It was on the tv, it must be true!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Shironu, you forgot the dog that follows behind you and holds up all your kills!

"Bakery worker kills 12 with NES gun. Film at 11!" (still picture of dog holding up two of the victims)

[Kara]

On topic: When I was a Kroger, I a friend of mine wanted to move up to Pharmacy Tech. She had to memorize a massive book of every single drug out there, including all 2 billion generic drugs. Mistakes happen, sure, but I trust pharmacy techs as much as the pharmacists.

OT:

God forbid, I aced at duck Hunt as a kid. Gimme five more minutes at my job and I'll go postal with a NES Zapper.

"Tonight on the evening news, a young girl goes postal with a Zapper gun. Is nintendo 1985 to blame? Here are some images."

I'm down with that.

"Girl takes over country with army of R.O.B.'s and creates new regime. At 11, we'll have an exclusive interview with our new Empress and hear the details of exactly how tight her powergloved grip will be."

I can't find it at the moment, but there's a Penny Arcade comic where Pac Man is being accused of leading kids into depravity and evil, and Pac-Man says "Look, that kid was f***ed up when I met him."

I remember it, but I gave up looking for it. I did find this one, though:

[georgiab]

When I worked at Goodwill a story on Dateline I believe it was ran about how employees at a Goodwill had loaded up trusks and sold merchandise and just blew it way out of the water..so needless to say ppl assumed this happened everywhere..I didn't go a day without being accused of this type of misconduct..even now with working at the Salvation army I hear this mess.

[TNT]

Try being in the cable business... rarely a day goes by that some "news" outlet or another doesn't expose the ugly truth behind the evil cable monopoly.

Once upon a time, I was a part of one of those stories in a local newspaper... it's a long story, and I still don't like going into the details.

One day I got a call from a customer concerning a channel she wanted us to carry. Her father was dying, and apparently he very much wanted that channel. Fine... I'm sympathetic. But as a CSR, I was somewhat limited in my ability to dictate our channel line up.

Then she said something so horrifically weird that I was unable to come up with an intelligent response... the best I could offer was a primitive pre-verbal noise of disbelief. It was most definitely not a laugh, but it's hard to describe just what it was.

She blogged about it, and the story made a column in a local newspaper...

Her version: "I patiently expressed my concerns to the representative, stating that my father was terminally ill and didn't have long to live. The representative literally laughed in my face."

What actually happened:

Customer: My father's terminally ill.
Me: I'm really sorry to hear that. I've been through similar circumstances with both my parents, and I know how difficult that can be. But honestly, I can't change the channel line-up. That's a decision that's made by corporate...
Customer: YOU'RE KILLING MY FATHER. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?!
Me: Ahuhpftwhahuh?

[Kara]

Yeah, I'm a cell-phone rep, so I may be viewed as more evil than cable companies (I think we're ranked one spot higher than airlines). We see those stories all the time about the heartless company picking on the little guy.

So many more stories go unpublished. I get threats all the time from customers saying they're going to go to Channel 5 or call the newspaper or whatever. All because their whining and screaming didn't get them what they wanted so they'll "expose" us for what we really are. That's fine. Let the rest of my customers know that I am your service provider and nothing more. I am not a genie in a bottle who will give you whatever outlandish thing you want because you think that occasionally paying your bill makes you a good customer and entitles you to things.

[skeptic53]

A long time ago, the most-prescribed blood pressure medicine was ProCardia, a long-acting version of the generic Nifedipine.

Some guy at a convention read a paper in which he pooled other people's data and analyzed it all (a meta-analysis). His conclusion: Short-acting Nifedipine raised the risk of heart attack from 5% to 8%. This version of the drug is different than long-acting, and it was not ProCardia.

On a Friday evening, all the networks reported that "Nifedipine, most common brand name ProCardia, caused a 60% increase in the risk of heart attack. " (8 is 60% bigger than 5, so technically correct but very misleading).

Freaking pandemonium at all pharmacies, and for all cardiologists, internists and family doctors on call that weekend. On Monday the phones all lit up again.

I've always wondered how many people stroked out from high blood pressure from throwing away their ProCardia that weekend...

[justZu]

How about how awful video games are and how they corrupt our youth. Especially gun games.

But, but...if they take away gun games, how will our kids know how to survive when the Zombies come to eat our brains?



Damn, 12 hour work day + prescription painkillers for leg problems + tired as shit = weird thoughts galore.

[Princess-Snake]

I am not a genie in a bottle

Great. Now I want to listen to Christina Aguilara(sp?) Genie In A Bottle song. I remember that my guy friend (not boyfriend, no seriously, not boyfriend) complaining that he called a tech to help him "fix his internet" and that the tech was rude while he was polite. HA! I was in the next room when said phone call happened. Let's just say that my friend used a lot of interesting words that one would not normally use in a civilized conversation. Then he shouted, "Thanks for nothing you f***ing d***!" I feel sorry for the poor tech. What makes this funny is that my friend says that he's going to alert the media, write to the newspapers, and end up tv to "right a wrong done to the customer." Yeah, good luck with that.

[Brazen Hussy]

Back when I was working in customer service for a credit card company, Dateline did a "story" on how some companies used inmates to answer calls and take orders for products.

I lost count on the number of times someone would call in and ask if it was a prison. I soooo wanted to yell out so the caller could hear: "Hey Warden, somone on the phone wants to know if this is a prison. What should I tell them?"

I would just let those people know that no, they hadn't called a prison, it was a call center where we were free to come and go as we pleased. It just felt like prison sometimes.

[CancelMyService]

Luckily this happened before I started working for the cable company, but the local news INVESTIGATIVE TEAM~! did a sweeps thing about how to get a lower cable bill by calling in and pretending to cancel. I bet that was fun times in my call center.

[TNT]

Luckily this happened before I started working for the cable company, but the local news INVESTIGATIVE TEAM~! did a sweeps thing about how to get a lower cable bill by calling in and pretending to cancel. I bet that was fun times in my call center.

I've been through those... I remember when I was in tech support, we suddenly got a spike in calls from people who somehow got the idea that there's a Secret Discount. This was the oddest call, but a lot were along similar lines:

Caller: I have your internet service. I'm just calling to get a lower price.
Me: I'm sorry, but the price is the price.
Caller: You're the sixth person I've talked to and you've all said the same thing. Would you please connect me to the person who'll lower the price?
Me: I have to admit I'm clueless as to who that might be.

[Shironu-Akaineko]

"Girl takes over country with army of R.O.B.'s and creates new regime. At 11, we'll have an exclusive interview with our new Empress and hear the details of exactly how tight her powergloved grip will be."

"Well, Bob, armies are trained to travel any terrain via Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix, and shooting practice involves simulation via the very bloody Duck hunt and Shooting Gallery. People with real guns gets to shoots Atari E.T. Cartridges."

[Kara]

But, but...if they take away gun games, how will our kids know how to survive when the Zombies come to eat our brains?

Already taken care of:

The Zombie Survival Guide

I actually own this. If it weren't for the fact that the author is the son of Mel Brooks, you could almost believe he's serious about it.

[TNT]

Already taken care of:

The Zombie Survival Guide

I actually own this. If it weren't for the fact that the author is the son of Mel Brooks, you could almost believe he's serious about it.

Why are Zombies so pissed off about everything? If I was part of a group of Zombies, I wouldn't be thinking about eating people's brains. I'd be, "Hey, dudes... being as how we've already died... let's get drunk and go skydiving!"

[AFpheonix]

"Horrible. Now a testimonial from Jack Thomspon."

"VIDEO GAMES ARE THE DEVIL!"

"Thank you Jack. Go back to your cage now."

...And why is there this giggling dog standing behind me?


The stories that they included in the report were really sad. I feel bad for the families, and I feel bad for the staff that were responsible for the mistakes, because I can't imagine how awful they feel.
That being said, the first person, who was a woman who was supposed to be getting 1mg warfarin and accidentally got 10mg: if you're on warfarin, wouldn't you think you'd kinda know what dose you were getting, as they can be highly variable, and if you start hemorraging, didn't you think maybe you shouldn't have waited to go to the ER?
The second a baby girl who was supposed to be getting phenobarbital, and accidentally got glipizide and had a seziure that caused brain damage: did the mom NOT listen to the pharmacist when they were going over the med, or did she do what a lot of patients do to me, which is try to get out of counselling by whining?
Thing 2, why was the baby getting phenobarb in a tablet form when it conveniently comes in a liquid? Thing three, there's this little number the doctor apparently didn't consider when they prescribed it in the first place.