Who was the marketing genius who came up with Walgreens’ new slogan? In case you haven’t heard it, it goes something like this: “The world isn’t perfect. That’s why there’s Walgreens.” I think the indended meaning is that Walgreens is there to help fix the imperfections of the world (like saying, “The world isn’t perfect; that’s why there are doctors who can perform open-heart surgery”).

But, of course, there’s another way you can take it. I wonder if anyone in the marketing department thought about it for a second and said, “hey, that could also mean that Walgreens is a deleterious result of the world’s imperfections” (like saying, “The world isn’t perfect; that’s why there’s disease and death”).

I guess you have to ask, which is the more reasonable interpretation?

According to an AP article that ran in the Journal Star and the Chicago Sun-Times today, “The National Pharmacists Association said nearly one in five pharmacies owned by Walgreen Co. in the area, or 58 in all, this year have exceeded what it considers to be the safe average workload of 20 prescriptions filled per hour per pharmacist.” And the union’s executive director Chuck Sauer said, “This is the direct result of Walgreens’ systematic implementation of its assembly line philosophy, under which pharmacists are made to work at ever-increasing speeds, compromising patient safety.”

If that’s true, then it looks like the latter interpretation is the correct one. The world isn’t perfect; that’s why Walgreens puts profits over safety.