Put down the stupid cell phone and talk to me!

Bad Name of the Day: Octavius. Do you want your child to get beaten up?

Names

Bad Name of the Day: Teekeylah (tee-kee-lah). How much "Teekeylah" do you have to drink to think this would be a good name for your child?

Sorry

Sorry all, life has more hectic than usual. But I'm back- let the party resume!

Yeah, right.

I have been complained about by a customer for the first time ever! What did I do that was so awful that Mr. Idiot wanted me fired? When he called me to have his prescriptions refilled, I asked him his name, phone number, date of birth, and/or prescription numbers.

He refused to give any of them. He insisted that he only give me his phone number and I should know what prescriptions he needed filled. I told him I needed some sort of information to verify I had the right person, and then I asked him which scripts he needed filled.

My bad! I didn't realize that I was being so rude. How dare I make sure I have the right person and fill what they actually need.

He didn't want all his scripts filled, but somehow I was supposed to read his mind and just know which ones to fill.

Sorry, I skipped the day mind reading was taught in pharmacy school.

Mr. Idiot said that I deliberately antagonized him by taking a whole minute to fill each script! Guess what, it really takes a minute for me to fill each script on the computer.

Can you guess why I'm calling him Mr. Idiot yet?

Bad Name of the Day: Somalia. For a newborn white girl.

Names

Bad Name of the Day: Nugget. Nugget?!? Yes, Nugget. As a first name. Another case of why did your parents hate you?

Second Bad Name of the Day: Garland. Like the stuff you put on your Christmas tree. Again as a first name.

Things that make you go hmm...

Lady brought in a script today for diapers for her five month old baby. She has Medicaid. Yes, New York State Medicaid covers diapers, but that is supposed to be for disabled people, not lazy people. Now don't get upset at that comment, read on.

I ask if the baby is disabled. She gets offended. I was honestly curious. While figuring out how to bill baby diapers (I know how to do adult diapers), she started talking to one of my techs. The tech was stunned and told me about the conversation.

The woman said that since she was out of high school, she now has to keep having babies or New York will try to make her go to work.

Awww, poor thing.

She was okay with having a kid every two years because the state would pay for it all- Medicaid for medical matters, $100 a month from food stamps per extra child, WIC provides extra formula, Section 8 pays her rent (and with enough kids she will qualify for a bigger apartment), welfare pays for everything else. And she was so happy because she just found out Medicaid even pays for diapers!

Grrr.

Medicaid is for those who cannot work or those who can work but don't make enough to afford insurance. All of these government assistance programs are. They are NOT for those too lazy to get off their butts and go to work.

I know it's not politically correct, but I would love to spike her food with birth control pills. Just grind them up and sprinkle on whatever food she is buying.

If you go through the drive-thru on a windy day and don't use either the clips or the clipboard to secure your money or prescription, don't expect me to go outside and retreive it for you.

I had three (!) able bodied adults who refused to secure their money or paper prescritions and, when they blew out of the drive-thru drawer, wanted me to go outside and pick it up for them.

I really don't think so.

One lady started dropping f-bombs and being a general potty mouth when her twenty-two dollars blew away. This was after I told her to put the cash on the clipboard- and she literally put it on the clipboard, not in the clip on the clipboard.

And that was after she treated me like an idiot. I told her that her total was seven dollars. Her response to that was to hold up a twenty and two ones and tell me twice that she wanted a ten and a five for change. Both times she said that, I told her yes, that twenty-two minus seven is fifteen and the largest bills I could give her would be a five and a ten so I would do so.

What a moron.

One person muttered that I should just stick out my hand and grab it. My arm doesn't reach four feet. I'm five feet tall on a good day, and I have tried, in the past, to reach out to morons who can't pull close enough to reach the drawer, but my back hurts after several hours of that. I informed her of this, and she said it was my job to do so. I said, no, my job it to fill prescriptions, not to contort myself so I hurt for the next week so she could skip using a clipboard.

Most people can figure out how to work a clipboard. Those who can't, oh well. Not my problem.

Name

Bad Name of the Day: Gary Garcia. If you want to pay tribute to the late Dead lead singer, just call the kid Jerry Garcia. If not, name him something totally different so people don't constantly ask him if he knows his name is very close to Jerry Garcia.

Crazy

New York state law is crazy. Only a pharmacist (or intern) can call a doctor's office for refills on a prescription, but anyone at the doctor's office can (and do) authorize refills. I'm not talking about nurses, I'm talking about secretaries.

People who don't know what the drugs are used for, or how they are supposed to be used, are able to make decisions about a patient's medication. Receptionists call in new prescriptions or try to answer questions about altering the prescription for whatever reason. Some even ask what the patient wanted, or just say to give the patient whatever they want.

Yet a pharmacy technician can't call and ask if Mr. Smith can have a refill of his blood pressure medication. It's a yes or no question. I'm not talking about taking a verbal order for a new script. I'm talking about refilling a medication that the patient has been on.

Crazy.

Lady brings in a script for her husband for a bowel prep kit (the nasty stuff you drink to clear out your intestines before a colonoscopy) last night. I tell her we are all out of cherry and orange flavors- all we have is lemon lime. She says okay, so I run the script.

Turns out her new Medicare plan (don't get me started about Medicare) doesn't cover this prep kit- they have a different preferred one. I tell her it costs sixty-four dollars, but I can call her MD Monday to switch to the preferred brand so it will be covered. She says no, her husband has his colonoscopy 8am Monday morning.

She pays cash and takes the lemon lime flavor home.

I could see this coming- she calls me back later that night. Her husband says he won't drink the lemon lime, he has to have the orange or cherry flavor. I tell her we are out of it. I can order it for Monday, but it won't do any good. I tell her I can have whoever is working tomorrow call around to other stores in my chain to see if anyone else has it in stock. She says she wants me to call every pharmacy in Buffalo.

I tell her no, I will do her a favor and call the other stores in my chain, but I'm not calling every other pharmacy in Buffalo until I find the flavor her husband likes. She can do that.

She starts complaining about the lack of customer service. I'm ready to laugh at her- I just offered to have my replacement call around tomorrow and find the product for her, and she wants me to do all her work tonight. First of all, only five twenty-four hour pharmacies are open in Buffalo at that current time, and I've already called them all. Second, this is not my responsibility. I have about a hundred other people that want to be waited on and have their prescriptions filled.

She says she wants her money back. I tell her we don't give refunds once a medication has left the pharmacy. She says she is going to have me fired. I tell her that is company policy, and the policy of most pharmacies. I remind her that I did tell her this before she paid for the medication earlier this evening. She says she knows I told her that, but she thought I would make an exception for her.

Nope.

What gets me is that she and her husband have had this prescription for over two months and wait till the weekend before they need it to fill it. If they had come in Thursday or even Friday, this whole mess could have been avoided.

Bad Name of the Day: Sarah Cynthia Smith (slightly changed to protect the stupid parents and me from getting sued). God forbid this child have a lisp.

Name

Bad Name of the Day: Gerrie. Is it pronounced Gary or Jerry? Either way, it's a very strange spelling.