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Not your job... (long)
OT -other technician
PhD - Pharmacist
AM - Assistant Manager
SM - Store Manager
So, I'm a pharmacy tech, which basically means I'm a glorified pill counter, phone jockey and cashier. All the power in the pharmacy is held by those wonderful people with the degrees called pharmacists. Now, before tonight, I assumed everyone knew this. Boy was I wrong. (Luckily, this didn't happen to me, I was at the other end of the pharmacy just watching in horror, and trying not to giggle.)
We get someone coming through the drive thru to pick up her meds. OT looks her up in the computer, which has flagged her script as too soon... By half a month... For a controlled substance. So OT brings it to PhD, who gets on the speaker to the patient.
PhD explains to the patient that the script is too soon, and asks if her doctor has changed her directions. (Since there are a lot of doctor's that do that and don't send a new script in). At first, patient says no, then starts getting indignant that PhD is asking her about this. She tells PhD that she's taking it as her doctor tells her to, and it's none of PhD's business how she takes her meds, and not her job to ask.
PhD calmly explains that, yes, it is her job, and in fact her responsibility to ask, at which point patient explodes into cursing and screaming in the drive-thru. PhD decides she's had enough of this crap and pages for a manager, since she's not going to help said patient anymore.
AM comes back and tries to talk sense into the patient, who is insisting that another technician (who has gone home for the day) told her she could pick up her prescription and she wants to talk to that tech. AM tries to explain to her that a tech cannot override the pharmacist on ANYTHING, and neither can he. About five more minutes of cursing later, the patient leaves the drive thru.
Of course, she just comes inside. Then she starts screaming at OT, who's helping someone else entirely, and is told so. So, she returns her wrath to PhD. PhD tells her that she will not help her, and pages for management again. Patient calls her a coward who can't be a "big girl" and deal with it herself. PhD ignores her.
SM comes back to try to defuse this spitting, cursing time bomb of a patient, who is attracting a lot of attention from just about everyone else in the store. She listens to patient, and gets the story from PhD, who has been trying to get the doctor on the phone this whole time to figure out how to fix this and make this wart on the face of humanity go away.
Patient insists we call the technician who has gone home, SM agrees. Said technician has no idea who patient is, and has definitely not spoken to patient's doctor to get the okay for her to pick up her meds. Meanwhile, doctor on the phone says no way. SM explains this to patient who goes back into cursing, saying we were accusing her of being a junkie, that we were ruining her day, that she didn't have time for this. SM bending over backwards the whole time to try to get her to leave peaceably.
Patient finally stalks off, cursing the whole time. I get scolded for snickering (quietly, not that the witch could have heard me over her own tirade) by SM, who is trying to soothe PhD's ruffled feathers, giving the standard "we can't do anything about it" speech that we've all gotten from management.
A few minutes later, SM comes back with a broken sign. Apparently, to make her displeasure perfectly known, the patient ripped one of the signs off a cash register and flung it across the store, breaking it. For this, the patient is banned.
And that was the last half hour of my day at work, it's good to be home.
PhD - Pharmacist
AM - Assistant Manager
SM - Store Manager
So, I'm a pharmacy tech, which basically means I'm a glorified pill counter, phone jockey and cashier. All the power in the pharmacy is held by those wonderful people with the degrees called pharmacists. Now, before tonight, I assumed everyone knew this. Boy was I wrong. (Luckily, this didn't happen to me, I was at the other end of the pharmacy just watching in horror, and trying not to giggle.)
We get someone coming through the drive thru to pick up her meds. OT looks her up in the computer, which has flagged her script as too soon... By half a month... For a controlled substance. So OT brings it to PhD, who gets on the speaker to the patient.
PhD explains to the patient that the script is too soon, and asks if her doctor has changed her directions. (Since there are a lot of doctor's that do that and don't send a new script in). At first, patient says no, then starts getting indignant that PhD is asking her about this. She tells PhD that she's taking it as her doctor tells her to, and it's none of PhD's business how she takes her meds, and not her job to ask.
PhD calmly explains that, yes, it is her job, and in fact her responsibility to ask, at which point patient explodes into cursing and screaming in the drive-thru. PhD decides she's had enough of this crap and pages for a manager, since she's not going to help said patient anymore.
AM comes back and tries to talk sense into the patient, who is insisting that another technician (who has gone home for the day) told her she could pick up her prescription and she wants to talk to that tech. AM tries to explain to her that a tech cannot override the pharmacist on ANYTHING, and neither can he. About five more minutes of cursing later, the patient leaves the drive thru.
Of course, she just comes inside. Then she starts screaming at OT, who's helping someone else entirely, and is told so. So, she returns her wrath to PhD. PhD tells her that she will not help her, and pages for management again. Patient calls her a coward who can't be a "big girl" and deal with it herself. PhD ignores her.
SM comes back to try to defuse this spitting, cursing time bomb of a patient, who is attracting a lot of attention from just about everyone else in the store. She listens to patient, and gets the story from PhD, who has been trying to get the doctor on the phone this whole time to figure out how to fix this and make this wart on the face of humanity go away.
Patient insists we call the technician who has gone home, SM agrees. Said technician has no idea who patient is, and has definitely not spoken to patient's doctor to get the okay for her to pick up her meds. Meanwhile, doctor on the phone says no way. SM explains this to patient who goes back into cursing, saying we were accusing her of being a junkie, that we were ruining her day, that she didn't have time for this. SM bending over backwards the whole time to try to get her to leave peaceably.
Patient finally stalks off, cursing the whole time. I get scolded for snickering (quietly, not that the witch could have heard me over her own tirade) by SM, who is trying to soothe PhD's ruffled feathers, giving the standard "we can't do anything about it" speech that we've all gotten from management.
A few minutes later, SM comes back with a broken sign. Apparently, to make her displeasure perfectly known, the patient ripped one of the signs off a cash register and flung it across the store, breaking it. For this, the patient is banned.
And that was the last half hour of my day at work, it's good to be home.
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