Sunday, August 30, 2009

I'm Becoming a Bigger Asshole Each Day

One of my pet peeves in life is when people don't want to take care of themselves. It's always something or someone else's fault. They expect everyone else in society to cater to their needs at their discretion.

And it pisses me off.

Personally one of the greatest strengths a person can display is to admit that they are wrong. Many people would rather drink Hydrochloric Acid than admit they were wrong. Hell I have a post on here that I have received a lot of feedback on and I know that I was wrong in posting it (don't worry a revised post is in the works).

In pharmacy, one encounters this problem on a daily basis. We're supposed to watch over the thousand plus patients that our store serves every single day. My example?

Earlier a woman came to our drive thru to pick up some prescriptions for her dad. One of the drugs is Proscar 5mg which we did not have. We only have two patients on that particular drug, so we generally keep only one bottle on the shelf at a time for cost reasons. We've never had a problem before as they do not get their refills filled in the same window. Until now.

I explain to her that we do not have the drug in stock and that we would have it by 11am tomorrow morning. She then asked 'why the hell we do not keep drugs in stock that our patients take at all times' and that she was going out of town for a week and that 11am wasn't good enough for her.

She also lived in an adjacent town which caused even more 'difficulty' for her as she would have to drive back and leave for her trip an hour later.

Ya know what, it's not my fucking problem. Anyone who gets prescriptions filled on a regular basis knows that usually there is a snag or two along the way. If I'm going out of town, would I call everything in on a Sunday right before I leave?

Fuck no. I would use that mound of material in my head, you know a brain, and plan ahead just in case. I have no qualms when someone comes in a week before they leave with a list of things they'll need. Hell I'll gladly call and get overrides for a person who does that.

Instead I'm supposed to watch over someone else even though they are fifty-some years old. Perhaps next time you should think things through a little better and not blame me when shit goes south.

And no I did not relay these feelings to her at all. I merely smiled, nodded and found a store that had it so she could get it when they opened at 8am.

Yet I can't help what think what I an asshole thought it was that I had. Then again maybe you have to be an asshole to do this job.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eh...I wouldn't worry. The asshole threshold isn't crossed by thought alone. You did afterall fix her problem, despite her being an asshole first.

Frantic Pharmacist said...

Plan ahead?? What a crazy concept.
I do not feel bad at all if we are out of something when the person has not called a day ahead. And when they tell me "I'm all out" ---well, whose fault is THAT? Not mine.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

We all have those thoughts. It's the ability to suppress them that counts. Ya done good.