Whether Your Pharmacist Hates You or Not....

...is usually determined by the first question they'll ask you. Specifically "Have we filled presciptions for you before or will this be the first time?" Far more often then most sane people realize the answer we get is......"yes" This after more than 12 years of trying to come up with a way to phrase that question to get the answer I need. "Have you been here before?" Will prompt a lot of "yes" answers from people who have been in the store to buy a loaf of bread but never have had a presciption filled in their life. This is not useful to me when I'm trying to pull up your profile on the pharmacy computer. "Have we filled prescriptions for you before?" prompts a lot of "yes" answers from people who have been in to have something filled for their husband, child, cousin, friend, etc. again, not useful information when I'm filling for you. So the offering of choices the first question represents, I've found, is the best way to get the results I need the highest percentage of the time. And yet there are still the people who will look at you and say "yes" to a question it is impossible for "yes" to be an accurate answer for. And I hate them.

The Seinfeld soup Nazi is my hero. Oh to live in a world where the customers would step up to the counter, place their prescription on with their insurance card on top, take 2 steps to the right, then back away until their medicine is ready. They would then come to pick it up, listen to my explanation as to it's intended use and possible side effects, ask whatever relevant questions are on their mind while not interrupting my answer, then happily go away without trying to talk about their grandson in Omaha or how much better things were in 1955 or ask for the 30th time why they took a brand of foot powder off the market before I was born. Instead......well.....stay tuned to the blog to get a window on what workday life is really like at your local drugstore. I promise every story is true, and I hope they will be entertaining.