Umm....

I recently had a little old lady walk up to my pharmacy door to tell me how she wasn't going to pick up her meds because she left her bank card at home.  She never takes it anywhere because she never has to use it (makes me wonder about her grocery store trips) so she'll be back next week to pick up her stuff.

That wasn't what was remarkable about this conversation.  I have conversations like that with people all the time.  What made it interesting was her rant about how she hates when people write half in cursive, half in regular print.  She went so far as to call it disgusting.

All while rolling a half-smoked cigarette in her hand.

That she promptly went outside to smoke.

Now I'm not one to say anything about people who smoke.  If you want to, by all means go for it.  It's your choice.  I know most smokers would stop if they could.  They know it's not the cleanest habit in the world.  She had no problem rolling this thing around her hand for 5 minutes and that's fine.

But the writing was disgusting?

Ummmm....

The pharmacy environment

It's admittedly a difficult job to do sometimes.

Between people demanding things that you can't do, medications being out of stock, seven different phone lines ringing while you're stuck at the drive-thru, and an unhappy pharmacist, retail pharmacy can suck the life out of you real quick.

Especially if you work at a busy store like mine.

Closed door pharmacy offers its own challenges (especially given the environment I'm working in), but the stress level pales in comparison to retail.

Part of this is because retail is just so much more business orientated.  You're taught to bring in business, bring in scripts, get them in and out as quickly as possibly, and oh, if they do happen to have a question, try to wrap it up neatly.  We're graded on how long they have to wait with no consideration for circumstances that are beyond our control.

They aren't patients in retail, they're customers.  They have money, you want that money, and you are expected to do whatever it takes to bring them in so they can spend that money.  The store I work in would do half the business without a pharmacy simply because people shop around while they wait.  Quite frankly, I'm amazed at how much people can find in a store to buy in 15 minutes while we're talking about it.

There's a level of separation though.  You don't get to know the customer as well because you don't have time.  It's more of an assembly line than a patient care facility.  In the few instances where I've seen someone take up more than 10 minutes of my pharmacist's time, someone else is pissed off because it's taking so long.  God forbid it be on the phone even.

Retail has made people impatient, but worse, it caters to that impatience.

Then it was decided that we needed to be telemarketers too by having us call people five days a week to tell them they need to get their refills filled.  Automatic refills, okay.  Then you're giving people a choice.  You want me to fill your amlodipine every month so you don't have to call in?  That's fine.  I mean, I know the refill line was difficult to use (putting the time in is something that some have never figured out), but don't worry about it.

Then there are the people who are mad because we didn't call the doctor 37 times after their refill ran out, nevermind that we did call every day and fax twice.  Don't be proactive (god I hate that word now too) and call your own doctor after YOU notice on your label that the refills are out.  No, yell at us after the doctor hasn't had time to get back to us because 7 other pharmacies are also requesting refills for customers just like you.

Yet I still like what I do and it's easy to explain why.

For every 5 pain in the ass customers we have, there's at least one who's nice, understanding, and has a sense of humor.  The best customers are the ones I can joke with about how things are going, who understand they just watched 4 people demand to wait in front of them, who won't get mad when I say it might be 20 minutes to get this ready.  They are the kind of customer who smiles, says don't worry about it, and will be back in a couple of hours.

They are the ones that make it worth it.

The other job, we actually have five minutes to discuss what's going on.  I had a 15 minute conversation with someone the other other day and actually didn't feel rushed like I usually would.

This isn't me slamming retail and saying it's the worst thing ever.  It's not.  There are far worse jobs that you could have.  All I'm saying is with a few minor changes, everyone's lives could be much easier, less stressful, and a little more productive.  Those changes will never come, but it's nice to dream about them.

In fact, I might write about some of those things I'd like.

First on that list, no more damn gift cards. Or waiting in the drive-thru.  Hell, a lot of things could go first on this list.

Hope everyone has a good weekend if I don't post again today.  I will not be back online until Monday since I won't have internet set up in my apartment for a couple more weeks.

Dear Tattooed/Pierced up customer

I realize that you feel the need to cover up the fact that you had terrible acne problems as a child (and for all I know, still do).  I realize that the 10 pounds of make-up just doesn't seem like it is enough to hide the craters all over  your face (and it isn't).

But covering yourself in piercings (especially those on your face and the rather prominent one that is in your tongue, you know, the one you made little effort to hide; I've known girls with tongue rings and never could see it all that well until they talked; why is it different with you?) and tattoos is not the way to go.  Let's be honest, it just makes you look even more trashy.

This is not to say that she was completely unattractive.  She didn't look horrible at all.  And it's not to say that people with histories of acne issues are ugly.  I worked with a girl years ago who was stunning, despite the fact that you could see where she had the problem.  But when you trash yourself up with tattoos and piercings, it tends to draw attention to you more than anything else.

Oh, and she was looking for Vicodin ES.

That may have been the kicker.

Why is it I see more people covered in tattoos and piercings getting narcotic pain medications than anyone else?  Or people who ride motorcycles for that matter. They seem to love their Percocet and Vicodin.

Just a thought.

A not so subtle hint to pharmacy patients...

If your medication is due to be filled today, do not show up the moment we have opened expecting it to be done, especially if it falls in the narcotic/soma/tramadol category of medications.

Seriously, we've been telling you for four days it was due to be *filled* today, not be ready first thing in the morning so you can get your fix.  You seriously walked up to my door and said with a straight face you figured it would be done already.  Just for that, I should add another half hour because of a claims transmission issue, but honestly, I just want to get you out of here.

I don't think there's any mistake that the doctor even went so far as to tell us himself when this medication was allowed to be filled.

And that is how the day starts.

So much for frequent updates

Last time I wrote, I was on my way to the east to visit my family and relax a little.  Take a break from the madness that is filling prescriptions.

Well, the trip ended up being more stressful than it should have been, although it was pretty neat to see fireworks where I was, and in the end, a lot of things have changed for me very quickly.

The reason I haven't been able to write about it all is because both jobs have been very taxing of late.  The retail job has been nuts as always, although I've been getting shorted on hours because apparently I made my scheduler mad and they decided I was not worty of the hours I had requested.

The other job has been busy as well, which is good since we're a young pharmacy and growth is a good thing.

Plus the personal life was all over the place, making it very hard to find time to write about anything whatsoever.

The gist of it all is I've moved, I'm still working a lot, and I'm single now.

These all impact my writing time, the move more than anything else since my computer is still at my mom's house and will not be moving with me until I have internet set up at my new location, which may be a while.  The relationship falling apart was unfortunate, but it's part of life and could've been easily avoided if the other had used a little more discretion and less profanity in dealing with a recent issue.

I understand having anger problems and a temper, but some things are just unnecessary to say.  Let me put it this way: never before has anyone managed to piss off so many members of my family at once, and since family is most important to me, you might be able to tell why this didn't work out for me.

In the end, not working at the retail job as much has left me with far fewer funny things to mention, nor has it allowed me to be super angry either.  The retail job provides much of my material, so maybe this week I'll have more.

For the time being, don't be surprised if I don't update very frequently until everything is settled.

Gone for the Weekend

Not that anyone is reading this yet, but I just wanted to let everyone know that as of 4:30pm, I will not be posting anything until Tuesday at the earliest since I will be out of town on a much-needed trip east.

I will be back Tuesday and will resume posting as soon as I have two seconds of time to do anything.

I hope everyone has a good Fourth of July weekend.

Drive Thru Mania

Anyone who has worked in a retail store with a drive-thru knows where I'm coming from when I talk about it.

The drive-thru, the savior of customers, is the bane of our existence in a pharmacy and it's not difficult to understand why.

For one, most people who come through a pharmacy drive-thru expect it to be like McDonald's. Pull up, tell us what you want, and we bring it to you in less than 5 minutes and everyone's happy. The reality of the situation never seems to occur to these people and the looks of disbelief when we tell them it's not going to be right away is pretty regular.

Some are downright shocked when we can't just hand them that tube of cream that the doctor prescribed (although this scenario also applies to inside the store as well).

It also seems the people who don't need to use a drive-thru (young, healthy, fully capable of coming inside the store adults) are the ones who use it the most while the ones who should (that old man who can barely walk with his cane) never do. I've had plenty of seniors tell me how much they hate coming through the drive-thru while I've had plenty of young adults tell me how much they hate coming inside. Weird, right?

Welfare recipients are also very guilty of the drive-thru, although they're usually a blessing since it keeps their 7 screaming children inside the van/truck/small car instead of in the store where they can wreak real havoc.

This leads me to the two cars I had the other night at my retail job. The first car was a hispanic man with his very white girlfriend/wife/lover/illegitimate child with an entire backseat full of kids. He was driving, but never said a word to me, instead choosing to look at the woman next to him to do the talking. This isn't all that unusally other than the fact that he wouldn't even look in my direction. Even at the end of the transaction when most people would at least say thank you, he just took the bag, still refusing to look my way, and peeled off.

The next car was a woman on her cell phone.

You want to talk about things that grate on my nerves, it's coming through the drive-thru while on your phone, then looking at me like I need to wait for you to finish what you are talking about. Meanwhile, the line of cars behind this person is growing and growing.

This woman wasn't so bad because at least she made the person she was talking to wait while she told me what she was looking for. She even bothered to thank me in between talking about someone's electric bill trouble.

The drive-thru just isn't my friend. I never liked it and doubt I will. It breeds even more laziness and contempt than there already is and let's face, this society doesn't need anymore laziness.