The Pharmacy Chick

It was a day out of the pharmacy and I made a few random observations:

On my walk was a couple of teenagers.  One was wearing a chunky pair of glasses….with no lenses.   Ive worn glasses for 40 years.  I wouldn’t wear them as a fashion choice…but if YOU choose do, I think lenses might give them more cred.

It was in the 40’s for most of the day today…and I saw a girl wearing short shorts and flip-flops… WTF?

It was just weird being at the bowling alley today and watching a woman in a Saree bowling.

I sang outloud to ABBA’s SOS music video at the same bowling alley.  If I had children, they would have died of embarassment for sure.

We brushed the dogs today…I am convinced my dogs are nothing but nose, butt and hair!

I found out my friends daughter sent over 6000 txts last month. 

If that was my daughter, she wouldn’t have a phone THIS month….or next month either.

Tomorrow I am going to learn now to pressure wash a drive way….unless I can convince MR chick to do it…

I am very good at convincing..

Tags: general junk, non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |

This is a completely non pharmacy post today. Occasionally I need to spout off on something and today’s subject is “sneaky little maneuvers”.  We are all getting used to getting less for more in today’s economy I suppose.  We pay a fortune for everything it seems. We open packages and find 60% air in the box. Package sizes are getting sneakingly smaller and smaller,and yet the prices are either slithering upwards or staying the same..with net effect STILL being ….getting less product for more money. 

Ok I suppose I can put ONE reference to pharmacy in this post with the advent of 90 count packages that USED to be 100 count packages and are priced EXACTLY the same.  They haughtily call these “unit of use” packages and tout the “ease” of using them.  Ok. sure buddy.

But back to my own observations.  Being a woman (duh) I have certain needs that a man wouldn’t ever dream of, namely certain sanitary products.  Never in my marriage have I asked Mr Chick to purchase these items for me for surely it would be a collossally dumb move to ask him to do so.    God knows what he would come home with even if I gave him a photograph and the UPC code!  Over the years I have stayed with the same product even if it becomes a goose chase to find it.  This company has changed its packaging so many times I have lost count.  But what has bothered me the most is the fact they have changed what goes INSIDE the packaging just as much.  Lets start with quantity.  It used to be the standard size for this sanitary product (SP, for short) was 30.  Then it became 27…then 25…and now 22.   They come in multiple absorbency levels and I choose the greater ones.  As the package size changed so did the product heft.  Once I opened them and thought “geez, these seem rather flimsy.”  Being the pharmacist that I am I took one from the old box and a new one and put it on my Torsion Balance (might as well use it for something) and found to my dismay that it weighed a lot less than it used to.  Not only am I getting FEWER number of SP but I also get LESSER absorbency than before.  SUCKS…..but for the same money.

Moving on.

I also buy TP by the truckload.  Call me a product of my parents, but they used to do the same thing.  Of course they had a store room the size of a bedroom for such stuff, but habits die hard.  I just buy as much as the cubby for my TP will hold and I dont have to buy it for a long time.  We also have 2 guest bathrooms and I stuff the under-sink area full of TP for them too.  I recently had to replenish the house with TP and when I pulled out a recent roll, I noticed something unusual.  ( now mind you, I already noticed over the years that the rolls are smaller. A Triple roll now is the same square foot as a “double” roll was a few years ago)  What I noticed THIS time was the roll seemed squatter and shorter.  I went into the guest bath where some older rolls still resided and sure enough these new rolls were a full 1/4 inch shorter in width. 

Now THAT is a sneaky maneuver if there ever was one.  Not only are we getting less sheets per roll but now we get less inches per sheet. I had always believed that TP width was sacrosanct!   A standard.. Fixed and unchangeable!

Ice cream doesnt’ come in half gallon anymore..it comes in 1.75 quarts.  Orange juice containers contain less,  Cereal boxes are the same size but have less IN them.  Canned goods instead of being 12 ounce cans, may have 10.75 ounces.  We are becoming a nation of fractions…airy packaging and fake bottoms in boxes.

OH, I suppose the same could be said for PBM’s.  We have one major player who decided THIS year that they will pay for only a 30 days  supply of meds instead of 34 in 2009….and all for the same copay.

I guess their president went to school with the TP guy.

Tags: general junk, non pharmacy stuff, rambling, ranting | |

Since my last post I have had one more motherboard installed.  It ended up worse than the first one.  At this moment I have a cherry red laptop doorstop, and am writing on Mr. Chick’s computer.  Dell decided to replace my unit and at this time I am waiting for them to “locate a compatible computer” whatever the hell that means.   My guess is they are going thru their inventory and seeing what computer they want to give me that is similar to my own.  Fair enough I can accept that.  I specifically asked for NO VISTA but they cannot guarantee it.  That part I cannot accept.  I told them I will send it back.  Its a frustrating venture to say the least to have this kind of hassle with a computer to begin with.  When motherboard #2 went in the computer wouldn’t even boot anymore. 

I will stand my ground on this one.   I bought a unit of my choosing and paid a tidy sum  for it.  I believe I should have a unit of MY choosing as a replacement.  I am not asking for some fancy XPS or top of the line Lattitude.  I got a Vostro 2510 with XP PRO with a lot of bells and whistles and that is what I want back only with Windows 7 instead of Vista, since XP is not an option.. why I do not know.

Too much to ask for?   I hate to be the pest..but I will be if I have too.  I always try to look out for the best interest of my customers when I do business.  I’d like Dell to do the same for me too.  

We will see.

Tags: general junk, non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |

I was ringing up a sale at the register when a long time customer asked me Do you like being a pharmacist? It seems like a fun job. After I checked to see if she had alcohol on her breath I took a moment to respond. I didn’t want to lie and tell her I had the coolest job on the planet, but I also didn’t want to make it sound like my job was akin to mucking out port-a-potties either. Since she had asked a sincere question, I decided that a sincere, honest and to-the-point answer was in order: I said “Depends on the day”.

I told her the truth. The business has been good to me financially. I have made a good living in a field that to date, has been largely immune from the trials and tribulations of economic instability. For 20+ years we have weathered pharmacist shortages that has virtually guaranteed that I will not have to stand in the bread line anytime soon. I could walk off my job tomorrow and by the middle of next week I could have my pick of any number of jobs. Granted, they may not be GREAT jobs, but they would put food on the table. For a lot of people, that is a lofty aspiration and one that I do not take for granted. Neither do I consider myself indispensable (forgive the pun). Everybody is replaceable even if it DOES take a while.

I told her that the job however is rarely “fun”. The cost of this good income is long hours, working in a retail setting that is open 363 days a year, and dealing with the public who comes to me largely because they HAVE to and not because they WANT to. My hours are decided by somebody else, not myself. I cannot choose to close early because I am tired or sick. For the priviledge of being a retail pharmacist, I also forfeit uninterrupted lunches and working in a quiet unhurried environment. I cannot choose my workload. The wearer of the white coat lives under a microscope most of the time, micromanaged by the company she works for, and pressured all day by the demands from whomever is the most persistent.

“Line 1, Guess who?” Like I’d have to guess. For the 6th time today Harold has called to see if his Doctor has ok’d his Vicodin. AND, despite my promises that I will call him the very moment its authorized, Harold calls about every hour….and demands to talk to me.

“Line 2, Guess who also?” Harold just hung up so it has to be Dina, who just picked up her prescription. We play 20 questions every time she comes in. No human on the planet has called our store more often than Dina. While I like her, I wish she would go away. “Can I take Aspirin when I am using Patanol?”, “Can my son take Ibuprofen with his Amoxicillin?” “If I have an allergic reaction to Claritin, can I take Benadryl?” “What happens If I have a reaction to Benadryl?” “Can I take Benadryl and Tylenol at the same time?” “Will I overdose if I take Claritin and Patanol?” There will be, in fact, at least 2 followup phone calls for every single rx she picks up, whether it be new or refills. She has even called us while she is on vacation.

When you are a pharmacist, there is no closed door to retreat behind (but the potty) when you’ve had enough. Go ahead, try… somebody will demand your attention before the aforementioned door closes…and you will again be at somebody elses beckon call. Thats what its like to be a retail pharmacist. I should have a mantle full of Oscars for the performances of a lifetime I have played out in the white coat.

This customer then asked me if they took it all away, would I go to pharmacy school again? Tougher question: Its a good thing that I was an uninformed college student when I chose Pharmacy as my major. I worked thru each quarter, one at a time, always amazed that I survived to pass on to the next one. It was harder than I had imagined…and its even harder now with the Pharm D as the entry degree. Ignorance is bliss I think. There are a lot of things that I have done in my life that were harder than I had thought when I started them. I have completed a lot of things that if I had the opportunity to repeat, I probably wouldn’t simply because I would remember the effort involved. “Glad I did it once, don’t want to do it again” might be a good motto for the things in THAT category.

I guess I didn’t have an answer for her. I dont remember exactly what I said, but in retrospect, if I was 20 years old and had my life before me, yes I’d probably do it again. If I was 45 and starting over with a new career, not so sure.

What made me write about this was the following conversation:

A nurse called me the other day on a refill auth to inform us that at the end of the month, the Dr was closing her practice. I casually asked “Having a baby?”. No, the nurse replied, she is giving up medicine to go to Law School. WHOA. Pharmacy school was one thing, that took 6 years. But Medicine? This physician likely had a dozen years or more in school and residency before she hung her shingle…and she is giving it all up. I wish I knew her well enough to ask her why.

I know the nurses name and when I go back to work next week, I am gonna call her and ask her. I’ll let you know.

For now I put the same question to you–Would YOU do it all over again? or better yet, If you were going to start over, what WOULD you do?

Thats an easier question for Pharmacy Chick–I am passionate about animals, I’d be a vet.

Tags: drivel, general junk, letting you in to my life, pharmacy life, rambling endlessly | |

Ok, so I have been doing this for about 3 months now. Ive written a bunch of posts on a variety of subjects, and have tried to be interesting, funny and honest to a fault about the business of pharmacy and life. Its the first time I ever ventured into the world of blogging. Now its your turn. Is it worth your time to find my blog? Do you enjoy reading it? Should I keep writing? Am I wasting my time?

Even if you have never commented, I would like you to say something now. Tell me what you think. Anything you like me to write more of? Less of? How did you find it?

I spend a fair amount of time doing this so I’d like to get a gauge of who’s reading

Gracias, Merci, Thanks! PC

Tags: general junk | |

I am gonna go out on a limb here and state that most of us who take vacations probably need a vacation AFTER we have cleaned up the messes and disasters created by those covering for us while we were gone. This is not going to be a rant about relief pharmacists. No way Jose, I am not cutting my own throat by insulting my fellow professionals. Its a hard sucky job. I run my store wonderfully, but I fully realize that if I had to walk into Big Box Pharmacy down the street and run their business, that I’d probably have it royally screwed up in oh, 1 hour tops. The fact is, every store runs uniquely. It cannot be changed. We will never completely standardize every single store in the chain, no matter how many corporate directives to the contrary. I must say however that I wish that more of my relief pharmacists would prescribe to “go with the flow” and work within the existing framework of the store instead of forcing my techs (who already know how I like the place run) to conform to a new and unfamiliar routine, thereby screwing everything up. That being said:

With the 5 total employees in my department, we have a combined 50 years of experience within our company, half of them in the two pharmacists alone. This means that we have accrued a significant amount of vacation time, 8 paid weeks between the two of us. Neither of us are workaholics that claim victory by never using vacation. I use every single hour of it. I earned it and I deserve it.

More and more however I am thinking I need to prepare my customers for my iminent departure. They just don’t seem to get it. Perhaps I need to create bag stuffers and distribute them a couple of weeks before I leave:

Dearest Customer: One of us is about to go on vacation. Because of this, do not expect that everything will run exactly as usual. In fact, it might actually get chaotic around here. It will likely take longer than usual to process your prescription. Thats just how it is. We’d be grateful if you’d make yourself scarce for a change instead of breathing down the neck of the staff wondering why its taking so long. The pharmacist you dont recognize will be a guest one day and the next day it will be somebody different. They do not know the store. They do not know you. They will not know that you go by “Scooter” but the name on your label is Harold. They will not be familiar with the store so don’t get your tail in a knot when they cannot tell you the aisle that the english muffins are on. Find them yourself or ask a courtesy clerk. Thats what they are for. The Pharmacist might not even be all that familiar with our computer system so if you need a prior authorization or a weird split bill for your loyalty card, accept the fact it probably won’t get done til we come back. Since they dont have any roots in the store they don’t have any particular allegiance to your needs so don’t expect them to perform any special services. Honestly, they are here just to keep the place open and legal… They may be unfamiliar but they are not idiots, so don’t lie to them. Don’t even think about saying “but Pharmacy Chick always does such and such for me”. Even if its true, doesn’t mean that they have to cater to your whim. I may do such and such just to keep you from throwing a toddler tantrum at my counter. I would also appreciate not hearing a blow by blow analysis of your miserable experience here at the hands of the relief pharmacist. It does not make me feel any better. It will only validate my opinion of you being an impatient impish whiner. If the pharmacist actually wigs out and calls you the impatient impish whiner that you are, then I will make a convincing but half assed apology to you but tell the pharmacist “way to go, gutsy dude”. In short, do us all a favor and cut us an inch of slack for a change. Thank you.

Oh, I know it will never happen. I’ll go away and come back to a weeks worth of unopened mail, a stack of notes to call a half-dozen people, and 50 phone calls within the first 15 minutes of my first day back (since everybody who asked was told exactly what date and time I would be back). This came to my mind today when I was fed a sob story of the horrible injustice a customer had to endure because the relief pharmacist changed (correctly) the quantity of a drug to meet the insurance company limits. The customer felt so wronged and didn’t appreciate my telling him the pharmacist was correct.

It will never stop me from going on vacation, but I’d like to have a little less anxiety about coming back.

Tags: customers, employees, general junk, pharmacy life, rambling | |

Pharmacy chick was enjoying a leisurely lunch at a local restaurant. She doesn’t mind dining alone on her days off. Mr Chick was working. Its normally a quiet restaurant by the time I go in, usually after the normal lunch hour. I prefer the non-peak times to eat. About half way thru my meal, I heard a commotion at the front of the store. Some guy was giving the host a bad time. I couldn’t see what was going on, but I could certainly HEAR it. His wife had come in to ask to use the bathroom, and this place has a sign CLEARLY on the door stating “no public restrooms”. Its for good reason. Its a small eatery in an area that gets a lot of foot traffic. They simply cannot have people traipsing thru their restaurant just to pee. Besides, they only have a one-holer for each gender. Its their right to limit their bathrooms for their customers and thats how it is.

Well, this woman’s husband took exception to them telling her they have no public restrooms. He was making a scene. The voice sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. “YES!, we WERE intending on eating here”I heard him say.. I gathered that they had perhaps intended on buying food but made no mention of that fact before she asked to use the bathrooms. I had no idea if they decided to eat there or not from my vantage point.

I finished my lunch and got up to pay my bill. There was only one other table seated in the restaurant, and older man in a hat and a woman. OMG, NOW I knew that voice! That guy had given me hassles at my pharmacy for a couple of years before moving to a different part of town and transferring his files (lets have a party!) to a competitor. He was an ass from the first day he blew in til the day he finally left. He was from a small town and thought that we were going to bend to his every will. No, I don’t have charge accounts, you pay when you come in. No, I don’t have a direct line to the dr’s desk. Call in your refills 2 days ahead of time. No, I don’t deliver either. If you want 90 days, then the Dr has to write it for 90 days. No, I cannot carry the oval furosemide, I carry the round ones. And all holy Hell burst out when his plan introduced the dreaded “tier 3″ drugs.

In short, he was a consumate butthead. Jerkface. Ass. Blowhard. Whatever. He never used the automated refill line, he always had to Talk-To-The-Pharmacist to give us his precious refill number. AND, he always had to tell us some accompanying story. There was no short phone call with this guy. He also preferred to have the white-coats ring him up. If the techs had to ring him up he would always have some “question” to drag the pharmacist over to the counter.

He was Mr Self Important, and Pharmacy Chick is not impressed with that kind of attitude. I have no respect for people to treat others, subordinate or not, disrespectful. We need waiters, hosts, grounds keepers, and maintenance people, just like we need brain surgeons and nuclear physicists. I used to wait tables in my student days. As far as I am concerned we are all working stiffs in some capacity.

He saw me leave the restaurant. We made brief eye contact. I’d like to hope he was embarrased to know somebody heard him rant. I doubt it however. His type is hard to embarass.

I hope somebody spit in his beer.

Tags: behavior, customers, general junk, rambling | |

Let me begin this post by telling you all that Pharmacy Chick never wanted to own a home computer. She was dragged into the information age, kicking and screaming. I have an answering machine only because I got it free as a door prize. I own a palm but it is usually dead in my purse. If it weren’t for cable channels over 13, I’d still own my old TV with knobs–remember knobs? I am simply not a technophile–if anything, I am a techno-PHOBE. (the fact that I blog is amazing when you consider this factoid)

It was only because EVERYTHING was going “WWW” that I finally relented and purchased a computer. It was the biggest piece of junk and the hugest source of frustration that I could ever have inflicted upon myself, aside from being a pharmacist! To keep this post under 50,000 words, I will spare you the details, but suffice to say that I was doomed from the start–it wouldn’t power up. Before I ever saw a Windows splash screen, I had the tower box apart: the power button was never hooked up. It went downhill from there. Thankfully I had purchased the extended warranty because I used it extensively. By the time they finally replaced the unit, I had probably used up 10 computers worth of parts and labor.

Fast forward now 10 years:

My first computer has been long since dumped. I moved on to a different brand name. For the most part it has run flawlessly….until a few days ago. My notebook started to freeze up. DOA, with whatever I was doing on the screen just frozen in time. Then, it wouldn’t reboot unless I whapped the keyboard. The Caps-Lock LED would blink 10 times and die. It appeared that motion was causing the unit to freeze. I did what every good computer owner would do: I called Tech Support.

What evil demon possessed me to do that? First off I got somebody in some far off country. I won’t say which country so I am not labeled as a hate monger, but suffice to say it wasn’t a local-boy. His English was spotty at best. I think these people do tech support because they hate you and I. Not only did I have to repeat everything twice, HE insisted on repeating everything back to me– ME: my computer freezes. HIM: so, you are saying your computer freezes? you get the gist of it–over and over. Computer sadism: inflict as much pain as possible without actually doing anything to actually fix the problem.

He held me hostage for over 90 minutes. After having me run the gauntlet of worthless diagnostics, I finally gave up. It was almost midnight (what did he care? it was lunch time there!). The next day I gingerly rebooted my computer and placed it on a hard surface. If it moved, it froze. I decided that internet computer forums might give me more information than this dude did. You’d of thought this had never happened before this brand of notebook! When he learned my notebook was 4 years old, he implied it was time to replace it. I paid almost $1600 for this thing: 4 years does not make it a dinosaur!

An aside: I learned from my techno-geek friends who helped me during my last computer nightmare that Tech Support’s cop-out fix to get you off the phone is to advise you to “reformat your hard drive”. It doesn’t matter the problem. Blue Screen of Death? Reformat your hard drive. Number Lock LED burned out? Reformat your hard drive. Its like killing a fly with a sledge hammer. No bloody way am I reformatting my hard drive so don’t even ask.

I found tons of information on the internet…as long as I didn’t nudge or move one molecule on my notebook…or ZZZZT it would freeze up again. I didn’t feel so alone, as it was a fairly well reported problem, so I was irritated as ever that I received no useful information from Mr. No-help. I gathered that either my RAM was bad or one of the slots for the RAM was bad.

Armed with that information, I drove to my friendly big box electronics store and scored some memory. Pharmacy chick wishes that getting BRAIN memory was this cheap and easy! I put the new memory in the first slot and booted ‘er up. It worked for about 2 minutes and when I moved the unit-ZZZZT DEAD. Then I moved it to the second slot and I have tossed my notebook around for about 2 hours without dying.

Chick is not assuming that all is well. BUT, all is certainly improved….at the moment. I got 1G of RAM zipping me all over the internet now and I learned that I will not die a painful death by opening the back of my notebook.

So if I disappear for a while, you can assume my fix……didn’t!

Please God, let this fix work.

Tags: general junk, personal life, rambling, ranting | |

This is specifically for new pharmacists, or at least those who might have been practicing for a short period of time…ok and even interns who are just about to take their boards.

Smartly dressed with a crisp white jacket with a gleaming new “RPh” after her name, she was overwhelmed by the reality of working in a busy retail store. She snapped at the techs, got lippy with a customer. She was disorganized and didn’t take constructive assistance very well. It was her way or the highway. The problem is, she wasn’t experienced enough to have a “way” that worked well. She was also floating, a position fraught with difficulty already. I heard all about the day.

When you became a pharmacist you probably figured it out right away: its completely different than when you were an intern. Overnight, all the rules changed. No longer could you hide behind a counting tray while the pharmacist ironed out all the messes. You now hold the iron. Gone are the days of being the “extra” person. You work alone. Forget about coming in late or leaving early for dinner plans/a play/a wedding/CE seminar..whatever. Tag! you are IT! Welcome to Jail: Do Not pass Go, do not collect $200. Most likely you weren’t quite prepared for it. No newbie is. I certainly wasn’t. I waved my just-arrived-license in the air and the pharmacist dropped his spatula and announced “I am taking the rest of the day off”. Once I picked my chin off the floor I realized he was serious. He grabbed his coat and left. Just like that, he was gone. Whoa.

The safety net was gone.

I have a few words of advice for the newly minted pharmacist (or rph soon-to-be)

1. Pharmacy school only gets you a license, it does not teach you to BE a pharmacist. That takes time and a good mentor. You are not done learning just because you passed your boards. In fact, you are just starting. Everything in school was black and white. In reality, everything is a thousand shades of gray. What works for one person will fail miserably with another. Don’t expect to have a policy that works in all situations. It won’t and when you understand that, you will have a better chance of surviving your career. Be flexible or you will get broken.

2. You are not better than everybody just because you make 6 figures now. You may have all sorts of facts and figures memorized, know every therapy course for every disease state, but you have nothing on Clyde the 60 yr old pharmacist who has a following that can only be described as “cult”. He takes care of them. They love him back. He may not have the most current protocol in the anti-coag clinic memorized like you do, but he has the respect and admiration of a thousand people. Try to pull that out of your palm pilot!

3. A haughty attitude will get you nowhere. Trust me. I learned the hard way. If you have chip on your shoulder, somebody is gonna knock it off. You will not command respect or believability simply because you got the white coat. In fact, expect that people will look to your OLDER techs for advice instead of you until you age a bit. It will be harder on you if you are young and female than if you are young and male. You are gonna look like children playing dress up to some senior citizens. Get over it and move on.

4. Look at people thru different eyes. People tend to see what they want to see. If you train yourself to find some good in everybody, you’ll be able to forgive them when they disappoint you, and more importantly, they will forgive YOU when you disappoint them.

5. You never have the right to be rude. N.E.V.E.R. Unless you are signing your own paychecks, you will always have a higher authority to answer to and rudeness will never be defended by your boss, even if its seemingly justified. You will just end up looking like a dink.

6. It is rarely the message that offends somebody, its usually how you say it. If there is one thing I would teach in Ph- school is Effective Communication. Don’t talk at somebody, Talk WITH them. Use your ears, and not your mouth. Its ok to say to somebody “If I understand you correctly, you are saying…..” If they think you understand them, you have won half the battle. Empathize. If somebody believes that you are on their side, they will likely not give you as much grief. For example: Nobody likes to hear that their refills aren’t ok’d by the dr and its been 2+ days. But to curtly drop the news on the table like a sack of potatoes will irritate the patient. Try this: “I understand your frustration! I makes us crazy too–who needs that kind of time? It seems way too long doesn’t it? We have asked them twice and they still have not responded. Perhaps you might like to ask them, since its your dollars that pay their wages huh?” If the patient in my previous post had heard that (instead of the curt response he did hear) I’d likely not have had to spend a half hour listening to him chew my rump.

7. Read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I mean it. READ IT. Twice. Its a small pocket book with a wealth of information. It changed my practice forever. His principles are timeless and people will pay $1500 for a seminar teaching his techniques.

8. Be friends with your customers. Do not create an adversarial relationship with them so when you mess up, and you WILL mess up, they will be less likely to sue your butt into poverty. They will also be more inclined to do things your way if they LIKE you! Think of this common example: if you grab a dog by the collar and pull towards you, what is gonna happen? He is going to resist! Its his nature. So it is with people.

9. Your techs are your ass-savers. They can make or break you. Some are better than others, but try going it alone for a few hours and even the sketchiest of techs help you more than you know. Just because they don’t have a degree doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable, so don’t condescend to them. Actually dont treat anybody condescendedly.

10. Don’t drop the ball. If you say you are going to do something for somebody, then you better do it. And if you couldn’t do it, then you better have tried everything in your power before you failed. You will be called to be accountable for what you do or don’t do, and you will look darned silly if you drop the ball. I can honestly say that if I couldn’t do something for a patient, they KNOW that I have done my best.

11. Don’t roll the dice: you will be surprised at who knows who in the community. I’ve always been surprised at the few degrees of separation some of my patients have. People I would have thought had no connection whatsoever are best friends, or neighbors, or go to church together, etc. Its often AFTER the fact that I hear from a (sometimes challenging) patient (that I would have liked to get rid of) “Thanks, Joan Jones sent me here”.. Whew..that was a close one.. I go to church with Joan…SEE?

I guess what it boils down it is live the golden rule when you step behind the counter. Your patients may not be as good to you as you are to them, but they’ll never have the upperhand on you if you keep your composure, have realistic expectations, learn your limits, behave properly, and become their advocate.

Tags: customers, employees, general junk, pharmacy life, words of wisdom | |

Oh my word, there is nothing like spending several hours at an airport to see the twisted weirdness of all humanity. Here are some of my favorites–I wish I had caught them on camera. These are all real.

1. The 70ish woman dressed head to toe in tight leopard skin print fabric. Ask her age and risk decapitation. She likely would even lie to the TSA if they asked her date of birth. Her matching dog carrier twitches around and contains what looks like a doglet–a very small furry creature that probably eats better than many people. She has glasses half the size of her face and big chunky rings on several fingers. I dont know where she is going but I would suspect Palm Springs or Las Vegas.

2. Mr Rotundity- This guy was as wide as he was tall. I was grateful when he walked by our gate. He should have been charged for 2 seats because he sure the hell wasn’t going to fit into any single seat I have ever been on in a plane, unless its first class.

3. She had pink stilletos and a matching pink coat. Ms STYLE! Blonde hair (fake, I could see the roots) and when she had to take off the coat and heels to progress thru security, she revealed a little black dress that could only be described as a slip with beads. Wow.

4. The Japanese tourist: I can say this because the Japanese tour group leader was at the head of the troup. Who’d have thunk you could need 3 cameras? around one neck? at the same time? And do you really need a picture of the luggage carousel?

5. The screaming child. Does EVERY flight have to have one? Is there some screening process that makes sure that every single flight, no matter how full or empty has at least one unruly child who appears to have been pinched or punctured immediately before boarding the plane? And must they sit within 2 rows of me everytime? Not even the most powerful noise cancelling headphones will drown out the noise of this one. His mother was frazzled and she also had a toddler in tow. God help everybody else on the plane. Its gonna be a long flight no matter where they are going.

6. Giant. Him, I feel sorry for. He’s about 7 linear feet of human, being crammed into about 5 1/2 linear feet of cabin space. I have to believe that if he could afford first class, he would be there, but no, he is standing in line with the rest of us flunkies in coach. I am glad I am short enough to fit reasonably into a airplane seat.

7. Mr E-nut. He had his computer going in the gate, and had enough gear to open his own electronics store right there on the plane. He had a plam, a dvd player, his laptop, a cell phone, a game toy. The second they allowed the use of his stuff, he had it out.

8. the pack rats– ok this constitutes a lot of the people we saw. Whats up with this anyway? I am talking rolling duffles, mini suitcases, huge backpacks, shopping bags, strollers !?!, people dragging enough gear to survive for days ONTO the plane. One lady had a rolling suitcase. Sorry, but Pharmacy Chick feels that if you cannot carry it onto the plane, you have no business bringing it onto the plane. She couldn’t even lift it above her head and required assistance to get it into the overhead carrier! Come on folks.

9. Ms Haute Couture. I wish I had in my wallet what this woman was wearing on her body. This 40ish woman had Louis Vuitton (sheesh, I dont even know if I spelled it right) luggage, Tiffany Jewelry, Ralph Lauren pants, etc etc. Everything had a name, and it was expensive. I doubt the clunky ring on her left hand was anything less than $30,000 of diamond and her accompanying male ( husband’s second trophy wife?) could be accurately imagined as a balding pimp. Oh, and they were first in line at security with their Premier Mileage First Class Gold Club card. I’d bet their destination was a lot fancier than mine was.

10 Business Traveller. These suits are still doing it nicely on their corporate dime. They look the part, (before the flight wrinkes their $400 suit), and if they are in pairs, talking the big deal. Four or five of them were in the bar watching the baseball game on the plasma overhead. All ya have to do is talk a little business and write off the $8 beers at the airport.

11. The spring-breakers. I have never flown during spring break, likely never will again. Where do all these teens get the money to fly someplace warm and exotic on spring break??? Criminy, when I was in school, I had to work over spring break, waiting tables to earn a few dollars. If I had told my mother “Mom? I would like to fly to Cabo or Orlando for spring break.” she would likely drop the floor in hysterics, wipe the tears of laughter from her eyes, then say ” Seriously, you had me going for a minute–what time do you start your shift?”

12. The Family man–I wish I could get inside this man’s head. He is trundling along with his wife who is trying to keep track of 3 kids, all under the age of 10. I’d bet they were going to Disneyland or Disney world, but I’ll never know. They weren’t on my flight. If I was gifted with reading minds I’d say he was thinking ” God, what was I thinking when I booked this vacation? 6 months from now they won’t even remember we went! I should have left them with my mother and the two of us could be sitting on a Baja beach deciding whether we want our margaritas with or without salt!”

13. Lucky thirteen. Saved the best for last..if you are still reading this– Lady, if you read this, sorry for you. I watched you polish off a bag of Chips-Ahoy chocolate chip cookies, then reach into your purse and load up on 80 units of Humulin N and inject yourself right thru your pants. Thanks for tucking the syringe back into your purse and not throwing it in the garbage.

To quote from the famous Hindenburg disaster: “oh, the humanity of it all”

Back to work tomorrow and more blogworthy entries for sure!

Tags: general junk, personal life, vacation | |