Logicgui.com

Ok, “love” is an exaggeration. But sometimes, working retail is quite gratifying. In the past week, I got to fill Mr. John Biggerrod his Cialis , miss Phyllis Herpes her Valtrex, rinsed perfume out of a kid’s eye, helped an illiterate man remember how to take his meds, and got a woman to flop out her bare breasts to show me her rash. Yeah, top that you vanco-troughing, aminoglycosides-dosing hospital pharmacists.

HIPPA notice: the above names and incidents may be fictitious. I can’t really decipher because I’m tired and delirious.

The hotel AC unit kept me up most of the night. Every time it turned on, I would wake up. By the time 7 o’clock came, I felt like I had slept for only an hour. I showed up for work a bit later than usual, turned on the computer, and got a message “could not establish network connection.” Damn. To add insult to injury, both cash registers were down. No debit cards were accepted. Midday quickly rolled around when a lady came in bitching about a misfill that happened 2 months ago. I stood there, innocent and confused. Nonetheless, she gave me an earful about how her med-school-student daughter could have died. Turned out, it wasn’t a misfill, just a misunderstanding about a refill request. I just can’t wait for the weekends.

What comes as blue tablets and costs almost $10 a pop? Nope, not Viagra. It’s Moxatag.

See, its revolutionary indication, anomalous formulation, and innovative release mechanism absolve its large expenditure. So I thought, until I saw the stock bottle.

Turns out, Moxatag is simply once-a-day, extended-release amoxicillin. Yes, amoxicillin. Fucking Middlebrook Pharmaceuticals managed to turn one of the cheapest drugs into something most of us probably would not be able to afford. They don’t give a shit about our empty pockets, just as long as they can cash their million dollar checks and pay off their million dollar mansions. Worst yet is the hormonally-charged dickhead of a doctor who got swindled by big-breasted, long-legged blond drug reps in tight pantsuits into actually writing a script for the drug.

So instead of a $4 generic drug, you’ll end up dishing out nearly $100 for 10 tablets to treat a simple strep throat. How fucked up is that?

We are in the midst of the flu season. Guess what drug had the biggest increase in sales last week? Tamiflu? Good guess, but no. Relenza? You’ve been reading the CDC website haven’t you. Good try, but wrong again. Z-pak, Amoxil? Nope.

The correct answer is Plan B, the morning after pill.

Plan B will not prevent the flu, of course. But it will prevent pregnancy, especially after getting shagged on Valentine’s day (yes, that evil holiday), which just happens to be in one of the worst months for flu. Now you see the correlation?

Every year, the days after Valentine’s Day are filled with dumb-asses timorously asking for Plan B at the pharmacy counter. I mean how stupid are these people to not carry a raincoat around knowing that it’s gonna rain? I bet these same people will probably go to war without any guns. Idiots!

Ugly Fat Woman: I need to speak to the pharmacy.
Me (saying): Yes ma’am, how can I help you!
Me (thinking): Damn it, it’s 10 minutes to closing. What the hell does she want?
UFW: Are you the pharmacy?
Me (saying): Yes ma’am.
Me (thinking): Nnnoh!
UFW: I’m on a fluid pill and my legs are swelling up. I’m all out of medicine. Can you give me some?
Me (saying): Do you have a script with us?
Me (thinking): You better have a script with us.
UFW: No, but can you just sell me some for a couple bucks?
Me (saying): I’m sorry ma’am I can’t. It’s against the law. I will need an actual script to fill it.
Me (thinking): You fucking idiot. You’re gonna stand there, with your ugly fat baby in your chips-soda-cheese-filled shopping cart, wasting your breath and my time, thinking that I will just sell you some fluid pills. Are you kidding me?
UFW: Oh ok, thank you.
Me (saying): You have a good evening ma’am.
Me (thinking): And get hit by a bus on your way out.

Phar-ma-cist [fahr-muh-sist] -noun : a person licensed to prepare and dispense drugs and medicines.
Phar-ma-cy [fahr-muh-see] -noun: a drugstore.

Hey stupid Walgreen’s pharmacists! I hope you have a lot of patience and plenty of time on your hands. Why? Because the next time you need a transfer from me, here’s what’s going to happen. I’ll let the phone ring for a minute or two (you’re welcome, I know how much you love that sound), pick up the phone with the most contumelious greeting, and put you on hold for another 10 minutes (no no, 10 minutes and 57 seconds to be exact) just to transfer you back to the front desk. That’s right. And after another 8 minutes and 31 seconds of holding, I’ll spit your damn transfer out at you at a speech rate of no less than 800 wpm. And when I’m done, I’ll hang up on your face. Yeah, how do you like them apples?

I have come to a realization, after one week of training, that my employer is a bunch of phonies. Sure, the people there are super friendly. It’s the corporate system that sucks ass.

Remember this post I’ve made a few months back? Well, lucky for me, I’ll be working with the same exact system for the rest of my life, or at least until I’m fed up with it. For a company that prides itself in innovation and technological advancement, it sure doesn’t give a damn about pharmacy.

To make things worst, everything you do is being scored, from the number of times you input the sig code as free form to the number of credit returns. Hell, they probably score me on the number of times I didn’t kiss a customer’s ass.

The bad thing is I can’t walk away. Of all the graduates in the state, they only hired 4. And I am not gonna give up my position that easily. Oh well, maybe it’ll get better with time.

The Break

Took a few days off from being lazy to be lazier! Our initial plan to visit the Lone Star State was ruined by a family with shits for brain. Nonetheless, I was still able to spend a few days with her to relax and get fat. As unbecoming of me, a squiggle, as this may sound, I have my vacation all planned out. Baptism this week, bachelor party next week, H-town middle of April, Destin, and all leading up to Vietnam!

The Misfill

Last day of rotation was quite perfect, besides a little misfill. Coumadin 3mg was entered as 5mg, and the pharmacist signed off on it. Thankfully I wasn’t the one who keyed it or filled it. Unthankfully, I should have been the one who keyed it and filled it. I saw the script, pulled the right drug, prepared to count the tablets, but had to inform a junkie that no, she can’t just read me the Vicodin script over the phone, I actually need the hard copy. Apparently, the tech didn’t care for my 3mg bottle and entered the 5mg. Another tech filled it. By the time I hung up the phone, the damage was done. It sucked even more that the misfill was noticed not by the patient but by the doctor.

“Hi, this is B from Dr. M’s office. We ordered warfarin 3mg, but it was filled for 5 mg. Are you the pharmacist?”
“Uh no ma’am, not for this I’m not.”

While the pharmacist was apologizing her way out of trouble, I was singing “it’s too late to apologize, it’s too late.” At times like these, I’m glad to concede my $50 something an hour and be a free labor intern.

The Compliment

As the day wrapped up, a mustached woman (yes, full grown, visible from 10 feet away mustache) asked me to recommend an OTC product. I simply wanted her symptoms but instead got her whole life history. After a million blahs, to which I pretentiously nodded while staring at her mustache, she finally told me her symptoms. I recommended a product. A few million blahs followed. She thanked me wholeheartedly and said “you’re going to be a great pharmacist.” Perhaps it was the sincerity in her eyes or the gratitude in her tone, but those words alone obliterated all my insecurities as an intern and gave me the confidence to practice on my own as a pharmacist. As she walked away, I felt a profound sense of accomplishment, a feeling one rarely gets in a hospital setting.

I can’t ask for a more perfect ending.

This month’s rotation really got my ingenious mind working. I don’t mean the fact that I have to know all the brand names for every generic just to locate the drugs, or the fact that I have to push F4 instead of ENTER after inputing a patient’s name (because pushing ENTER to enter just makes way too much sense for the dumb asses who developed the system).

My mind gets a workout because each morning I must contrive a nifty little mind game to keep myself sane. What else can I possibly do with 2 pharmacists, 5 techs, 8 hours, and only 190 scripts besides picking my nose and scratching my ass?

So this morning, I decided to count by 5’s, backwards. 30, 25, 20….5 tablets of HCTZ. That carried me through 4 scripts until my fascinating mind started counting backwards and forwards simultaneously. 30, 5, 25, 10, 20, 15 Nexium capsules. Too easy. I needed a bigger challenge.

That’s when, at time 10:23 am of date Thursday, March 27, 2008, The Perfect Pour was born.

It wasn’t until my 6th pursuit that I attained perfection. The script called for 30 metoprolol tablets. With wrist steady as rock and light as feather, I poured out precisely 30 tablets. The feeling was so elating that I thought I had a mind orgasm. Next up, 14 tablets of Cipro. Again, exactly 14 tablets were poured on my blue Protonix counting tray. Back to back perfection.

Can I three-peat? As I started to pull the next script, Mr. SpongeBob (that’s not really his name) approached the window, whispering for us to fill one of his Viagra. I poured out one tablet, and my 3 consecutive perfect pours delivered the best mind orgasm of mankind, the same orgasm Mr. SpongeBob will experience in an hour.

Unfortunately, my attempt at regaining perfection failed for the rest of the day.

A new tech came in around late afternoon. It was her first day. Apparently, someone forgot to teach her the basics because she was counting by 3’s. Hmm, counting by 3’s. Tomorrow’s game should be interesting.

So they gave me an ID and password at work. That means I actually have to learn their crappy DOS system that was developed by neantherthals a few million years ago along with the invention of the wheel. Everytime I’m on it, I feel like I should be riding horse carriages to work and speak in Old English. “Good den, my lord. What be thy birthdate? Dost generics suit thee? Most splendid!” “Sir Williams, methinks ye hath no refills. Very well, I shall summon thy physician at once.”

Perhaps it was God’s intervention to save me from my DOS torment when the entire store plunged into darkness due to a power outage. Even the backup generator failed. I got to go home 30 minutes early as a result. Yes, it takes a power outage for them to let me go half an hour early. It’s gonna take a category 5 hurricane for them to let me to go an hour early and an apocalypse for them to let me off a whole day.

So I’ll be praying for the end of the world this week.