The Pharmacy Chick

Dear cyclist, AKA Idiot!

You are alive tonight solely because I had fast reflexes. What in the sam hell where you thinking tonight? No bike lane, no streetlights, no reflectors, no head light, no tail light, nothing.  You were as black (your body, not your skin, no letters please)  as a deep forest night. In fact I have no idea what color you were, as you were covered in a BLACK COAT…in the DARK!  I have no idea how you were navigating down that street, using the headlights of the cars as they whizzed by maybe?  I know I didn’t miss you by much. Tired as I was after a 12 hour day, I managed to dodge you amazingly fast.

Your stupidity about cost you your life, and would have ruined mine as well, you pig. 

You are gonna end up in a ditch someday, and nobody will find your body til the light of day.

Do you feel lucky, punk?  you were tonight, certainly, but everybody runs out of luck..eventually.

Tags: personal rant | |

A conversation that occurred in the Pharmacy today:

Mr DA comes to the counter with a little slip of paper. It is the activation paper for a gift card we gave him last week..(you know how much I LOVE gift card promos).

DA “What was this for?”  PC:  “its the proof of activation for the gift card we gave you last week”

DA “What am I supposed to do with it?”  PC “we suggest you keep it until you use your gift card, in the unlikely event the card doesnt’ work. Once you use your card, you can throw it away.”

DA: “Where is the gift card?” PC ” you were given the gift card WITH this receipt, What you did with it after that, I do not know…in your wallet or at home maybe?”

DA “I dunno where the He** the card is. I dont think you gave it to me.”   PC: ” I am sorry, DA,  that paper goes with the cards. Its the proof that we gave it to you, we cannot replace lost cards,  they should be treated like cash.”

DA:”Doesnt’ this paper prove you owe me $30?”  PC (getting tired of this conversation)  “no, it proves we GAVE you $30.”

DA “I dont understand your system!”  PC: “Mr DA, we dont have a system, you brought in a coupon.  we gave you the equivalent of $30 cash when you filled your prescription.  This is the proof that we activated a card and presented it to you. ”

DA “so what am I supposed to do now?”  PC “I’d go home and look for the card, its worth money to you.”

DA ” so, in other words, I’m out $30!”  PC “not necessarily, you likely have it at home somewhere, its only been 6 days. We can’t replace lost cards. Sorry.”.

Give.Me.A.Break.

Tags: customers, pharmacy life | |

I was having a chat with a pharmacist friend of mine who I hadnt seen in a while.  The conversation inevitably moved to work stuff and one of her questions for me was “so, what kind of techs do you have?”. I knew exactly what she meant.

Pharmacy Chick has 3 technicians.  Each one brings something special to my department that I appreciate.  Each one also has his/her idiosyncracies that can make me wanna smack them, but I am quite sure there are things I do that want to make them smack me back.  We are even.  I don’t often discuss my employees on my blog because if I complain about them and someday they find out I write a blog (they dont know about it) then I would be in a world of trouble.

That being said, I was thinking about all the attributes that make a perfect technician.  I have decided on these by culling the things I like from the techs that I have.

   For the sake of this post, I will use “she” only because most techs are female and, while I have both, I am sick of writing He/She…  They are in no particular order.

1. Attendance.  She never misses a beat, and has some serious intestinal fortitude.  Either she is childless or has the best babysitter on the planet, because the perfect Tech would never call me up and say “I am late because my baby sitter is sick” or “I am sick and not coming in…15 minutes before a shift”. She never gets sick, and never wants vacation at spring break or christmas when finding help is next to impossible.

2. Spirit.  The perfect tech will do anything I ask, whether its something really cool (kidding) like boxing old rx’s or dealing with old Ms Jones who hates every body.  She hates to be bored and is always seeking out something to do. I will never find her sitting around watching other people work.

3. Humble.  The perfect tech would think that no job is too menial to do.  Take the garbage out, vacuum, or work the register, its all the same.

4. Aptitude.  The perfect tech knows entry of every insurance no matter how obscure and knows how to articulate any issue to a help desk agent or customer so they understand completely. She also rarely needs to be told twice how to do something.

5. Attitude:  Nothing rattles the perfect Technician.  She cruises thru every difficult customer with grace and mercy. Never passing the buck, she can handle most issues with just a moment’s time and everybody goes away happy. The perfect Tech gets along with her co-workers and understands that everybody had a character flaw (except her, she is perfect) so she just accepts everybody and holds no grudges.

6. Drama, or the lack of it.  The perfect tech doesn’t have drama in her life. She is not in debt up to her eyeballs, doesn’t have the “boyfriend of the week”, a creepy ex husband, or kids with “issues”. She loves her husband/spousal unit, or life partner, and generally enjoys life.

7. Details details:  The perfect tech knows and follows procedures.  She is proficient on every piece of equipment in the pharmacy and works independently and accurately without crossing bounds.  She knows where everything is in the store and doesnt have to ask me where something is. She dots every I and crosses every T. Nothing is incomplete with the perfect Technician around.

8.  Accommodating:  Always willing to help out, the perfect Tech takes schedule changes in stride and adapts to any day of the week, nothing is off limits.

9. Trustworthy,  The perfect tech can be trusted with all the money and drugs the pharmacy has to offer. When approached by lesser employees/contacts  who would seek to exploit such a temptation, she scoffs and tells them No, chance bucko.  The tills always balance and the drug counts always perfect.

10 Appearance.  The perfect tech never pushes the envelope on the dress code.  Clothes tidy and well apportioned, her uniform says ” I care about my job and how I look..for YOU”.

Honestly, every one of these 10 things is represented by somebody the Chick is blessed to work  with.  Heck, even I dont encompass all of them…but I try for ALL of them.  Nobody is perfect, but  I am grateful for my techs and what they bring to the dept and what they do FOR it. 

For all you techs that read this…Thanks! Pharmacy chick remembers the days before Technicians and wonders how she ever managed.   All of us pharmacists are made or broken by the quality of the tech we get.  Here’s a toast to all you who strive to be perfect Technicians!

Tags: pharmacy life, technicians | |

After 20+ years of doing her own taxes, Pharmacy Chick has joined the masses of turning the nasty job over to a paid professional, henceforth known as the CPA.  I came upon Phil  a couple of years ago when he bailed the Chick family out after we had an IRS Audit.  (These are never fun, trust me).  We had moved some money from one account to another and incurred a “taxable event”.  We however didn’t know this and were never notified…really, no 1099’s or anything sent to the house. I might miss a single piece of paper, but this was over 70 different 1099’s that should have been sent to us.  The IRS however did receive all of them, and they thought we had a WHOLE LOT more taxable earnings than we actually had.  Its a long story.  Since we got the not-so-nice notification about a week before we were travelling internationally, we found Phil thru our investment guy. The letter from the IRS said in essence “we think you owe us $32,000″.  I said “over my dead rotting corpse!”.  So, while we vacationed, Phil waded thru all the paperwork, filed the ammendments, and handed us our “fixed” tax return.  We owed about $1000, on this “taxable event”.  Fine, I can deal with that.

This year we got another notice from IRS. In essence it said “We think you have too much in charitable donations, PROVE IT”.  So, today that is what I have been doing…proving it.  We donate alot to certain charities….apparently to the IRS’s chagrin.  Honestly, I hope the examiner gets a huge paper cut from opening the letter, gets a huge MRSA infection, and his hand falls off. So There.

The Chick is a little bitter.  She files honest tax returns.

But this whole thing got me thinking.  “Chick, why do you fuss with this garbage?  Isn’t that what Phil gets paid to do, and likely (no, surely)  does a lot better job than you ?”  Being a little cheap, I have always done my own taxes.  Now, I am a little less cheap and a lot more tired.  So I called Phil.  I asked him how much to do taxes…He is the owner of the firm. “mummbble mummble seventy five dollars an hour”.  OK, $75/hr, thats allright.  “Uh, no, Chick, $175/hour, if I do it, and less if one of the 15 employees I have do it”. 

Allrighty then.  A simple tax return doesn’t take too long he said. I am wishing  for 10 minutes, but I doubt I’ll be so lucky, but after thinking about it for a minute I thought “Chick, you  spend half the day fiddling with this and gnashing your teeth over it when you could be doing something else, just fork it over and forget it”. 

Hand me the fork.

I should have been a CPA.

Tags: personal life, tax time | |

Pharmacy Chick is an intelligent woman, she really is, but she had a major blonde moment this morning. My apologies to all blondes everywhere.  I got to work this morning to see two big coolers sitting by the door waiting for disposal.  (why is it that nobody but the Chick gets the garbage out?) I pick them up and notice that they are still heavy with ice….DRY ICE.    My tech asked me “What EXACTLY is dry ice and why is it dry?”  So, I decided to have some fun, and have an object lesson.

I took the contents of both coolers and dumped them into the sink.  The white crusty stuff tumbled into the sink and when I poured some  water on top of it, it created a way cool effect as white “smoke” poured from the sink and crawled across the counter. I explained the concept that not all things boil at a temperature we know as “Hot” and that some things can boil at actually a very cold temp I told her about the 3 states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. blah blah blah. I marveled at my brilliance.

I told her to stir up the contents to hurry up the process and she said “I can’t, its frozen to the sink.”  I blew away some of the smoke to see this giant mass of dry ice and regular ice from edge to edge in the sink.  the water had quit draining.  C.R.A.P.  The sink was frozen solid…and the pipes below were following quickly behind.  Already it has become quite cold with some frost on the outside.  Think Harry Potter when the Dementors came by.. CRAP Again. If these pipes freeze and break I my arse is trouble.

“Gee PC, how’d you break the pipes?”  “Playing with dry ice…”  “I assume you know the properties of dry ice, PC?”  “yes sir I do”, “And still you did this?”  “Yes sir i did”.

We immediately went about the business of hacking the ice mess with spatulas, and scooping it back into the cooler. Pour HOT water, scoop, More hot water, more scooping.  Please God, do not let these pipes break…

It took about 20 minutes of hacking and hot water to clear out the sink.  I am glad to say that the pipes survived the ordeal. 

I told Tech Extraordinare, ” This is our little secret right?, we dont need to tell anybody right?” She agreed.

I don’t believe her. I’ll likely never hear the end of it.

Tags: odd happenings, pharmacy life | |

When I finally locked up today, I was glad the day was over. It wasn’t a bad day today, but it certainly had its share of characters.  Lets just say  I was grateful it was saturday so the stresses of the weekday wasn’t added in.  Here’s a sampling of just who wandered aimlessly in today:

Mr special-request: I could have served up his prescription in a gold vial and he’d have found something he wanted different.  “Can I have a plastic bag with handles?”  “Can I ring up my other stuff separately?” Can you print my tax report?”  Can you Can you Can you???

The Enforcer:  “Your sign says you price match. I want you to price match Big Box, they had this for $79.99.” (sure, our price is 74.99, but if you prefer 79.99, I can do that).

The 6′5″ Hovercraft:  “Is it done yet?”  Apparently he had a problem telling time.  My tech was on lunch and I was working alone. I told him 20-25 minutes.  He was back in 10.  If he hovered any closer, we’d be engaged.

Couponer:  “I have one for me, my daughter and my husband. Can I have them now while I am shopping, and pick up the prescriptions after?” Uh, no. you have to pick up the prescriptions first. Oh, if looks could kill.

The Scrooge: “Did that prescription go up? I think it was less last time” (it went up 25 cents). “It goes up every time!” ( the last time it went up was 2007)

The Liar “I’ll come back tomorrow”. (toss aside to do later). 20 minutes later…”I thought I would check to see if its ready”. It wasn’t.

The Interrupter:  It never fails. I am talking to a patient.  There is nothing less than obvious about this. He walks up and leans in uncomfortably close. I purposely do not look at him. To do so would be his cue to speak.  It didn’t work “Can I get a box of test strips?” (sure, AFTER I finish here).

The clueless wonder:  “Can I pick up my film here?”

The off-duty-employee:  “Where do we keep the fingernail polish remover?” 5 days a week its your job to find that stuff for people, why the he** are you asking me now? Because you can? or because you like irritating me? “Aisle 12 on your left, Karen”

Mr Loyalty Louie: “Did you bill everything right?” He has more cards in play than Vegas. I finally told him it was his responsibility to make sure BEFORE he pays whether all his split bills have been done.  Its a good thing we have space for 10 different insurances, because he has filled them all.

The Mis-informed:  “My doctor told me to get this cream or something for my kids head lice. It begins with a C” (I start thinking out loud) “hmmm, the only thing I can think of is NIX, but it doesn’t begin with a C“  “THATS IT!, Nicks!” …..begins with a C….sure.

Heavy sigh, Just another day.

Tags: customers, pharmacy life | |

Part II.

Well, well, well, I was still an intern when I saw my first insurance card. It was quite the novelty. “A credit card for prescriptions” I remember saying.  Little did we know how it would change our lives and our ability to make a living.

At the time, they were very few and far between.  We would fill out Universal Claim Forms (UCF’s) for every prescription, carbon paper and all, in duplicate. Remember UCF’s? At the time, we only did 1-2 per week and we kept them under a paperweight in the pharmacy. Nobody seemed to care much about them. Their significance was miniscule. More important to our boss was keeping the charge accounts straight.

By the time I graduated, pharmacies were beginning to get computerized. It was essentially only a big label maker. It didnt’ do much else.  We still hand priced everything, but now the labels were “computerized”. The display was black and white, but we could look people up by name, and we had genuine “profiles”.  The Bates stamp went into the drawer, never to be seen again. Insurance was still completely hand billed and the state welfare cards had punch cards for drugs. Everybody got 6 rx’s per month. Once your punch card was full, no more drugs.  Try that in 2009!

Items you wanted thru the wholesaler was still looked up on the microfiche (remember that?  keep a spare light bulb!)

By the time I moved to a new state, we had moved to genuine pharmacy software.  Real computers, real labels with computer pricing.  We were still processing UCF’s but now thru pinfeeed printers.  God help you if you didn’t get them lined up perfectly in the printer.  Once it started, there was no stopping it but was nice to not hand write every one, as we were doing hundreds now.   We did still have to separate and mail (yes, mail) them out every week to the third party.  At the time, however, there was basically 3:  PAID, PCS and Welfare.  Still, there was no real-time online billing..because there was till no “on-line” yet.

It was up to us to make sure we got paid, and didn’t dispense non covered drugs.  PCS would send out blue colored pages for a massive 3-ring binder that held plan info for every plan (which was embossed on the card) Nobody liked to deal with the reconcilliation, especially the pages with the rejections. Unless it was clerical error, we had to call the patients and get them to pay.  That was fun…not, but when the patient “signed” for their prescription, they signed a sheet (which they never read) that said, “in the event my inurance doesn’t pay, I will”.

In the beginning was the heaven and the earth…sorry, wrong beginning.. In THIS beginning, we got paid what we billed….really… we did.

Then, we got real-time billing, via the phone..a modem.  Click Click, dialtone, bip-bip-bip, Screeeeeeech (for one minute), click click, hang up.  Sometimes it took a full minute for one claim.  We’d want to beat our heads against a wall if we had to do it twice for some reason.  It was not fast, but we knew if we had submitted it correctly.

I don’t know when the PBM’s started getting the upper hand.  I suppose it was when the scales tipped and more people were using insurance cards than weren’t.  At that point, we lost our leverage, and they held our fate in their ever-stingy hands.  Now it became “This is what you will be paid, because this is all we are offering”.  AND, since chain drug stores had entered the scene, they figured they could operate on a smaller margin, so they split rank, rolled on their collective backs, exposed their bellies and said, “sure”.

Divide and conquer.  They did it well. 

And the rest is history.

And the Chick wonders, in 20 years, what kind of technology do we currently use that we will someday describe as archaic!

Tags: history, pharmacy life | |

Occasionally I get to work with an older pharmacist.  Of course, now that I am getting older, its getting rare that I have those occasions.  As it is now, I tend to be the “older” pharmacist.  When I do, however, I love talking about the old days, especially in the presence of the young’ins (interns and my young techs).

Its hard for me to believe that I have been counting by five’s for over 22 years.  For many of you younger pharmacists, there has never been a time where you used a typewriter, filled out Universal Claim Forms, or hand priced everything you filled.  Everything has always been “electronic”. 

It hasn’t always been that way.  Lets go back in time:

The first time I ever filled a prescription, it was in a lab…dispensing lab.  There were 30 or so stations with counting trays, spatulas, bottles and lids.  The “pharmacy” was behind locked glass cabinets, filled with long-expired drugs (used by many years of students) On one wall was a bank of typewriters and a stack of labels, the kind you lick and stick (hence the name Count n Pour, Lick n Stick) 

 Every typewriter had a metal frame that held one single label.  We slid one label into place and did our best to type our label perfectly.  Mistakes were not tolerated, AND you couldn’t backspace away your errors and retype. Once the ink hit the page, it was there for good. Talk about pressure!  There was nothing like KNOWING you had to be perfect to guarantee a screw up.

My first drug was Ery-Tab 500mg.  The sweet aroma of vanilla filled the air when I opened the bottle. Wow. Abbott’s signature scent. I still wax nostalgic every time I open something from Abbott. I don’t remember how many prescriptions I filled in that lab, but I’ll always remember the first one.

Every student did some time at the school infirmary pharmacy.  We didn’t fill very many prescriptions, but I still have one bottle from that era. The pharmacist (all ONE of him) kept all of his controlled drugs in a safe.  Thats how few he used. I remember seeing Quaaludes in there. “We’ll never use these”, he said. He was right.

My first intern job was at an independent in my home town. The store was long and narrow and the pharmacy counter stretched the width of the store. It was a classic drugstore; a little bit of everything.  I still cook with an electric frypan I bought there.  They had everything, including a grocery store next door for perfect foot traffic.

 You entered the actual pharmacy at either end and stepped up 2 steps.  It had the best view in the house. The patient came to a notch in the middle. ”Would the defendant please approach the bench”…. The pharmacy was amazing because you could see no drugs. They were hidden behind a wall of cabinets.

 There were 4 typewriters on the counter, each attached to a huge roll of labels. (ooooh, self adhesive labels!)  I learned that perfection was not required and if you had a minor spelling error, it was better left, than redone at the expense of time.  We were busy, and was experiencing the best of times.

We handed customers their drugs in a bag with a yellow receipt attached, HANDWRITTEN with rx number and amount owed. We didn’t ring anything up.  That was the job of the clerks. The store set-up was ingenious.  You couldn’t leave the store without exiting thru a checkstand so theft was unlikely. Every prescription was hand priced. Every hardcopy had a Bates stamp upon it, and God help you if you messed up the stamper. We pulled  hard copy for every refill, and if the patient didn’t have their number, it was up to them to call the dr and get a new prescription.  In all honesty, it was a rare event when a customer didn’t have their number. Could it be there used to be responsible patients? 

There were no such things as patient profiles.  If you lost a receipt, well darn it, thats too bad, you only got one. There was no way to find and track that stuff. Eventually we got something similar to a giant rolodex. One page per patient and all it had written on it was their name, drug and rx number. It helped to find hard copies.  Man we were moving up with this technology, but keeping it up to date proved to be one more thing we had to “do”

Generic medications? No such thing. You used Tylenol #3, Inderal, Proventil and Lanoxin.  The word generic first came out when it applied to food: black and white cans of beans, corn, peas, and the like, in grocery stores. They weren’t always as nice as DelMonte or Green Giant: the beans might have a stem attached or the corn may have a miscolored kernel, but they were cheaper.  Considering the inferiority of generic food at the time, I am amazed they used the same name for substitute drugs. The stigma still exists, ironically.

The bulk of what we ordered, came direct, and we had accounts with all the major players in the industry. When we ordered Motrin, we’d get 15 bottles at a time. Those shiny orange 400mg tabs FLEW outa here. We borrowed from the hospital near by and they borrowed from us.  We kept a notebook “we owe this, they owe that”.

AND, everybody paid cash. By “cash”, I mean cash, credit card or check.  The pharmacy set their price and the customer paid it. No questions asked, no preferred pricing, no contracts.  Like any other saleable item, it came with a price.  You haggled at car dealerships, not pharmacies. This one pharmacy/drugstore paid the wages and supported the families of 4 pharmacists, 1 floor manager, every clerk, and still made a tidy profit for the owner.

These were the glory days of pharmacy.

Then, I saw my first PCS Card.

more to come.

Tags: back in time, pharmacy life | |

It is said that everything in the universe is relative. If it concerns the universe, perhaps that is true, but in the Pharmacy Chick’s world, I can say I have a few absolute truths. I say this because I know myself pretty well and I am not fond of change, especially in the pharmacy. I started to write down a few things I found to be truthful about my life in the pharmacy.

 Your Doctor: Your Prescription: Your insurance: NOT my fault if you don’t like Your price.

I feel no remorse handing you back a scrap of paper with incomplete information on it if you do not have your card.

 If I tell you I do not have something, asking me “are you sure?” is not going to make inventory magically appear.

 Speaking of magic, this isn’t Harry Potter, and I do not have a wand–I have a spatula.. so I if I tell you to come back in 15 or 30 minutes, its not a ploy to ruin your day. It takes time to fill a prescription, and I’d rather not sleep in jail because I hurt you.

I’d get out of bed and come in at 3:00am to fill something for you if I respect you.

 Nobody works the Dr Call box harder then the Chick. It is not wise to ask me to call the office again.

 I hate price matching, coupons,  and prior authorizations.

 I’ll never be on board with corporate pharmacy decisions made by non pharmacists.

 I will always work to live, and never live to work.  Life is too short.

I am not impressed with money or fame, and will not change my behavior.

I prefer happy customers and will do everything I can to make you happy. If you aren’t happy, then you probably have unrealistic expectations or issues I cannot fix.

 Twenty one years into pharmacy and I still get grossed out when people cough all over their hands and money and then hand it to me. (where’s the rubber gloves?) I could never be a dr.

 Bribery with chocolate usually works.

 Telling me to rush something usually has the opposite effect with respect for my inclination to do so.

How you treat the clerk waiting on YOU tells me more about your character than you realize.

 Reminding me “I have to have it” has no effect whatsoever on when your Dr will call back on the refill YOU waited til you were out of to order.

 It is not, nor ever will be, my problem if you miss your birth control because you forgot to refill it on time.

 You lost, spilled, or otherwised destroyed the contents of your prescription,  not me. You have no right to be angry with me when you have to pay for a replacement.

 I get tired of recommending cough and cold products. (and vitamins)

You pay your doctor’s salary, not me so if you got a complaint about how long it takes for him to handle your refills, tell him, not me.

 That certain product created by a schoolteacher to prevent colds is junk and you will never convice me otherwise.

 I need a coke by 930 am or I get grouchy.

  If I tell you your prescription will be ready in 30 minutes and you come back in 15, it will not be ready…really.

 LIkewise, if you feel compelled to say “I just dropped it off, its probably not ready”, you are most likely right.

Friday afternoon is possibly the worst time to ask me to fax the Dr’s office for a refill.

 If you don’t speak English, don’t blame me if you don’t understand how to take your medication.

 Likewise, If I cannot read it , it will not go on any label I sign off on. I do not do foreign language labels.

 I will never like a third party auditor, or an inspector.

 If you bring me a prescription for something I don’t have, I do not have to drop everything to spend 20 minutes calling competitors unless I have time. Its a courtesy not an obligation.

 I do not own a functioning crystal ball: I do not know when your Dr will call back, what my competitors carry, or how much this rx will be on your insurance before I fill it.

 Don’t ask, hint or intimate, I don’t fraud insurance companies.

 I never knowingly short medication in a bottle. 

 Insurance audits assume you are dishonest and a cheat. I resent that.

I am an independent pharmacist at heart and always will be, but if I won the lottery I would walk away from it tomorrow and never miss it.

 I dont think I am alone about that previous statement.

I’ve learned that poor does not mean dumb AND rich does not mean smart.

I am a very good judge of character. I can tell the difference between a good person having a bad day and a simple jerk.

I always try to be nicer than the person I am waiting on.  Sometimes it doesn’t take much.

My favorite sound of the day is the sound of my key turning the deadbolt as I close the door.

Tags: random drivel | |

Since I don’t have to fear HIPAA and its my own business, I can rip Dell a new one here and now.  I am just a tad pissed at Dell computers.  You see, I have owned 4 Dell computers (1 desktop and 3 laptops).  For the most part, all have worked flawlessly.  I recently purchased a new laptop, and because I wanted the better of the options I had, I chose a business grade computer and paid good money for the warranty that guaranteed me North American technical support within 2 minutes of calling.

Yea, right.  I had a question about my new laptop.  I looked to find the phone number for my Gold Level Tech support.  I couldnt find one, either online or with my purchase papers.  Therefore I was forced to call the regular line with the rest of the great unwashed.  I joined the merry go round of options. Once I got a human it was clear he was in India. I asked to be transferred to North America. He agreed to do so…click click..disconnect…dialtone. 

I tried again and over the next 60 minutes, got disconnected twice more,  spent less than 2 minutes total speaking to human beings, and then was only being told I had the wrong area.   It was a simple question. I asked specifically for the phone number for the Gold Tech support and was given 3 (three) different numbers, none of which connected me to anyplace different than the first number.

After 70 minutes I hung up. I am going to find that number, and when I do, somebody is going to get an earful. I paid for it.  And, so are they.

Tags: personal rant | |