The registers and photo lab are totally different, so we just teach them how to use it.”
Shannon Boykin, assistant store manager of Walgreens, shared her initial concerns.
“At first, I was worried because of the changes before the transition team came in,” Boykin said. “Now that they sent people to train us, I feel more comfortable and confident. It feels like we’ve been Walgreens forever.”
Boykin also said that physical changes were made to the store. She said they had painted the interior and exterior of the store, implemented a new signage out front and included bricks on the bottom. They had also turned around the aisles completely.
Students also voiced their opinions on the transition.
Oluwayomi Babayemi, a junior nursing major, said she is mostly indifferent about the switch.
“I was used to Rite Aid, and then suddenly it just turned into Walgreens,” Babayemi said. “I’m indifferent, but I prefer Rite Aid because I’m used to it. I just prefer Rite Aid workers because yesterday I went in and it was kind of messy. So, I’m like, that was not happening with Rite Aid.”
Babayemi said, “You just have to understand which is better in labor markets, Walgreens or Rite Aid. I see a bunch of Walgreens; I want to believe they are good for them to have bought Rite Aid. They’re looking for expansion.”
Babayemi said she just hopes Walgreens has good services like Rite Aid because Rite Aid was good.
Kristel Domingo can be reached at kristel.domingo@student.shu.edu.
