My back is killing me!!! Oh wait, there's a knife in it!

So usually my rants are me bitching about the stolidity of my patient base.  To be fair, only about 1 to 2 % of people are morons, but they sure know how to totally ruin my workday.  I figured this week I would give them a break, they’ve been working hard lately.

So today’s rant is going to be about other pharmacists and our willingness to stab each other in the back (usually before we throw each other under the bus).  Pharmacists tend to be a very caring bunch, myself excluded of course (I’m just an ass, but ya gotta be good at something).  We also love stabbing each other in the back in an attempt to make money.  For some people you can never have enough.  Personally, I realize that I’m pretty well paid.  Being a pharmacist is a pretty solid racket one might say, which is why I decided to stop working on oil rigs and furthered my education (although, this nagging back pain makes me wish I had decided that a year or two sooner).

Anyhow, pharmacists are compensated pretty well.  In fact, owning a pharmacy is a great idea (or it was at one time) which is why corporations wanted to get in on the racket.  Some time ago pharmacists of a generation past decided it would be a great idea to allow corporations to own pharmacies.  Great move!  Cue the back stabbing. You see, corporate America (in my case Corporate Canada, but I say Corporate America, just rolls of the tongue nicer) could realistically give a shit about my profession.  In fact, they could care less about you or me, all they want is money, as much of it as possible as fast as possible, and if you have to screw over the little guy in the process, well, screw ‘em.  This is the essence of capitalism.

Cue insurance companies.  They too realized there is a butt-load of money to be made on the drug business.  Hence the huge number of insurance companies vying for your hard-earned dollar to get you to buy drug insurance.  Here’s where the fun begins.  You see, some pharmacists of a bygone generation view themselves as businessmen and not health care professionals.  I can’t blame them, this seemed to be what you went in to pharmacy for, to be a businessman and earn a living.  It came with the bonus of being a “healthcare” professional.  Younger pharmacists such as myself (I know, I’m not THAT young) went into pharmacy to be health care professionals first, the earnings are secondary.  This has created an issue in the profession with older pharmacists not understanding why younger pharmacists wouldn’t want to work 120 hour weeks to get as much blood out of the stone as possible, and younger pharmacists soon frustrated when they realize they are nothing but corporate whores peddling their wares to make money for large corporations.

In an event, how does this all tie together (I seem to be rambling).  Well, a couple of quick points:

1.       FYI, much like Dentist’s, Pharmacies are not required to provide direct billing to your insurance company (but they all do).  We could, if we so chose, make you pay the full price and then submit your bills to your insurance company to be re-compensated.

2.       Pharmacists in each Province negotiate deals with their provincial government as to how much they will be paid for filling prescriptions.  This is the dispensing fee.  We also get to charge a mark-up on the medications, which is also negotiated by the government (I can’t upcharge more than a pharmacy down the street for example, this upcharge is fixed).

3.       Each Province is different as to the amount of medication they will pay for.  Here in Saskatchewan we have negotiated dispensing fees for drug lists.  There is a 34 day drug list, a two month drug list, and a 100 day drug list.  The fee is the same for each drug list.  This means some individuals receive some of their medications 34 days at a time, and some for a full 100 days’ worth (confusing, I know).   A pharmacy can, if they so choose, fill ALL medications for  a 100 day’s supply (which for me, being a small independent pharmacy is the fast track to going out of business).

4.       Insurance companies are run by low-life scum.  They could care less about these agreements.  They want you to get your stuff for as cheap as possible so they save money, fuck the pharmacists and whether or not their pharmacies are profitable (who doesn’t love working for free, and besides, we all know that bills magically pay themselves).  This includes, of late, sending letters to individuals recommending that they request a 100 day supply of all of their medications (not just the ones on the 100 day list) as it is cheaper for them.  This means I have to argue with the mouth breathers about why I do not do this, even though I can, and about the pharmacy going out of business if I did that for everyone.  Of course the typical mouth breather response: “Don’t do it for everyone, just do it for me” which is the typical piece of shit me first attitude I just love (as will be the subject of a future rant).

So some insurance companies have come up with a great idea. In their little letters they tell people that they should transfer their prescriptions to pharmacies that will fill all meds for the 100 days’ supply.  Basically, they strong arm the little guy into complying for fear of going out of business.  I love corporate greed.  Luckily, there are low-life corporate pharmacies out there willing to cater to this type of stuff.  Of course, the pharmacists working in these pharmacies know full well that this type of thing is basically like stabbing their colleagues in the back, but I guess as long as the bills are getting paid they are good (which is also very self-serving and very short sighted).

My solution (knowing full well it has a 0% chance of working) is to have all pharmacies in the province of Saskatchewan refuse to bill 3^rd party insurance payors, or failing that, have them just abide by  the goddam contract.  When the insurance companies cut off their coverage to their clients it is then on them to tell the insurance companies they can take their half-assed drug coverage and stick it up their ass.

But who am I kidding, that won’t work.  There will always be that segment of corporate pharmacies willing to screw the rest of us over.  And the worst part is, they won’t even buy us dinner before they screw us.

J

What is insanity? EDS is insanity, mixed with a little Zeppelin

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

Albert Einstein.

Smart guy, way smarter than me, and probably just a little smarter than R.  Funny thing is, every day I show up at my pharmacy for work hoping it will be a great day, and every day I leave frustrated and shaking my head at the utter fatuity of a lot of my patients.  (note that the online thesaurus is a great way to find ways to call people idiots without actually calling them idiots)

I must be insane.

So anyhow, on to my funny story of the ridiculous requests or accusations I receive in my pharmacy that seem absolutely reasonable.  This weeks rant focuses on one of my favourite things: Exceptional Drug Status (or EDS).  I work in Saskatchewan, so if you want to see the way EDS works (well in the eyes of the people who run it) just click here:

http://formulary.drugplan.health.gov.sk.ca/publications/APPENDIX%20A.pdf

In layman’s terms, EDS means that even if a medication you are on is not paid for by the Saskatchewan Provincial Drug Plan (SPDP), it may be eligible for EDS, and if it gets approval that means it would be covered.  Of course, there are hoops that have to be jumped through (some of them flaming).  Now, I’m actually a fan of EDS.  It forces would be prescribers to prescribe medications based on this horribly new thing called “Evidence-Based Medicine”.  Which means your Doc can’t just prescribe you Zithromax for your viral induced sore throat, they actually have to give a justifiable reason for prescribing you a medication that isn’t needed.

for a definition of Evidence-Based Medicine click :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_medicine

On the flip side, pharmacists also love getting yelled at, screamed at, berated and overall treated like a big steaming pile of S*!t over the entire EDS process (as if we were the ones who put up the road blocks just to make your life hell).  In Saskatchewan I am afforded the ability to fill out and send in EDS forms on behalf of the patient and physician.  All I need is the diagnosis from the physician to make sure the patient fits the criteria.  If I choose to lie just to make sure the EDS goes through I could get audited and be forced to pay back the drug plan… (I won`t get into auditing, that will be the subject of a future rant).  Once that is done the patient and physician receive a letter notifying them whether or not the EDS has been approved.

So, there`s a quick explanation.  A little further background.  I currently operate a pharmacy in my hometown which was run for 30+ years by the founder and for whom the pharmacy was named.  (Trust me, this is background).

On to the rant.

So little Mrs. Smith (bless her sole, and I mean foot, not soul) is getting a little irate with me and my failure to get her EDS to go through.  Now you will recall how I said I can do EDS for SOME  medications.  Some, means, by definition, not ALL.  Little Mrs. Smith`s medication happens to be one of them (for my pharmacy colleagues it happens to be donepezil).  For her EDS to go through she must have a test and meet certain DSM-IV criteria.  Click here to take a peek at the form:

http://www.health.gov.sk.ca/form-he599

Now, I cannot give her this test, and the SPDP requires her to have it every 6 months.  Note that I said that SPDP requires her to have it, not J the Grumpy Pharmacist.  Once done the form is filled in by the physician and faxed in (once again, not me).

In any event, it is obvious to you from this explanation that it is clearly ALL MY FAULT that Mrs. Smith`s EDS has not yet been approved.  Even though I contacted her homecare aid to set up her test and notified her physician`s office to inform them that it needed to be done.  It is also, again obviously, my fault that after all of the paper work was done over a month ago it was put into her file at the Physician`s office (again, by me because I`m kind of an ass that way) and not actually faxed in to the drug plan by the physician`s office (again, my fault, apologies to Mrs. Smith).

So after some investigating, phone calls, explanations (all of which I have just boatloads of time for) I get to the bottom of "my error" and get the physician's office to actually fax in the form.  Out of good faith, I even give Mrs. Smith some of the medication free of charge keeping my fingers crossed that EDS gets approved and I can actually get paid for the stuff.  (Mrs. Smith informed me that if it`s not approved she`s not paying for the stuff I have given her free of charge and that I will personally have to pay for it).  Please note, there is no intention to throw the physician or their staff under the bus, we all make mistakes (and all of them are my fault).

And after it`s all said and done the last thing I get from her is this statement: "You know, I don`t think you know what you are doing, back when (the previous owner) ran this store I never had this type of issue."

Further background, 5 years ago when the previous owner sold this store, Mrs. Smith was not on this medication, so no big surprise, she never had this issue.

I guess I should just stop screwing up and re-write SPDP's criteria for EDS.  Or better yet, I guess I will just "Ramble On" (I told you there would be a tie in to Led Zeppelin)

J

A Friend Lost

No rant today

It has been almost 10 years since I gradutated University.  While there I made some of the best friends I have ever had.  Of course time and distance have a way of interfering.  People get married, have kids, get divorced and go about living their lives, often time friendships which were once close become distant.  Monthly phone calls change into "We haven't talked in years".

I was saddened today to find out one of my friends from University passed away yesterday.  I am thankful for the night we ran into each other at a recent conference and spent a couple of hours reminiscing about old times.

You will be missed my friend, you were a kind soul and all who knew you are better for it.  Rest in peace DZ, you will be truly missed.

J

The Pentavirit and International Drug Shortages

Before reading this week’s rant I suggest you watch this clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPMS6tGOACo

Wasn’t that awesome!  Mike Meyers at his prime, one of my favourite clips from all of his movies.

Now on to the (not so) serious part of the post.  The “Pentavirit” scene is a nice segue into this week’s rant.  You see, there continues to be ongoing issues surrounding international drug shortages.  Before I get too much further I’m just going to string out some logic for you:

If a drug shortage is international that means it affects the entire world.  Canada is a nation located on the planet earth (which is another word for “world”) and therefore is affected.  Now since the province of Saskatchewan is part of the nation of Canada it is also affected.  Unfortunately, my town is located within the province of Saskatchewan, and finally my pharmacy is located in my town.  This means the international drug shortage affects my pharmacy.

So what has caused the international drug shortage, well, here is an article from CBC as to why they may be occurring:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2010/11/02/calgary-pharmacy-drug-shortage.html

I’m not going to link a bunch of stories.  If you are reading this that means you are on the internet, which means you have Google.  Just search “International Drug Shortages” and see how many hits you get.  I’ll pause and give you time to read all those articles.

…

Done?  Good.  So, here are some of the reason’s Patient’s have given me as to why I cannot get certain medications:

1.        They probably save them for everyone in Ontario, and Saskatchewan gets the drugs last.

2.       Small towns are always the last ones to get it, I could probably get it in the city.

3.       It’s because of all the online pharmacies selling all our drugs to the damn Americans.

Now, I’m not one to speculate as to what the cause is… because I’m here to tell you what the cause is.  You see, when Colonel Sanders went “tit’s up” they needed someone to replace him on the pentavirit.  It’s a big responsibility being on that board, a lot of power.  It was offered to me, but I figured that since I’m already busy with my personal plans for world domination (ie delusions of grandeur) I would need help.  As such, I enlisted my co-blogger R to share the chair with me (and he agreed).

Now seeing as we are both pharmacists we figured it would be hilarious to create a fake “International Drug Shortage”, and, using the Enron model, we could profit nicely for doing so.  Unfortunately, a couple of my customers have outed me over the past 6 months so I figured it was time to come clean.  So here it is:

Yes, It is our fault that there is an international drug shortage.  We created the entire mess just to prevent you from getting your pantoprazole because then you would use more TUMS, and we have stock in TUMS.  It’s fake, it’s our entire fault, and if you transfer your prescriptions to Mall-Mart they will have the drugs because I’m just screwing with you for my own pleasure.

Well, that’s a load off my chest...

As a side note, I actually had one patient who was told by a less than reputable pharmacist (and believe me, we are a bunch who historically love stabbing each other in the back AND twisting the knife) that there was no drug shortage, and if they transferred the prescription to Mall-Mart it could be filled. 

Surprise, surprise, after it was transferred the patient got to Mall-Mart and was told that the drug wasn’t in-stock, but the nice (re: slimy) pharmacist was willing to call the patient’s physician to have it substituted with another medication.  Thankfully for me, this particular person is one of my favourite patients, and she’s not a big fan of being bull-shitted.  She told the pharmacist that I had already offered that and that she would be phoning in a complaint to the licensing body about him for pulling such a shady tactic!

Nice… now I’m off to eat a big bucket of KFC, I crave it fort-nightly.

J

Idle, and Not-So-Idle Threats

You know what they forget to mention in the 4 years of pharmacy school.  That you should always have 911 on speed dial. 

I was acutely reminded of this about a week ago when I was working at a nice quiet suburban outlet of McDruggies.  Right around 5 in the afternoon I had a young man come in wanting a refill on his ventolin.  Of course he'd never been to this particular store, but no big deal...I'll just call his regular pharmacy and get his prescription transferred out.  So I call them up and they tell me he doesn't have any refills and that they told him this when he contacted them earlier.

So I go back to him with this info and he completely flips out.  Just right off the handle ballistic.  (FYI to the non-pharmacists that might be reading this - Hi mom - there's a fair bit of "professional judgment" allowed in the practice of pharmacy, but how much of it a particular pharmacist is willing to use can often depend on your attitude).  Since he's being a complete asshole right from the word go, I decide to do this one completely by the book.

In Alberta every pharmacist has been given a limited form of prescribing authority.  Basically, we can add a refill to a prescription for an existing patient to give them time to get to their regular doctor.  Or we can extend an emergency fill of a regular med to any patient if they can't get to any doctor, are in urgent need, and we can reasonably determine what drug/dose, etc they were taking.

Buddy-boy didn't qualify for part 1, since he wasn't my patient.  (There's a little contingency note on that one that allows any pharmacy to do it for people if it would be unreasonably difficult for them to get to their regular pharmacy for that same service.....but the fact that it was 5pm and he had a car and his regular pharmacy is open until midnight and only 20mins away made me read that as a "no" as well)

Part B didn't apply because there is a walk-in clinic right across the street from the store, that is open until 9pm and since he was able to rant, rave and generally make a fool of himself, he obviously wasn't in acute respiratory distress.

Once he stopped ranting enough for me to bother, I presented him with his options, basically...
A) Go back to town and beg at your regular pharmacy
B) Go to the doctor across the road and get a new Rx. 

This set him off on another rant.  Apparently neither of those options would work for him because he was on his way out of town and he didn't have time to do either of those. 

He then presented me with the only options that he deemed available.

1) I give him his damn medication or he was going to have to kick my ass
2) I don't give him his medication and he was going to have an asthma attach and die and then he was going to sue me and kick my ass. 

I, of course made him a counter-offer. 

1a) I give him his damn medication....but he'd better get his ass in gear cause I'm calling the police and chalking it up as a robbery....oh and by the way, you already gave me your name, address and phone number.
2a) I don't give him his medication, and I take my chances with the ass kicking/lawsuit because I'm calling the cops anyway.

He ended up going with number 2. 

I was actually a little disappointed.  I've offered "1a" to a couple ornery fucks over the years....and for some reason, visions of having a cellmate named "Bubba" seems to do wonders for their anger management skills.

(PS = Actually offering an angry patient a referral to an anger management counselor generally has the exact opposite effect, but when done correctly can be funny as fuck).

r

I have no refills remaining, and your toilet paper is too scratchy!

Ok, so this is my favourite (well one of my favourite) question that I occasionally get from patients at my pharmacy:

“It says on my bottle that I have no refills remaining and that I need to get a new prescription. Does this mean I need a new prescription?”

Now, take a minute to let that sink in.  You are probably thinking when you read that something along the line like “That person wasn’t serious were they?” or “People aren’t that stupid are they?” or “He’s probably just making this up because he couldn’t come up with anything good to write?”

Well the answers to those questions are: yes, yes, and no.  The best part is, this hasn’t happened to me just once over the course of my career.  It actually happens about once a month.  Now I, along with many of my colleagues, have been often berated by our customers with absolving comments such as: “You should have told me I was out of refills” or “The next time I just run out call my doctor” or, and this is my personal favourite, “How can I run out of refills, the doctor said I am going to be on this FOREVER!” (This comment will be the subject of a future rant as it is a virtual cornucopia of awesomness in and of itself)

I realize that in today’s society we have all been absolved of any responsibility for anything we do, and that if anything goes wrong in our lives it is someone else’s fault AND (if we are lucky) we can sue them.  Hence, if we run out of refills on out medications (By the way, the refills are clearly marked) it’s either the pharmacist’s fault, and if not that, then it’s the physician’s fault for not prescribing refills “forever until the end of time as we know it”.

So, I got sick and tired of this and came up with an ingenious solution (well, at least I thought it was, you will see below how well it worked for me).  I started typeing as part of the instructions on the vial “This is your last refill, please contact your physician immediately to schedule an appointment”.  We then started highlighting this in yellow and we would put translucent tape around the bottle so that the highlighting would remain a vibrant yellow.  Then I would print off a little tag that once again highlighted that the person was out of refills and that it was imperative that the person contact their physician immediately for refills and wrap this around the bottle with an elastic band (damn I'm smart, I was going to outsmart them if it killed me).

Anyhow, after 6 months of doing this I started to develop a chronic headache from repetitively beating my head against my pharmacy counter as person after person ignored my notes and highlighting and just walked back in with that dumbfounded look on their faces, totally surprised by the fact that they were out of refills.  I would point out that it says very clearly on the vial they were to get refills, only to be greeted by more looks of dumbfoundedness (ya  it’s not a real word, so sue me).  My favourite was the time that a woman actually brought me the bottle with the typed note still wrapped around the bottle and attached with the same elastic band as she had never even removed it and read it.  “Oh wow, I wondered what that was, I guess I should have taken it off and looked at it” (it was at this time that I stopped wasting my time sending along little notes).

Thankfully, back in April Pharmacists were granted limited “Prescribing Rights” here in Saskatchewan.  Now I’m not going to get into this too much, as this will also be the subject of another rant, however, now when they run out and come back in I point out to them that it was very clearly written on the vial that they were out of refills, but I can now give them another interim supply so they can call their doctor.  Now I look like a bloody saviour.  I then give them a full page letter explaining how this works which highlights (several times in the letter actually) that I cannot, under any circumstances, give them another interim supply, and should they forget to arrange for an appointment they are putting themselves in danger of going without their medications!!! The last 4 months were very relaxing,  now people could really give a shit and are coming in all pissy that I didn’t explain it clearly to them. 

I was just about to become a chronic alcoholic when I thought to myself “Self, how can I use this to my advantage and grow my business” and I came up with a new slogan and marketing campaign.  Here is my new pharmacy slogan:

At Grumpy Pharmacy we don’t just fill your prescriptions; we will actually come to your house and wipe your ass for you too!!!

Of course people will probably just bitch at me about how my hands are too rough or how my toilet paper is too coarse and then get pissy at me when I forget to remind them to take a crap.  Oh well, at least then I will be able to tell which of my customers have haemorrhoids and which ones are perfect assholes!

J

An Introduction

Why?
So, like J mentioned, we've had a fair bit of interest from people over at Facespace to start up our own angry pharmacist blog.  On my retail pharmacy working nights, all my friends watch their info-feed with baited breath wondering just what kind of rants are going to pop up from my profile. 

Way too often though, the situations deserve more than the 140 character twitter limit (that my phone imposes) so I have to either flesh my rants out with comments, or tell a bunch of people what the hell just happened by other methods.  Not very efficient.  So here we are.  I figure we've got 5 or 6 good posts in us before we get too busy, or bored, or boring, to continue.  But it's worth a shot.


Who? 
I'll leave J's intro to J himself, but here's mine.  Graduated pharmacy.  Went into retail practice in a large Canadian city.  Bounced through a few jobs before realizing that it was getting way too hard to get out of bed in the morning and that I needed a change. 

Made the move over to hospital pharmacy practice.  Overall, much better...but after a while, it started to drag too.  So I started picking up shifts here and there for my old chain.  Started out with just one a month, and they went pretty smooth, so I started picking up more. 

Currently I work full-time at the hospital, and 1-2 shifts per week in retail.  People ask why I do it....and the only real answer I can give is : "I work in retail pharmacy to remind me why I don't work in retail pharmacy".

Also...it gives me things to be mad at, so that I don't really get mad at my real job.  It's like having a hobby you hate...that pays you $45/hr. 


In other news.  I'm a 30-something male, married, with 2 dogs and a wife who's expecting in December.  I like drinking whisky.  And whiskey.  And if you don't know the difference, your father didn't love you.  I like long walks on short piers, and first-date public-washroom anal. 

Sometimes I like to push people's buttons.  Other times I like to just mash their whole keypad with my palm and watch them explode. (I once asked a woman who was screaming at me, when her last BM was, because, as her front-line healthcare professional, I was concerned that she was suffering from constipation-induced psychosis). 

That's probably enough for now.  I'll get into some serious business in the near future.  I work at the drug store tomorrow night.  That should be fun.  For you....


r

The first Grumpy Pharmacist, and no, 5 minutes isn't too long to wait

Hey everyone, if you really want to see some epic rants about how shitty retail pharmacy is just check out this guy:

http://www.theangrypharmacist.com/

Anyways, I figured I would do a blitzkrieg of posts today, because, well, I want to!

So anyhow, last week I had this wonderful patient in (we are supposed to call them patients and not customers because this is health care afterall) and hand me a prescription with 3 orders... forgive me, I cannot remember what the hell they were, it's not important.

Anyhow, she asks me "How long will that be, I'm in a hurry"

Now before I get into the meat of the is rant I want any of you non-pharmacy staff readers to know that it's not a good idea to start off the whole prescription filling process with this.  You should at least have the courtesy to say hello when we say, "Hi there, how can we help you"

Anyhow, it was a pretty slow afternoon (probably a Thursday, I really don't recall), and it was straight forward so I responded, "About 5 minutes or so".

Lesson #2, do not follow the pharmacist's (or assistant's) response by rolling your eyes, sighing and saying "Oh geez, that long hey" followed by "Well, I wouldn't normally ask you to do it faster but I'm in a hurry" (By the way, she is ALWAYS in a hurry, even though she's retired, which is weird in my eyes).

I am here to say, and I'm sure R can back me up, that "5 minutes" is not long in the world of retail pharmacy.  In my store 15 to 20 minutes is usual, and in some settings it could be 45 minutes.  So to imply that 5 minutes is too long is only giving the entire pharmacy staff a reason to take their sweet ass time filling your ungrateful ass prescription. 

I could have taken the high road (I kind of did) but I told her that in my profession, I would rather be right than fast... I also told her that the pharmacy across the street might be able to do it a little faster (knowing full well she has no file there which means she would have to walk across the street, set up a file, get her insurance set up, have them check the provincial data-base very closely, and the finally fill the prescription) as long as they weren't too busy (and yes, I fully realized it would take them longer than 5 minutes to do that entire process, but it was more like a dare than a suggestion).

Anyhow, I'm off to the local chain coffee shop named after a Hockey Star to wait 20 minutes in line for my coffee.

J

First Blog, and no, I don't recognize your fucking voice

Hi everyone, well, here it is.  Due to much fanfare and many requests on another social networking site (which will remain unnamed ;) ) the blog has been created and will feature the literary stylings of two Canadian pharmacists who met in school, come from Scottish ancestory, drink too much (goes without saying when you are a pharmacist AND Scottish), and are, well, for the same reasons, very angry.  Due to the necessity to keep patient information safe and confidential we will simply go by our first initials, and hence, this first post in this blog is by J, with others to come by R.

The Two Grumpy Pharmacists blog is well, two grumpy pharmacists.  I wanted to call it "Two Balistically Irate Pharmacists" but I figure Grumpy is more PC, although I plan on dropping F and C bombs like no tomorrow, I know R is way better at not swearing than me (ya right).

So anyhow, I might as well start of right, so today's rant: No I don't recognize your fucking voice.

Here's the Scenario, it's 10am, I'm busy (of course, it's 10am) and the phone rings:

J: Thank you for call Grumpy Pharmacy, how can I help you
Caller (on a very shitty cellular connection): Ya, I'm on my way to town, get both of my prescriptions filled... CLICK

J:... Well, I didn't respond, cuz the ass hung up.

So anyhow, I do drop a little extra dough in my pharmacy for call display, it helps now and then, but wouldn't you know it, this one came up unknown name and number.

Now, I don't claim to be the smartest man around, (or the smartest man blogging on this particular blog).  I'm also not that great with voices, especially on patchy cell phone calls.  I don't know about the rest of you, but everytime I call someone and I have something important to tell them I at least do the common courtesy of TELLING THEM MY FUCKING NAME!!!

Anyhow the guy shows up 20 minutes later to pick up his prescriptions and is surprised to find out that they aren't ready!  Big surprise, and when he asks why I tell him I didn't recognize his voice.  And then the cocksucker gets pissy with me!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!  Do you have any idea how many people I talk to in a day on the phone and in person.  Of course you recognize my voice and my name, because when you call me I'm the only pharmacist who works here!  I've got news for you, however, you aren't my only customer.  If you were, I would be fucked and would have to find another vocation.

Anyhow, that's my rant for today, I've got lots of good ones stored up, as does R.  We look forward to entertaining all 5 people who will follow this blog until we forget to stop posting.

J