Another Gift From Me To The Profession. A Practical Way To Deal With Corporate Short Staffing.

We've all been there. We've all looked up from our place behind the counter and seen a herd of screaming, foaming at the mouth barbarians. Chaos at the cash register. Anarchy at the in window. And a line of prescriptions to be done with no one available to work on them until things settle down.

And don't even ask for whom the phone rings. It rings for you.

I know it seems hopeless, and it is not unheard of for things to break down completely in these situations. I once worked at a 24 hour store that was behind for a solid month. You went in there at 3 in the morning, and you would have seen me in there cranking out prescriptions at full capacity and still not getting through the pill pile by the break of dawn. It doesn't always have to be this way though. Sometimes a little outside the box thinking can go a long way to keeping the capsules flowing.

Next time you're on the brink of breakdown, here's what you do. Walk over to the cash register and fuck something up. Just start pressing buttons at random until the thing locks up. Then page for one of the front end managers. Act stupid and humble when they arrive. You just don't get much practice running this goddamn thing, and could you bail me out?

My favorite fuck up is "accidentally" hitting the cash button when the customer wanted to pay with a credit card. That means the manager now has some skin in the game, because if that drawer doesn't balance, they're wasting a lot of time before they get to go home trying to track down why.

Then, when the front end manager starts to tinker with the register, and this is the most important part, WALK AWAY. Also evacuate any techs and cashiers you have from the area. Immediately go and answer the phone, start typing the pile of prescriptions into the computer, anything. Remember there is plenty of work to be done. Find some that is physically the furthest away from that cash register as possible and get to it.

It is regrettable that that manager must be sacrificed. That crowd of people will tear him to bits just as surely as if he were swimming with a school of sharks and developed a nosebleed. But the important thing to remember is he won't be able to get away. Once he fixes your fuck up and looks up to see.......no one....he will not have the testicles to leave an unmanned cash register in front of the crowd of crazed lunatics, who are now madder than ever for having to wait for him to fix the problem you created. The net effect? You now have an extra cashier. Leave him there until you make measurable progress towards catching up or your conscience breaks, whichever comes first. On Sunday I had the shift supervisor acting as my pharmacy cashier for a good 45 minutes. Poor bastard didn't have a choice.

Here's the best part. If you're good enough at it, that manager won't even realize how you fucked him. Again, the object is to act a little dumb. A little, "wow, I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't have come back" will go a long way towards keeping him from even realizing you just made him your bitch, and make it much easier for you to do it again.

I theorize this is similar to how pimps get started.