when change strikes

Things can change quickly in life.

One day, you think you have a grasp on what's going on and how things are going, the next everything's been turned upside down and you don't know what's going to happen next.

I've experienced plenty of change, whether it be at home or at work.  I'ved moved a couple of times, gone through a few relationships, and dealt with issues that were very unexpected.

The changes at work can be just as striking.  One day you're working, enjoying the change of pace, the next thing you know, you're starting to feel like you did at your previous job.  All the things you liked about the new job suddenly don't feel so marvelous because different aggravations are popping up.

I've been at my full-time job for over a year now.  The lure of a different environment, plus an increase in pay were enough reasons for me to drop to part time at my retail job so I could take the current one.  I had become so disenchanted with the retail environment that I couldn't get out fast enough.

I still am.

I only work at my retail job once a week now and that one day is enough to remind me why I couldn't go back full-time.  I've been asked to.  I've been asked if they paid me more an hour than my current job pays me, would that be enough.  I've said no and it's for reasons other pharmacy employees have mentioned.  It's not enough for us to fill prescriptions.  We're expected to babysit these people, make sure they get their refills on time (even if they don't take them on time), give them flu shots, call them for every little thing (refill reminders, reminders to pick up said refills, follow-up calls to see how they're doing with their meds, see if they want to switch their meds, see if we need to hold their hands while they take their meds, and so on). Some even are now having employees call to remind patients about refills that don't have refills on them.  In other words, we're supposed to call them to tell them there are no refills, do they want us to call the doctor and have them filled even though it's been six months and the patient doesn't even remember taking the medication.

It's insane.

Sure, would making more money be nice?  Yes.  However, the stress of the job would probably kill me before I could ever reap the benefits of the extra pay.  That and the shitty hours.

Hell, my full-time job could frustrate me to no end and I still wouldn't want to go back to retail.

Change had to happen though.  Things were going on that shouldn't have been going on.

I'm all for having freedom at work.  I'm all for being able to make a call or two, text someone if you have a moment, and so on.  I'm all for being able to do what you want to do, yet remain professional as well.

What I'm not for is working with people who spend their entire day on the phone or disappearing for long stretches of time.

The worst is when it's your supervisor that's setting the poor example by constantly being on their phone and the work phone for personal reasons. Then your other tech thinks that it's okay, so they proceed to do the same.  Next thing you know, both are yapping away on phone calls while you try to get all the stuff done that they aren't doing.

Of course, there were more issues than that.  Waiters waiting for 30, sometimes 40 minutes because my pharmacist was staring off into space, on a personal call, or chatting with someone rather than check the waiter.  There was the issue with how I supposedly needed to communicate with my pharmacist better.  Never mind that more often than not, they were the one forgetting to tell me things that were vital.

In the end, it became too much.  I complained.

A week later, the culmination of two meetings, an e-mail, and other employees leveling complaints as well led to the lead pharmacist being let go.

It's a bittersweet moment.  I liked working with them, but at the same time, there were things going on that just didn't make sense.  I also didn't like being the one that got the snowball rolling, but in the end, I couldn't continue to overlook what was going on.

Additionally, the other tech is being watched because of attendance and phone issues as well.  Simply put, showing up a half hour to an hour late is just not a good thing.

Change comes in a hurry sometimes and this was a prime example of it.  In a week's time, we went from fully staffed with concerns, to losing the pharmacist that hired me on when the place opened.

Hopefully this is what stabilizes things and helps the pharmacy take off.

Can I go back to the east coast?

**Note: The following post was originally written back in July, 2010. In retrospect, the trip wasn't as fun as I thought it was and a week later, the relationship I was in was over due to an incredibly stupid argument."

I really didn't want to come home.

It didn't have so much to do with where I was so much as it had to do with the grim realization that I was going to be in for three very long days upon my return home.  I knew that there was a chance that I'd be working both jobs on Tuesday and Wednesday, plus another long one on Thursday just for good measure.

The confirmation of my shifts did not make my already illustrious start to the day seem any better.

Why?

It could have to do with the fact that we pulled back into town at 6am, about an hour before I had to start getting ready for the start of my day.  It meant working on about 2-3 hours of rough sleep, which I'm somehow managing to pull off at this point in time, although it's making me seriously question my judgement on cutting caffeine out of my diet.

The trip was a good time though.  I always enjoy getting to visit my mom, my sister, and her three mini-terrors, er, kids.  Nothing says I love you quite like getting bum rushed as I walked in the door, the final blow being delivered by my two year-old tank of a niece.  It feels good to know that they missed me that much (it had been a couple months since I last saw them all), but I can't wait until they stop trying to kill me out of happiness.

I did get to experience some things for the first time, which is the joy of my mom working the job she does.  This time was my first step into ocean water, something I had never done before.  I was also able to eat at a place that was themed around a rainforest, complete with a thunderstorm every half hour.  It was a pretty neat idea, albeit a costly one.  The check nearly stopped my heart, but you only live once, right?

The fireworks show on Sunday was pretty impressive.  My sister, her kids, my girlfriend, and her daughter camped out along the river to take in the view, and it was a spectacular view.  Nevermind the daughter kept trying to fall asleep and one of my sister's kids went down for the count despite the noise.

The trip back to the apartment sucked immensely, but I suppose the experience was worth it.  I can now say I walked through yet another major city's downtown region.

remember, they might actually be truly mental

I used to swear people were mental when I was full-time at my retail job.

I used to think there has to be something seriously wrong with them, beyond what we were seeing.

Sure, the fact that they were on Abilify, Seroquel, and other similar meds gave away the fact that they has issues, but it seemed like it was worse sometimes, as if the meds weren't working.

Then I started working in a mental health facility.  I thought "okay, now I'm going to see what a really mental patient looks like."

I was right.  I did get to see what they were like.  What did I find out?

They are exactly the same.

The only difference is at my full-time job, that's all we see.  At the retail job, it was a percentage of the customer list.  A large percentage, but not all of it.  Retail gives you more diversity in that you get your pain management people, your diabetes people, and so forth.

Here, it's more you have your people with a couple issues, but nothing that can't be managed by meds, people who need a few more to keep under control, and those that are so far gone they shouldn't be left alone ever.

I've listened to people admit to having multiple personalities, scream uncontrollably, forget what they did 30 seconds ago, and so on.  I've watched as ambulances and police cars pull in because someone's having an emergency of some sort.  I've seen confrontations, heard accusations,  and had kids pull on the fire alarm more than once.

It fascinates me seeing people like that.  It makes me wonder what happens to cause them to fall to the level that they're at.  Most are unemployed, most are lacking in family and friends, and you wonder if their condition is caused because they lost everything, or if they lost everything because they were that way to begin with.

I've seen that there is no specific age group for these things either.  Sure, a lot of them are late 30's, 40's, and 50's, but there have been a few elderly people and a lot of younger people, even kids.  Most of the women that come in often have a small child with them as well.  That's been the thing that's stood out most to me; the number of single mothers who come in for medications and counseling.

It reinforces the idea that some relationships just go straight to hell sometimes and it's usually the guy that makes life difficult on the woman.

It makes me wonder how much people are struggling behind closed doors though.  A lot of these people seem like normal people.  Sometimes they can hide it even when you talk to them.  But you can usually spot when something's off about something.

One woman would pick up the waiting room every single time because she was OCD about the room being clean.  Another would appear fine until her son did something she didn't like, then the wrath of hell was unleashed upon the child, who appeared horrified.  Even the woman's mother sat in a manner that indicated she wasn't proud of her daughter.

The kids are the ones that are the saddest to me.  You wonder what they're seeing at home that's making them need therapy.  You wonder if the parents they're sitting with are part of the problem.  I've heard more than enough arguments in the waiting room between parents and children to indicate it's a combination of issues with both.

In the end, it ends up being sad.  A lot of the people that come here don't want to come here.  They want to think they can manage without their meds and often will try to tell us in the pharmacy they aren't taking certain ones anymore.  One recently tried to get herself off the Invega Sustenna injection, only to have the nurse come out and tell her she had to get her shot.

We want to do our part to help, but we can only do so much.  Some people are always going to stop taking their meds because they believe they don't need them.  Some are going to abuse their meds and take more than they should.  It's a part of life when you're in any pharmacy, even more so when you're in the type of facility I'm in.

So while I may complain vehemently about some of the people I come across and things that go on, in the end, I do this because I want someone to have a better life.

In the end, I love what I do.

human nature

Pharmacy techs and pharmacists are people too.

I know it seems like an odd thing to say, but it has to be repeated sometimes, especially when someone in the pharmacy makes a mistake that manages to leave the building.

The expectations of a member of the pharmacy staff are tremendously high.  Our customors/clients rely on us for a number of things, and justifiably get upset when we let them down somehow.  We're supposed to be doing something that helps them live a better life, so when we fail in that regard, it can be quite a blow.

But we're still human.  Humans make mistakes.  People aren't perfect and never will be.  The notion that a pharmacy staff member will NEVER make a mistake and shouldn't is a flawed one in itself.

Yet every day somewhere someone is getting ripped a new one because someone doesn't understand this or think it applies to us.

I've had people go so far as to say that we're not allowed to make mistakes.

It's sad that some people are like that because a majority are at least understanding about what happened.  Some even make jokes about it.  They realize that we aren't perfect and when you consider how many prescriptions get filled without there being a mistake, it's pretty remarkable.

Let's face it, if your mechanic had the success rate pharmacies have for accuracy, you'd be ecstatic.

But that's not the case.  We hear how horrible it was for us to let that mistake leave the store, how they might have to change pharmacies now because we can't be trusted, how we tried to hurt them, hell, sometimes we tried to kill the patient.

Then there are the extreme cases like when people actually do get hurt or even die from a mistake, but those are incredibly rare.  Unfortunately, when they do happen, someone feels the need to exploit the tragedy for their own personal gain, such as a politician recently did in Ohio.  Yes, it was tragic what happened, but his actions showed it was clearly an effort to raise his political stock.

For the most part, the mistakes are minor and they are caught.

What causes the mistakes though?

From what I've seen, having too much to do in too little time is the biggest culprit.  In my retail job, we're prone to doing 500-600 scripts a day.  Now, if properly staffed, that's not a problem to do and we're generally efficient.  However, that's the case anymore.  Hours have been cut, new programs have been instituted, and we no longer have enough people to efficiently do the job.  Instead of just having to type and fill the scripts, we now have to call when they might be due or past due, call when the script is done, call when to make sure they're taking their new meds the way they're supposed to, and a number of other things as well.

In short, you now have to try and fill as fast as you can to take care of the people in the store while doing all the side jobs they want you to do, and it better be done in less than 15 minutes no matter how busy you are, or how many times the phone rings, or how often the drive-thru goes off.

It has caused a lot of techs at least to flee the retail scene for jobs in more private settings where there isn't as much pressure to be telemarketers on top of filling medications.  Yes, it can still be busy, but we have a little more time to get things done and make sure it's right.

Of course other things can affect accuracy.  Problems in your personal life are usually the next big culprit.  Let's face it, it can be a challenge to do your job effectively when you're worried about something going on outside of work.

Regardless of what it is, it's on each of us to do the best we can to prevent making a mistake.  Slow down if needed, take an extra second to double check the NDC, double check the count, make sure you typed in the prescription right.

Mistakes will still happen though.

We're only human, right?

want to make me angry? listen up

I'm generally a patient person.

I can deal with a lot of the crap that comes through on a day to day basis with little fuss, and even find amusement in some of the things that go on.

That said, I am human, my patience has its limits.  There are ways to make me angry, whether it be a patient, customer, or even co-worker.  Want to accomplish it?  There are a few ways to push my patience to the brink.

One of my favorites is when people call in and ask if their meds are ready.  No name, no numbers, no idea who they are, just if they're ready.  Then they are besides themselves when you ask who they are.

I also enjoy when someone calls in for a control that's too early, can't believe it's too early, then calls back a couple hours later hoping someone else will answer and gladly refill the control.  Except I answer and I've now told you twice that it's too soon.  Call me again and I'll hold you to the day you're due.

Ask me to do something, then before I've had a chance to even figure out how to go about it, ask me to do something else that you could easily do yourself.

On that note, asking me to do *anything* you could do yourself.

People who let their kids run wild inside of an office or store should be severely lashed.  I realize that you allow this type of behavior at home, but this isn't home and that shelf was nice and neat til your little tornado devils came through.  Don't get me wrong.  I love kids, but some of you clearly don't know what parenting is.

Telling me you have insurance when in reality it was canceled 6 months ago and you were just hoping that we'd take your word for it.

I especially do not want to hear about your $2 copay for that $300 medicine you're picking up.  90% of the working population would kill to pay that little for the stuff you're getting.

When we've given you $50 worth of medicine because you kept promising to pay when you got your monthly check, I don't want to hear how we're depriving you of your medicine when instead of paying your bill here, you went and blew your money on something else.  No one else would even give you a credit line at a pharmacy, so please spare me the sob story.

Please do not call in asking for refills on "all your meds."  I do not know what "all your meds" are and I'm not going to guess.  Here's a handy tip: there's a prescription on your label.  If you give me that, I can refill your script incredibly quick.  If you don't have that, I have to get your name, find the stuff you need (if you can pronounce the name of your meds), then make sure it's refillable before actually refilling the damn thing.  And if it's a retail pharmacy, there's this handy automated refill line you can call.

Asking for recommendations, then deciding what we recommend isn't the answer.

Asking me if I'm going to make more coffee for the waiting room.  Um, no.

Mumbling in general.  If you want to tell me something or ask me something, open your mouth and speak up.

I'm sure there's more, but this is what comes to the top of my head.

In general, I tolerate a lot.  I'll listen to someone ramble on for a while without complaint if for no other reason than it gives me something to write about later.

no rapture? how could it be wrong again!

I was quite disappointed that the Rapture that was predicted for 6pm on Saturday didn't take place.  I thought for sure this time the prediction was going to be right and I was going to take my place along with everyone else in heaven while the world was destroyed 6 months later.

I mean, the guy predicting it couldn't be wrong twice right?  Sure, 1994 came and went and the world went on, but this time he was sure of his prediction.

But 6pm came and went and nothing changed.

So I guess the world isn't ending.

Unless none of us deserved to go to heaven.

Then I'd say we're all fucked.

Everyone better load up on their Xanax then.  I'm sure pharmacies will be open even on the day the world ends.

they ask important questions

You can almost always count on it.

At some point during the day, whether it be asked of you or something you overhear, you can count on someone asking a question that makes you stop.

Today that question took place in the waiting room.

We overheard a woman out there ask if Mountain Dew was comparable to Ginger Ale.

Now, I'm never going to be compared to an expert on how to treat nausea, but I'm fairly certain Mountain Dew would not be my first choice.  I wouldn't say it would be my last choice either really.

It just boggles my mind that someone would ask that and be serious.  I mean, I could see if they were asking about Coke compared to Ginger Ale, but Mountain Dew?

It's almost as funny as people who get ripped off by drug dealers then call the cops to resolve the situation.