Pharmacy Chick threw a fit (a pitching fit)
About once a year or so, Pharmacy Chick gets into one of those “moods” and decides to launch a full scale assault on two things in the pharmacy: overstock/nonmovers and junk. Saturday was such a day. I came into the day with the intent of starting on one end and finishing with the other end, with nothing spared in between. I got quite a bit done, but there is still much to do.
I am amazed with the stuff that we can accumulate in a year, stuff that we obviously do not use considering the amount of dust that these things have laden. I thought I’d share some of my junk list:
1. 4 bottles of windex with 1 inch of product remaining in them. I am assuming that the 1-inch line must be the point at which the sprayer doesn’t spray very well–why else would there be 4 identical bottles? I combined 4 into 1 and threw the rest away.
2. A stack of Supermarket News: WHY do I get this magazine? I never asked for it but it has MY name on it. If there is anything relevant to my practice in it, I have never found it but my partner has kept a stack of them in the back…gone.
3. A demo of Exubera. The rep dropped it off and it we never dispensed it, hence I never needed to demo it. I guess that may be why they discontinued it. Gone, also.
4. A patient starter kit for Arixtra. We have never used Arixtra despite being ASSURED by the rep that our local hospital has changed their formulary to use it exclusively. So why do we keep getting scripts for Lovenox?
5. Misc: 3 broken counting trays (somebody intended to repair them perhaps?) Several boxes of stale cookies, crackers, and snack items. 900 linear feet of bubble wrap, an overabundance of med-guides for Cordarone, Expired rx offers for various brand name products,some squeezy stress balls too disgusting to touch, a broken umbrella (I have no idea about how we got this–no employee claimed it as his/her own), and about 2 years of back issues of Pharmacy Times, Drug Topics and US Pharmacist (garbage getting heavy about now).
I haven’t gotten gutsy enough to throw out old books. There is something I like about books, even tho I never open them. For instance I have the hardcopy edition of 2003 Facts and Comparisons. I have all the info I need online and I haven’t even cracked the binding on that hard book for 4 years but I still have it. I also have the annual OTC PDR sent free every year, and a 1999 book that ID’s drugs for me. I never use them either because of my online references. I also have ancient Pharmacist’s Letters, and various other publications I need to get brave enough to pitch, but so far PC has been wavering on that one point.
My second assault was on the overstocks. God love him, but PC’s partner is a pack rat. If My Man Friday could, he would order 1 or 2 of everything and I’d have a 54,000 square foot pharmacy! It goes something like this:
Customer: Do you have Samson’s Hair Growth Formula?
Friday: (looks, does not find) No, we could order it for you:
Customer: Uh, no thanks, I was just looking.
Friday: (goes to the order book and orders it anyway, then secrets it onto the shelf the next day). Then the product sits there for 9 months til I finally discover it and return it.
PC pulled an entire tote worth of non-moving OTC’s on Saturday. Its a good thing that My Man Friday is on vacation, or he’d have a little seizure on Monday morning when he came to work and saw the return pile. Poor guy. Now if Oprah was advocating Samson’s Hair products, then I might be inclined to stock a bottle or two, but one customer does not make it shelf space worthy.
(And speaking of Oprah, she was big on those nasal saline irrigation pots. I am certain I would drown if I attempted to do this equivalent of sticking a hose in one nostril and running water until it went out the other nostril. I breathe exclusively thru my nose. I am not coordinated enough to operate that water pot and breathe thru my mouth. I almost drowned when I went snorkeling a few years ago for that same reason! I’m a dork ok?)
Anyway, back to the cleaning. Once Monday rolled around Tech Extraordinare made notice of the return pile and dryly commented ” been cleaning huh?”. YUP.
Next stop? Pharmacy Chick’s own domicile….get outa my way!
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