Follow-up on Crystal the Idiot...

So...the patient showed up today and I told him everything. He was shocked and apologized for getting sucked in. Can I just tell you how satisfying it was to tell him the WHOLE story? Finally one of those bitchy Nurses gets her due (sorry to you sweet Nurses out there...I know you're not all bad...).

...and yes, I am calling Monday to see if Crystal is still employed....YATCH.

Totally true...I SWEAR!

Okay...settle in...this is a bit long, but worth the read... If this hadn't happened to me I wouldn't believe it so don't feel bad if you have to comment me and ask..."Are you fucking kidding me?"...

Here goes...

On Friday we had a patient call asking about his medication that was supposed to be called or faxed in to us...he's a new patient. We had nothing on file, sent or called in. He was mad (I know, I know...it's my fault...). About 45 minutes later my tech, Mary (yes that's her name...I wrote it...so ease up when you're reading it Mary...there are lots of people named Mary...it's not like I posted your fingerprint!!), says "There's a rude nurse on the line asking for a Pharmacist". I pick up the line and Mary is right, the nurse is really rude...and PSYCHO! The nurses name is Crystal (yes that's her real name too...). Crystal tells me that my tech is incompetent and so am I and that is why we work where we do...then tells me she's going to give me a prescription for a patient and she wants it filled right and soon because he is going to be there that evening. This is how the rest of our conversations (yes...that is plural...) went:

Me - Don't insult my staff or the company I work for.
Crystal - Just take the prescription - it's for...
Me - (interrupting)...Did you hear what I said?
Crystal - Shut the fuck up and take the prescription you...CLICK (that was me hanging up)

...about 5 minutes later Crystal calls back...I answer (lucky me)...

Crystal - I want to speak to the Store Manager.
Me - (pretending I don't know who she is) I'm sorry, you've reached the Pharmacy and we have dedicated lines...you'll have to call the store.
Crystal - Who is this?
Me - (I give her my name)
Crystal - You hung up on me! I want to speak with the Store Manager!! (yelling)
Me - Yes I did because of your language. You can call the store and speak to the Manager as much as you want but he has no authority in my Pharmacy.
Crystal - Give me the number.
Me - I'm sorry, I don't have that number...but I'm sure you can get it from 411.
Crystal - I'm gonna fucking CLICK (that's me hanging up)

...so...now I'm annoyed (I was entertained a little at first)...and I page the Physician...

...about 2 minutes later I get a call from an Assistant Manager in the store...

Assistant Manager - Hey, I've got some Doctor on line 2 that wants the name and number of your boss.
Me - Really (this must be the Doc I paged...)? Transfer him back.
Assistant Manager - Okay.
Assistant Manager - He doesn't want to talk to you...
Me - I paged him to call me...

...Mary interrupts me to tell me there's a Doctor holding for me...says he was paged...

Me - (to Assistant Manager)...hold on...
Me - (to Doctor holding on our line) How may I help you?

....now it gets juicy...

The Doctor on my Pharmacy line is the one I paged...the person saying he's the Doctor on line 2 in the store is the person Crystal had call in to impersonate the Doctor she works for. YES! I SHIT YOU NOT!!! (...Jerry Springer is coming to mind right about now...). So the real Doctor and I have a little chat...he gets to find out what his nurse has been up to. You can imagine his delight at having someone call impersonating him. He apologizes multiple times. I think he was really embarrassed. He tells me that he thinks she has gone home for the day but will address it on Monday immediately. About this time a fax comes through for the patient Crystal was calling me about...hot off the press...so I tell the Doctor "No, I think she is still there because I just received a fax from her for your patient." Now he's really pissed because he had written it that morning... He abruptly ends our call with another apology and thanks saying that he's going to call the back line to his office...

Can I get a poll from you readers? Who thinks Crystal is going to have a job after Monday?

Ms. Popularity...

I am sick of it. I really mean it. I am sick of it. "It"...what is "it"? Ignorance, stupidity...wasting my time...meddling, uneducated Management in the retail chain thinking that they know something about Pharmacy.

OTC - The OTC area is ultimately my responsibility... I pay my OTC staff out of my budget. Now, the Management in the retail chain I work had this brilliant idea to take away my budget for overnight staffing and make the store responsible for stocking my freight. Brilliant? I think not... So somewhere around 4am (almost every morning) the overnight Management team says, "Holy shit! We have 10 hours of freight left to work in Pharmacy...quick...send one of the gimps over to start working it so when the morning OTC crew comes in it looks like we've done something." The mess that one of their gimps makes is far superior to that that the freight alone could do...you can imagine how impressed my OTC staff is when they arrive...and you can imagine how happy I am to begin my day with complaints from said staff and more than half a dozen carts of freight in front of my Pharmacy. I used to get pissed, go in the Pharmacy and cool off then calmly find one of these "Managers" and try to hold them accountable, but the reality is that they really don't give a shit what I say or think (wasting my time!)... I decided to take a more "passive" approach...a picture is worth a thousand words...so I take pictures of the cluster-fuck with my cell and forward them off to my boss first thing in the morning (Good morning sunshine!! Look what's for breakfast! A big ole shit sandwich!)... I'm not sure why this has made me so unpopular with Management...

Complaints - This is one of my favorites. A patient complains to a Manager in the store about the Pharmacy and then the Rocket Scientist Manager comes over to me to trouble-shoot the issue. To me this is metaphorical of trying to buy a car with a car salesman who can't dot an i without going back and forth between me and his Manager. I used to entertain these conversations, get frustrated...waste my time explaining the whole story to the Genius Manager just so they could go back and talk to the patient and then come back to me. DONE. I decided that this whole conversation is a HIPAA violation. If the patient has a complaint they have to come see me...period...done. Store Management does not get to negotiate my patient care/service...we aren't mixing paint...no, you don't always get it your way...and no, I will not fill it faster. One would think they would be happy that I've taken this unpleasant responsibility off their plate, but instead they chose to try and back-door me with complaints sent directly to my boss. STUPID. So the meddling Management Bitch who did this wants to be part of the team?...wants to be part of the business? OK! Her unfortunate choice made her a very undesirable part of my team...you see her level of Management is lower than mine and as such she must take direction from me (if I push, which I never have up until this point)...we have vents that need cleaning, dust bunnies hanging from the ceiling outside our Pharmacy, a drive-thru that needs pressure washing...anything maintenance I delegate to her to resolve (as she obviously has plenty of time on her hands)...and an AIDS/HIV class that needs to be taken to obtain a Pharmacy Assistant license so that she can spend a few days cashiering in my Pharmacy to further her understanding of what we actually do. I'm facilitating communication and understanding...I'm not sure why this has made me so unpopular with Management...

Standard Operating Procedures - Why is it that the most uninformed are always in charge of developing standard operating procedures for something they have no clue about? Why is it that when said procedures become outdated and useless they are still considered to be gold standard? Recently I was visited by my boss (Little Boss) and my boss's (is that punctuation correct?...hmmmm) boss (Big Boss). My staff knew Big Boss was coming and prepared and cleaned (we have a really great Pharmacy and my staff is rightfully very proud of it). Big Boss couldn't find anything significant to note and started nit-picking....stupid shit...insulting shit...showing the Big Boss ignorance. I watched my staff shut down and completely ignore Big Boss...making Big Boss feel like an unwanted guest. I stopped justifying actions in my Pharmacy and began the head-bob (you know the head-bob...the "uh-huh" nod that indicates non-committal agreement when you are done listening and just waiting for them to leave...). When Big Boss left the Pharmacy to go flex the Big Boss Muscle to the Store Management Minions I told Little Boss how terrible Big Boss was...how sorry I felt for Little Boss to have someone like Big Boss to report to. Little Boss was slightly shocked...particularly when I told Little Boss that I didn't care if I ever saw Big Boss again. I was hired and continue to be paid to manage the Pharmacy. My staff is fabulous, I have no turn-over, my script volume increases by 30% at every review, we operate within the law, I rarely ask for anything, I'm making money for the company and for the most part my patients are happy (except for an occasional asshole that gets pissed because I won't fill their Vicodin early)....that said...I'm not sure why this has made me so unpopular with Management...

I'm unpopular because I refuse to justify their unnecessary rules and existence.

Cougars Amongst Us...

I have a new intern (my first is in China right now...due back in a couple weeks). He's great...smart, eager to learn, empathetic, kind...fresh meat to my evil patients. I do my best to keep him challenged because I remember a few preceptors treating me as nothing more than a machine to count by fives or answer the phone...challenging him every day has become my biggest challenge. When the hell did these students get so smart?

These two interns make me remember when everything was new and I was going to change the world...make every asshole patient feel ashamed when I showed them kindness and concern...make Physicians see my worth as a colleague...make everyone see the error in their ways and how they perceive Pharmacists and Pharmacy in general. Where did all those visions of grandeur go? I wonder when the delusions about my influence subsided...I don't remember it...it's sort of like just gradually realizing that Santa doesn't exist. I don't want to get sucked too deep into this and lose my sense of humor (and possibly my sarcasm - that would be catastrophic) but I sort of miss really believing that I could make a difference (and the presents from Santa...) and that my patients and fellow colleagues respect me. I hope my two precious Cougars don't lose this...it really is beautiful and refreshing...and gives me transient moments of hope.

That said...it occurs to me that perhaps internships aren't really about what we can teach our students but rather what our students can teach us...

Prepare for another pandemic...

I was soooo excited to receive notice that I can now bill the State for Plan B without a prescription. Yes!! Everyone on Welfare gets to fuck irresponsibly and for free! See...now these Welfare-ites (who don't work and obviously have lots of extra time on their hands for fucking) can come in and get unlimited quantities of not just condoms, but unlimited quantities of Plan B (about $50.00 retail). I guess I should be really happy that these individuals are going to be less likely to increase the size of their litter (which you and I are forced to pay for)...and maybe get lucky enough to take it in succession enough times to throw a clot (oh...I didn't mean that...wait...yes I did....).

It occurs to me that maybe the State may be trying to increase revenue to Pharmacies...back-door style... See, these Welfare-ites are not going to use condoms now (condoms are tricky...they don't come with a users manual...and, even if they did most of those Welfare-ites wouldn't be able to read the instructions anyway...that's why they each have about 6 in their litter...). This is like a Carnival; have unprotected sex and your prize is free Plan B. What the State isn't doing is providing "Sex-Ed" (yes I know they gave us that in Junior High...but how many of your Welfare-ites made it to Junior High? Yeah...that's what I thought...)...so these people are now going to be the "STD petri-dish" of society and we get to dispense all their antibiotics.

So...I'm beefing up the antibiotic stock in my Pharmacy in preparation for the new Pandemic that's going to put Swine Flu to shame...the "Stupid Fucker" Pandemic.

Dear Paulina....

Dear Paulina,

I received your fax clarifying the prescription for the patient that you originally called in on my voice mail. I also noticed the small note in the upper right corner saying that I had not been nice to you.

Pursuant to your faxed note, I would like to apologize for calling you back to get clarification on the name of the drug, quantity, patient name and date of birth as well as prescriber information; it was never my intent to offend you by making you responsible for the lacking information. In retrospect, I was probably a little impatient after being placed on hold for seven minutes only to find you didn't have any answers for me - I should be more understanding of your work load as the 400+ prescriptions I am responsible for each day is probably a pittance compared to having to sit behind a desk and be cute and perky all day. I would also like to apologize for not understanding your accent through your gum smacking.

I hope you'll accept this letter, fingernail file and pack of gum as apology.

Sincerely,
Ms. Mean

Lookin' good, smellin' pretty and feelin' lucky...

So one of my OTC stockers (let's call her May...) comes to me yesterday giggling her ass off...she tells me the following story:

It's Friday night and May is stocking in the feminine hygiene aisle when a nicely dressed female customer comes along and starts scoping out the feminine hygiene sprays. It's not uncommon for a customer to squirt a little spray out to sniff it and see what it smells like (does it really smell like fresh linen or moldy towels?)...no big deal. Apparently this customer wasn't just squirting and sniffing... May tells me that the customer was 'trying on' the sprays on her wrist and that after she found her scent of choice she hosed herself down with it. I asked for clarification..."What do you mean 'hosed herself down'?" May says, "You know, like in those Axe commercials for men..." (now I'm laughing my ass off envisioning the female version of an Axe commercial...smell like one big Baby Powder Vagina and hot men will flock to you...) So I ask if she bought the spray and May says that the customer just 'hosed down', recapped the spray, put it back on the shelf and walked away...

...after the 'hose-down' I wonder if she went over to cosmetics for glitter spray...