The Pharmacist's Slave

H1N1 Craze....

Nov.7, 2009

So this past month has been super crazy in my pharmacy. This H1N1 craze is really getting out of hand and it's putting such a strain on all the staff in our pharmacy. We are constantly short staffed due to someone having flu like symptoms and once that person comes back to work, another is off. It is a viscious cycle of staff being sick and putting the stress on the remaining workers to run the pharmacy smoothly during this pandemic. I'm not saying I am perfect, i fell ill to the flu last week and was off for a few days. It was hell, but maybe i sorta thought it was a mini vacation away from all of the craziness in the dispensary. We have a walk in clinic about 100m from our store and the head doctor told us months ago to order 200 boxes of Tamiflu because he was going to be writing scripts for it like water. Well, we have already used that supply and just had to order another 150 boxes of the stuff. I think they are overprescibing this medication way too much! Before this year, Tamiflu was hardly ever prescribed and we maybe dispensed 5 rx's for it a year, and all of the sudden, since october, we have dispensed 500+ Rx's of it. In our area, the Tamiflu liquid for children has been on backorder for quite some time (dont even get me started on this backorder shit, like seriously, dont companies prepare for an outbreak like this?) so out pharmacy has been preparing a suspension the old school way by opening up capsules and putting it into a syrup. It takes about 20 minutes to make this suspension and we see about 30 rx's a day for them so you can imagine the time it takes us to deal with that, and the parents freaking our because they don't want to wait the 45 minutes it takes to get it ready. It is especially a huge pain in the ass because all of the other pharmacies in our area will not prepare this so they send them all over to our store with their rx's. It's not like we can prepare a huge stock bottle of the stuff, it is very expensive and is only stable for 14 days refrigerated, so that is another thing that sucks. I still prepare a 250ml bottle of it because we know we will go through that quickly, but now the syrup to make the suspension is on backorder and we ran out of it last night! For the love of god, does nothing go right in pharmacy? It seems like every time you get ahead or are finally dealing with the pandemic, another issue arrises and you go back 10 spaces. It sucks, it really sucks. I'm off this weekend thank god, but i sure hope this H1N1 shit goes away quick!! It took my health for awhile and i think it may soon take my sanity as well. I'd like to hear from you readers how you are dealing with things at your pharmacy and if you are having any problems too. Maybe you have some helpful hints in dealing with this craze? HELPP!?! is anybody out there? Well im done ranting about this, i could go on for days about H1N1 but i will spare your eyes for another time....
Stay healthy and bathe in that hand sanitizer!!
TAPT

Things You Wish You Could Say To Patients...

Sept.4, 2009

Alot of the time at work in the pharmacy world, we bite our tongue alot! We try to treat the customer with respect and dignity as well as be extra polite. I wish i could say a lot of things to a patient, mainly, stupid patients. I'm sure you have all been in situations when you encounter a difficult or a weird customer and after they leave you think of things that you wish you said to them. Below are some examples of stupid patient questions, and answers that I was thinking in my head. God forbid I actually said one of these to a patient. They would probably do that stupid survey on their receipt that asks them how good their service was and I would get in shit because of customer stupidity. Fuck i hate those surveys, but thats for a future post!

Patient: "I don't get paid until Friday, I really need the medication, can i come and pay for them next friday"
Me: "I'm sorry, I can't! It's against policy to hand out medication without payment.
What I Was Thinking: "Did you seriously just fucking ask if you can pay next week? Do I go to the grocery store and get some groceries and go to the cash and ask if i can have these and pay for them in a few days?" No! Go get off your fat ass and go beg for money on the corner or sell your body to come up with the $14 you owe for your Valtrex which you probably needed for the sores in your mouth because the cashier at Walmart let you have a bottle of shampoo for free because you got down on your knees. Go away bitch.

Patient purchasing Plan B: "OMG, like seriously, like why is this so expensive, OMG, i'm not paying $39.99 for this, this is bullshit, and i'm not even sure if i'm pregnant, this is retarded!."
Me: "I understand that the price is an issue, but it is such a small investment compared to getting pregnant"
What I Was Thinking: "Yeah right, the condom broke or you forgot to take your birthcontrol, I know you are a whore, your profile is filled with antibiotics for the Clap , Herpes, Gonnerhea etc. I hope to god you buy the plan B for the sake of your future born child. Maybe if you didnt get wasted last night and screwed up on drugs, you wouldnt have been a whore and remember how many guys you banged last night. Stop complaining to me about the price, buy it or get out, i could care less if you are upset over the price.
**NOTE** Sure enough the girl always comes back later and buys it without saying a word (usually with a guy who pays who im sure she had to perform sexual favors to get him to pay for it or she guilted him into thinking he could be a daddy)
TAPT

A Year later and still counting pills....

Sept.3, 2009

well everyone!
i am happy to announce that i will be making a comeback to my favorite blog site!!
i promise that i will update it with lots of new content and update it frequesntly.
i cant believe i last posted almost a year ago!!! where has the time gone?!?!?!
Well i have looots of new stories and i hope you all will stay tuned to read all about them
and leave me your comments because they are very much appreciated!!!
I am hoping to do a comeback post later today!!
TAPT

Even Techs Take Vacations....

Sept.6, 2008

so i haven't written in awhile, so i just thought i would update you all on things. I am currently on a week long vacation and am enjoying my time away from the pharmacy! It is such a relief, it's just sad that my vacation doesn't last a little longer though. But for some reason, i still think about that place even when im at home relaxing. My store has started to get very busy with the fall / winter season fast approaching and it still seems that we are wayyy under staffed and that kind of sucks! There is just going to be wayyy more stress on us as well as the pharmacists who are getting more and more work pilled up on them. My store is down to two pharmacists whom together cover 9am-midnight 7 days a week so they are veryyy exhausted! One pharmacist is on mat leave and the other got surgery and has been off for well over 3 months! When the pharmacist is tired and cranky, the techs get cranky and that affects the customers big time!! Monday is my birthday and i am very happy to be off of work for it. I dont know what i am going to do but im sure something will come up. 25 is not a fun age to turn. It feels like its all down hill from here. Well i will update you all on Wednesday when i go back to the wondeful world of pharmacy!!!!
TAPT

Hello fellow techs

May.30, 2008

Hello fellow techs, i have not forgot about the blog, i have just been uber busy with work and gethering many more stories to share!! i promise i will write very soon!! Don't forget about me!!!!!
TAPT

More random rants from the mind of a tech

May,1, 2008

I've been working at my pharmacy for about 5 years now and i must say that (not including customers) surprisingly, i have little to no complaints about my store. I love my co-techs, the pharmacists and the owner is awesome. So right when you add customers into the mix, that's what starts to make my blood boil. One by one, customers do stupid shit like "oh i forgot to tell you i have a new drug plan" when they pick up their prescription after waiting at the counter for 15 minutes. It's just priceless when you tell them that you will have to re-bill all 10 of his scripts and it's going to take longer to see the pissed off look on his face. "I just waited 30 minutes, i need to go to work, i dont have time, could you please hurry up" Nothing irritates me more than some customer telling me to hurry up because they are in a hurry! First of all, you were standing there for 15 minutes, not half an hour, learn how to tell time (maybe you should go back to elementary school where you learn the anatomy of a clock) Secondly, why the fuck didnt you give me your new drug plan when i specifically asked you if you had a new one and you replied no and i told you i would bill them through as cash. Thirdly, you probably waited at the hospital for hours so why are you suddenly coming into my store and demanding me to hurry up. Do you go into the hospital and demand the doctor to take you next because you need to go to work? No! Go to work you little drama queen, and your prescriptions will be waiting for you when you get here....wow! Rocket Science!

Everyone im sure has at least 1 customer i'm sure that calls the pharmacy at least 10 times a day and you only hope and pray that you don't answer the phone when he or she calls because you know they will tie you up for a long ass time. There is this one lady who literally calls us ten times a day! She won't ask her question right away, instead she will ask how my shift is going, how are my cats doing, and making small talk. At first it didnt piss me off, it as nice to see a customer that actually cared, but by the third time on one shift, i could have slit my wrists and left myself to die in the middle of the pharmacy. I will admit that I have answered the phone and right when i hear her whiny voice, i hit the release button on the phone. Sure, she will call right back, but I will stay away from the phone so another tech will answer it. Smoooooooooooth! This lady is one of the most weirdest and fucked up people I have ever seen! She takes so much god dam medication, i always wonder how she is still alive! Get this, she takes 400...yes FOUR HUNDRED! Clonazepam 0.5mg every 5 days!!! and 90 codiene 30mg every 5 days!!! Not to mention her other prescriptions for Oxycontin 40mg, Oxycontin 80mg and more! The sad thing is that these are actually legit prescriptions from her doctor! She came to our pharmacy because most of the other pharmacies in town would not dispense that many to her. So you can imagine how out of it she would be when you talk to her. She'll get her Clonazepam filled yesterday and call today asking when she can get it next. Total pain in the ass!! sure, shes good for business, but she needs serious help....ISSUES! and i don't want to have anything to do with her...can you blame me? haha I have better things to do like sell a heroin addict 2 syringes for their mom's "insulin"

With all the bullshit us techs deal with on a day by day basis, it's a shame that we don't get paid a lot more considering we do just as much work as a pharmacist minus all the counseling bullshit. Maybe one day the Lord of pharmacy will realize this and compensate us technicians for our hard work and dedication.

And to top it all off, no matter how bad my customers are, there is one thing at my store that can get even worrrse........the methadone program.....Dun dun dunnnnnnnn" Yes we dispense methadone but that is a whooooooooolllle new ballgame and blog! And i'm sure I will bitch about that in the very near future!

TAPT

Ahhh Customers..

April.22, 2008

So we all know that customers say the stupidest things sometimes and most of the time we hold back with all out might from responding rudely or from the heart just so we can hold our store's reputation as the best pharmacy in town. For me, it is very difficult to be polite after a customer freaks out on me because "I don't have to pay the $2.00 at wal-mart, you guys are fucking retarded and crooks" to that i wish i could respond along the lines of: "well then take your fucking prescription back, waste the $5.00 it takes in gas to go to wal-mart, wait for your rx for like an hour to be ready by a bunch pf people who i bet can barely speak english and go rot in hell you cheap bastard." You pay for the services you get. Our fee may be a little higher ($11.99) but we offer a lot of services which other pharmacies may not offer like delivery, faxing doctors offices millions of times (which isnt free) making long distance phone calls to other pharmacies for transfers or drug plan info (which isnt free to us) and lots of other shit, but thats not what my blog is about today. It's about the stupid things that customers say and the comments that really get under my skin and make my blood boil.

1. "It's going to take 20 minutes?? My baby is out waiting in the car!!" - Well then first of all, why is your baby alone in the car while you are coming in for a refill on your husbands Viagra. I see where your priorities lie. Take your little brat home, put on Dora the Explorer, dont leave the house and when your husband comes home, tell him to stop being such a pussy and come get his viagra himself.

2. "I don't have any repeats? Why didn't you guys tell me this!" I'm not your fucking slave and worry about when you are running low on your medication, i'm pretty sure that you are capable of reading a label and seeing that there is 0 refills on the label. You are one little grain of sand in the pharmacy beach so i don't have the time nor desire to worry about your last refill of vaginal cream....i have more important things to worry about, like going on lunch break!! :D

3. "Who are you? You must be the new guy" Actually no, i've been working here for like 5 years, and maybe you would realize that if you actually came into the pharmacy instead of asking our driver to pick up your rx and re-deliver it every day. Just because you have never talked to me doesn't mean that I don't know your extensive history of mental problems, re-current UTI's and your high blood pressure problem because i know that your husband is cheating on you with someone else :) he asks to not let you pick up his ED meds, take that you selfish bitch.

Ahh yes, customers....where would we be without them? Probably we wouldn't have a job, but since we all do have customers, we might as well make fun of them!

Oh yeah, another thing i hate......My store has this thing where a customer can take their reciept and go to a website and put in the code and type comments on their service and every week, the comments get posted and sometimes highlighted, most of them are good comments, but there are some bad ones....I hate that fucking program! The comments are annonymous and theres no way to fight back to the mean comments. And when the bad comment begins with "the male tech" everyone knows it's me, i can't pass the buck onto the girl tech that looks like a guy unfortunately...

Well thats all for now,

TAPT

Wait Times

April.17, 2008

So i decided to write an entire blog on prescription wait times and the impatient and sometimes retarded patients who come in to wait for their prescriptions. I'm sure this issue is dear to every technician's heart and many will feel the same way as me, but some of you may not but i could give 2 shits whether you choose to disagree with me.

So when i take in a prescription at the counter, i take into consideration many things to determine a patients wait time for their Rx. Many things come to mind when i process a prescription. After all, i feel a sense of power when i can tell a customer that their prescription will take half and hour so don't fucking piss me off or it will be longer. Usually if a younger early-20 year old girl brings in a rx for her birth control I will gladly tell her about 10 minutes if that after doing a quick scan of her from bottom to top, if at any time something goes wrong with her physical scan, then her prescription may take longer than expected.....it's only fair to say that ugly girls have all the time in the world to wait since i'm sure they aren't going home to have sex so she won't be needing the birth control in the next 10 minutes.

If the patient is an asshole and say in their mid-fourties, i would generally give them the highest wait times. I may be younger than you, but at this point, i control the time until you take your first anti-biotic. Be nice to me, and I'll fill your Rx stat. Be an asshole to me and i'll "mistakenly" lose your presription and toss it in the trash. (i wouldnt really do that although i wish i could with some patients)

For some reason I am very impatient with seniors. I fucking hate when a senior brings in a prescription with like 10 things on it, i tell them half hour or so and they go sit right down in the waiting area and come to the counter every 5 minutes asking "did you call my name already?" No we didn't fucking call your name because i haven't even typed them yet. So half an hour later, turns out that the senior is 45 days too early for most of them. I go over and tell her she's early and she gets upset and yells at me that i could have told her that instead of making her wait for them for this long. Did i tell you to sit there and wait for them princess? NO! So go home, fuck off and watch your Coronation Street on tv. Like don't seniors realize that they still have half full bottles of their pills at home? Obviously not, most of their meds are paid for by the government so they might as well try and get them all and "screw" the system then go give them all to their friends at bingo. "Whoa man i took 2 extra Ramipril's last night, I had such a buzz man"

Maybe if patients paid cash for all of their prescriptions, then the wait times would not be half as bad. Think about it, no worrying about stupid messages from insurance companies rejecting to pay for the medication like "needs authorization" or "days supply exceeds plan limit" or the worst thing yet....Limited Use Codes! I fucking hate those codes in which half of the time doctors forget to write on the prescription and then the patient gets pissed at us that we are withholding their prescription from them. Why don't they shut the fuck up, we are trying to help them out, otherwise, stop being so cheap, pay cash and get the fuck out. People who have ODB don't fucking realize how good they got it, next to near free drugs and top service from the pharmacy staff all for a whopping $6.11 or $2.00. Patients should pay for extra services like faxing their doctors for refills or giving them temporary supplies. It's a pain in the ass and they don't appreciate anything. If a patient paid cash for everything, they would truly appreciate everything just a little bit more. anywho, that's all for my blog today, please leave comments and let me know how you feel on this subject!!

TAPT

Inroduction to Yours Truly

Apr.16, 2008

So after reading a website i recently stumbled across (angrypharmacist.com), I thought that it would be fun to open my own blog site along the same lines but from the point of view as a technician (a.k.a. the pharmacist's slave) So a little about me yet I won't reveal too much since the last thing i want is for the world to know where I work and my real name, so from here on in, i will simply be known as "Jay"

I currently live in the beautiful province of Ontario, Canada and work full time at a major drug store chain in a small city with a population of about 50,000. I love my job don't get me wrong but I'd just like to share some stories and vent on some issues which surround the wonderful world of Pharmacy.

Being a technician is a very valuable asset in a pharmacy and i don't think that many pharmacies could survive without us. I have tremendous respect for all technicians and I'm sure that we have to deal with just as much shit as any pharmacist, if not then more!

For some reason, patients can not understand that a technician can not answer their medical questions like "what you can use for your yeast infection" or how their antibiotic isn't working since they've been taking it for 2 days and they aren't getting any better. It's not that i want to be rude to you and tell you i can not help you (i'd love to help you and recommend the wrong thing and get you out of the pharmacy as fast as i can so i can go about my job as a tech) but I tell you to go wait at the counselling area for a reason so don't fucking huff and puff at me when i can't help you. I don't have the education to help you and i certainly don't get paid the money to answer your medical questions, so go down and wait for the pharmacist and if they are busy then leave....don't waste my time with questions because there isn't going to be ANY time where i will recommend something for you, your child, or your heroin addicted girlfriend who needs something to put on her sores on her arms.

The pharmacist's at my store are very overworked and rarely have any time to do things they need to do and i have the utmost respect for all pharmacists and i realize this, that is why i di everything in my power to help them out as much as possible, because I hate to break this to you, but they are human too and can't do everything. So to all the customers who stand at the counter and have piles of groceries and demand wht pharmacist to help find something that is not on the shelf but it is in the flyer....FUCK YOU! There is a customer service sign at the front ot the store for a reason...go use it! Don't waste the pharmacist's time when they could actually be doing something important like counselling the lineup of patients on their meds that your dumb ass held up with your stupid questions.

I hate when customers call and automatically they demand to speak to the pharmacist. I'm sure I can help you with 90% of your calls. I have a hand and can write down your prescription refill numbers you can ask me if we can deliver your prescription, so don't bother the pharmacist. You don't call your doctor's office and demand to speak to the doctor to book your appointment so don't do that kind of shit to me, it only pisses me off, but pisses the pharmacist off for wasting their time on your lame ass.

Being a male technician, I find that customers don't talk back to me as much or give me a hassle. I don't know if they are scared of me (they shouldn't be, i couldn't hurt a fly) or whether it is the fact that I won't fall for their bullshit and won't let them get to me and they can see that. Maybe they mistaken me for a pharmacist since you know...all pharmacists are young men. Am I wearing a lab coat and a name tag that says pharmacist? NO! so learn to read, give me your prescription to count and come back in 20 minutes, and if you are a young attractive girl waiting for your birth control, maybe it will even be done in 5 minutes, since i know you have better things to do than wait in the pharmacy for your Rx....but yeah, i'm sure i'll dedicate a whole blog to "wait times" since that is a very complex issue to most patients.

Hope you enjoyed my first blog and please feel free to leave me comments!!! I'd love to get your points of views on certain things and see what makes your blood boil.

TAPT