Understaffing: How big business creates chaos for consumers (CVS edition)

 

Headline:  The American Prospect, 3/19/2026

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein reports:

The changing nature of business ownership may contribute to the trend, as owners are increasingly removed from day-to-day realities. Regulators have found systemic understaffing by large corporate chains, for example, leading to unprecedented enforcement action. In 2021, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy discovered CVS pharmacies with barricaded walk-up windows that diverted all customers to the drive-through, because there was only one pharmacist on duty to deal with customers. Unopened boxes and deliveries littered pharmacist workstations, while the heat in the building rose above safe levels. Some patients had to wait over a month to have their prescriptions filled. “Pharmacy staff asked for assistance from a pharmacist and pharmacy technician to fill prescriptions after hours to get caught up,” the board’s report reads. “They were denied, stating there is no staffing available to do so.” Investigators first visited one CVS store in March, and when they returned in October, they noted that every worker interviewed in the first report just months earlier was gone. In 2024, the board settled a $1.5 million fine against the chain.  

[snip] 

Increased corporate concentration plays a role in understaffing, as seen vividly in the Ohio Board of Pharmacy’s report on the business practices of CVS. CVS, the sixth-largest corporation in America and one of two major pharmacies, has a history of buying out competitor pharmacies, only to close them and divert business to their main store. This increased business does not come with additional staff, drowning pharmacists and store employees with more than they can handle.

Corpus Christi Texas is facing a water crisis

 

Population and photo:  Wikipedia, U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts (2024)

Headline:  The Texas Tribune, 3/20/2026

Colleen DeGuzman reports:

A yearslong drought and a recent boom of refineries, natural gas export terminals and other industrial facilities along Corpus Christi Bay has led the city to the edge of a historic water shortage. 

Two of the city’s three main reservoirs have shrunk to below 10% of capacity and the city projects they could run dry by May. That led to city projections that it could reach a water emergency — when the water supply is projected to last just 180 days — as early as May, which would trigger drastic water reduction efforts. [emphasis added]

With the approval to keep pulling large amounts of water from Lake Texana and the permit to operate the four additional wells, the city has pushed that to at least July, Zanoni said Friday. 

But Zanoni cautioned that water levels at Lake Texana are also dropping.

 

R.I.P. Metaverse. May you rest on a bed of billion$

 

Headline:  New York Times, 6/19/2026

Eli Tan and Mike Isaac report:

Five years ago, Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed that the future of Facebook would be the metaverse. Based in virtual reality, it would be an immersive digital world where people could work, play and meet up, he said. To punctuate the point, Mr. Zuckerberg renamed his company Meta.\ 

But in recent months, Meta laid off 10 percent of its employees in the division that works on the metaverse and said its flagship Horizon Worlds app, a digital universe where people socialize through their avatars, was turning its focus away from virtual reality. 

This week, Meta delivered a near death blow. On Tuesday, the company said people would no longer be able to access the immersive world through virtual-reality headsets starting on June 15.

Zuck ignored the lesson of 'high-tech, high-touch", the need to maintain a balance between technology and human interaction.