Persnickety

You wanna see the manager? Ha! I am the manager! So this really nice lady ( sarcasm! ) comes up to the counter just about as I'm putting down the gates, ready to close up the joint. I say, "May I help you? Do you have a pick-up?" She says, "K...N...I..." So I type her nicely enunciated letters into the pick-up screen and nothing comes up. "Do you have a prescription here?" I ask. "K...N...I..." I try it again, thinking maybe I just hit the wrong key. Nothing. "What is it you're looking for?" "K...N...I..." "Why don't you come down here," I say, directing her to one of the PCs at the other end of the counter. I look up her profile and Lo! eleven days earlier we had put up two prescriptions of generic Prozac for her. I explained that we can hold prescriptions for seven days and that after that they are put away. "I have to be somewhere in half an hour! I had an emergency vacation--how was I supposed to...

Where everybody knows your name ... Remember that song from "Cheers"? It came to mind recently when a customer (a long-time customer) came up to the counter to retrieve her prescription. I recognized her, but when the day gets busy as it certainly was, I find it difficult to always match a name with the face. Sometimes I can come up with the first name, sometimes the surname, and sometimes neither. I usually get around the embarrassment by asking a date of birth. That can be a problem, however, when the gender is that of a female. Women can get quite ornery when asked a DOB (date of birth), especially when over the age of thirty-ish. I asked for her name, thinking that that would be the lesser of two evils. Actually, I apologized, then asked for her name. Something like "I'm sorry, I can't remember your name." She then remonstrated against my failure to recall her name. "Everybody else remembers my name!" she said. Now, that may be true, and it may...

My all-time fav lines from real, live, authenticated customers: [Answering the phone] Hello, this is ******* pharmacy, how can I help you? [Customer] Are you guys open? [Duh, if I answer the phone then I'm here and I'm open] Is my prescription ready? Then I can pick it up? [Ah, but what is the secret password?] Can I use the restroom back there? [Of course you can--we wish to exceed your expectations after all--and help yourself to some of the samples on the shelf.] [Banging on the gate, which is closed and locked, and obviously so ... closed] Hey! You guys closed? Does this come in genetic? [Plunking the prescription down on the counter, seen for the first time for maybe 2 nanoseconds] How much is this going to cost me? [Well, let me just reach into my memory banks and, oh, here it is, $117.58 minus the -- what insurance?--12.789% discount plus the $3.78 dispensing fee ... but wait, on page 29 of the contract--which I have right in front of me by some weird lucky chance--I ha...

... it's entirely illegal! What happens is this: Some fellow traveller stops in and remarks how he needs a refill on his prescription. Unfortunately the prescription is either expired or is not refillable (a clue would have been to look at the label where it says "No more refills--contact your doctor"). What to do? Well, with the price of gas going up there aren't a lot of people willing to go home and then come back later on in the day, especially if they live in a rural district where a drive to the pharmacy might be half an hour or more. Nowadays it can take several days to get a refill on a prescription, so what I do is to give the poor bloke a couple of days worth of meds and send them on their way. I then fax the doc and when I get the prescription OK I then subtract the few tablets from the new fill. Simple, right? Everybody happy, right? Sure, except ... it's entirely illegal. No one gave me the right to give those pills. I'm essentially writing a pre...

NYT : McCain barbs stir cries of distortion - The New York Times- msnbc .com Now, normally I don't add non- health care news to my blog, but as this has, at the end of the article, some information about the Obama health care proposal, I thought I'd insert it. But first I must reveal myself as a Republican, albeit one who supports truth and the American way, and as such cannot find anyone to support among the red staters . The blatant lies told by the McCain campaigners disgust me. There are so many I cannot place them all within the space of this blog. Suffice it for interested voters to go to Senator Obama's Web site devoted to the cause: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome . As to the NY Times article, McCain decries the Obama health care proposal as it would “force small businesses to cut jobs and reduce wages and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.” Get a clue, McCai...

Top ten secrets you should know about visiting your pharmacy: The antibiotic you're about to get probably isn't right for you. As stated in the Chicago Sun-Times article ( http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/1152328,CST-NWS-health09.article ) half of the prescriptions written for us when we go to the doctor for colds are … worthless. If you have a cold then you have a virus. An antibiotic does not work for a virus. Simple, huh? But you sure feel better getting that prescription don't you? Otherwise you'd think you spent a couple hours in the waiting room for nothing. But that's really what you did. Shame on the doc who is writing these things, increasing resistance in the bio world so that when we get one of those superbugs we won't have anything that works. When the doctor or nurse tells you what something costs … don't listen. They don't know what they're talking about. Despite the increasing use of PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants or small ...

New record ... 464 prescriptions filled on the day after Labor Day. Few people know this but the two busiest days in pharmacies are the days after Labor Day and Memorial Day. So if you like quick and snappy service ... don't show up at the counter on those days. I hope I didn't make any mistakes yesterday, but I'm sure I did. In a 10 hour work day, that's 1.54 prescriptions every two minutes. Remember that episode on "I Love Lucy," when she got a job in a chocolate factory? That's what pharmacy is like now, with prescriptions coming down the belt instead of chocolate. I do seem to remember she started to eat the ones she couldn't get into the box ...

How about we follow some of these people to their jobs? I do so want to go up to somebody just as they're about to leave for lunch and say something like, "But I just have to pick up a geology sample." OK, so there aren't that many geologists out there, but you get the point. If someone is leaving for lunch you don't go up to them ask for them to keep open just because you couldn't plan your errand better. Your lack of planning shouldn't ruin my day. And another thing: If someone makes a stupid mistake and you run to the store manager or district manager and complain ... that makes you a delinquent. That's right. You don't try and ruin a person's life and career over some piddly little error. If some new person is on the job and cannot find where some product is (because they are new ) then running off to complain should be seen as a character flaw. I don't even care if that person said something to offend you. Heck, everyone should be offe...

"Excuse me ... but do you have shoehorns in the pharmacy?" Well, that's a new one, I have to admit. No one has ever even mentioned the word "shoehorn" in a sentence before, that I can remember. I may very well have identified a new disease: Pharmaceutical shopagnocis, a psychological ailment characterized by the metonymies of the department store (metonymy, you will recall from your eighth grade grammar lessons, is (from Webster's Collegiate Online) a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated (as “crown” in “lands belonging to the crown”). What I think happens is that someone walks into the department store, happens on the pharmacy and remembering the last time they were in say, Rite Aid or Walgreens or CVS, they still think that everything in those stores is contained in our little section of a much larger store. Thus the shoehorn (which a normal, well-adjus...

I encounter quite a few personality types at work. Maybe all of 'em. How many types are there? Let's see … There's the codger (think Walter from Jeff Dunham), the rich codger and the rich codger's wife. Middle-age guy undergoing crisis; middle-age woman undergoing peri-menopause; the young guy and cute girl; the woman with family; the guy without the family (may be married but usually shows up alone and can't remember the wife's birthday … or the kid's); the beautiful woman (by definition rare—usually found gathering in makeup aisle); the guy in the suit (also rare, as they feed in theaters and party rooms); the retired gent (who may be "the codger" or a separate class: the nice guy); the impatient lady (is it done yet? I have an appointment! My husband is out in the car! I have ice cream out in the car! My dog is out in the car!); the poor—and I mean dirt poor—lady who has a cab or bus waiting outside the store ("Can you hurry? I have a cab w...

It's so disgusting ... when people take the wad of bills out of their pockets as they're paying for their prescriptions, and then proceed to lick their thumb, count off a few, then hand the money to me. Oh thank you, sir; thank you, madam. No, I don't mind a bit, sir, that I am handling your spittle. Glad to. It's a privilege . If only you'd given me your dirty snot rag as well, then my day would be complete.

What's it made of... gold? Well, unless we're talking about a certain compound given for arthritis ( aurothiomalate , or Myocrisin for short), then, no, not made of gold. Oil, maybe. Heh , heh . (Actually, LCD, or coal tar, is a petroleum product but it is quite cheap--go figure.) So, what to say to these people with such inquiring minds? How about, "Here's the 1-800 number to Blanketyblankety Labs; why not ask them? And call me back and let me know what they say; I'm kind of curious, myself." Drugs cost whatever the company that makes them determines they cost. Pretty simple, eh? What goes into the price? Well, research and development, certainly. That's the ol ' R & D in the P & L. What else? Marketing. Marketing is actually a bigger slice of the pie than R & D. Why? Well, if you're the CEO of Company XYZ then you probably make a lot of "me-too" drugs, which is the way we pharmacy types designate drugs that really have n...

Thank God for Insurance... O the humanity; O the irony. See, we shouldn't be thanking the insurance industry for anything. Nothing. Nada. Zero. But inevitably someone comes in -- this happens on a daily basis -- thanking God for insurance. Of course, what they really mean to say is I'm so glad I don't have to pay $637.98 for my bottle of pills. ( Pills , btw , are different than tablets or capsules : just a nitpick but a nitpick I just had to get out there.) What these thankful people don't stop and realize is that the person in back of them isn't going to get their bottle of pills. No, the God-given insurance company that they have paid their money to is going to deny them because they need to take two capsules a day and they only allow one . Doesn't matter if the doctor has already tried the one per day regimen. Doesn't matter that two per day works just fine. Oh, and the person who was just ahead of that one who was so thankful? She left because she ne...

Tea Tree oil is a great multipurpose treatment to use on a number of ailments. Whether you are looking to repel insects in your garden or if you are looking to clear up your acne, tea tree oil is a great alternative. read more digg story Amazing herbal remedy! Cures Acne! Kills Lice! Empties ... Pockets! (of your cash). Actually, it isn't terribly expensive, but my point is that this isn't exactly science that is being bandied about here. I am not saying tea tree oil is snake oil: there may be benefits to using tea tree oil. But where is the proof? And I'm not talking about what the neighbor said concerning her little Johnny's case of lice ("Here today, gone tomorrow! Amazing stuff. You got to get some!"). I want some double-blind study to look over. If something is so great -- remember the early buzz on coral calcium? Cancer cure, anyone? -- then we should be able to show that it actually, undeniably, works . Show me the study. Homeopathy is the greatest ex...

Don't Shoot The Pharmacist! - The offical website

Another Memorial Day... another whine. This will sound a tad insensitive, but I cannot stand to hear another senior citizen whine to me about how "the golden years" are anything but golden. For instance, I have this one lady who has had cancer recur several times, fighting it off each time. At each episode she can only bemoan her fragile state. Now, I agree, being sick, especially with an illness such as cancer, is no picnic. But after seeing a few of my customers--gems all--go through fatal illnesses with nary a whimper, teaching all who encounter them what it truly means to die gracefully, teaching us, really, how to die, I no longer have much patience with them. Especially on Memorial Day. I want to ask them how many young men died not seeing their nineteenth, twentieth birthday, how many died struggling up some beach in Normandy, Sicily, Okinawa. They never saw their eightieth, seventieth, heck their thirtieth. How about a little humility, a little thankful...

Ah, another Memorial Day weekend... spent working behind the counter. Do I mind? Of course not. My friends and enemies alike are spending it camping and having cookouts and such, but I feel they are missing the point. Memorial Day is a day of memories, of harking back to pay tribute to the fallen, of those who have sacrificed for our benefit. Work isn't necessarily fun, at least for most of us; we shouldn't just spend this holiday frolicking without a care, without a hint of the loss we all bear. Isn't that right. It is. And while we're at it, I rather like to bathe in the fluorescent's gaze and the soft glow of the computer monitor. What I don't like is the constant whine and cringe inducing honk of the customer's rant: "You should be outside; it's gorgeous!" "If you can get out of here for an hour you're gonna love it!" "Too bad you're stuck in here." Actually, it wouldn't be that bad being stuck in here, exc...