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The long and the short of it...
I work at a pharmacy in sales, and usually it is hard NOT to sympathise with the customers. The pharmacy is usually the last stop for medical bureaucracy.
Everytime the pharmacy gets a prescription to fill, we have to send a fax to the doctor who wrote the prescription, who in turn has to fax us back. A lot of times we will fax the doctor on a Thursday, and he or she did not get to faxing us back on Thursday, forgot about about it Friday, and didn't work the weekend. So a customer (who dropped off their prescription on Thursday) will come in on Monday morning, and their prescription is not ready. Bloody awful. Also a LOT of times the doctor will mislead a patient on the price of a prescription so said doctor does not have to explain to the patient about the cost, then insurance will not bother to tell the customer that their prescription is not covered, so the customer will come to the pharmacy thinking that he or she is going to pay about $20.00 for two prescriptions only to find out that the total is over $200! I remember one elderly lady who came in for an antibiotic and a pain medicine. She thought she was going to be paying about $30.00 only to find out that the total was close to $175. It sucks twice because #1 it was a misserable time to get a bombshell like that, and #2 she did not KNOW she was going to have a $175 expense so she did not plan for it financially. She almost came to tears, then she did what I would have done. She paid for the antibiotic and left the painkillers at the pharmacy. So now for about $35 she only has one of her prescriptions, and has to find some OTHER way of dealing with post surgery pain. You get a few of those and you want to see if there is a website called "pharmaciessuck.com".
So while most of my customers are usually 100% right about the state of things, I will get the one or two who are 100% wrong, and "Mrs Hand" is a perfect example.
Twas a rainy Saturday afternoon, but that is neither here nor there. We had a LOT of customers who came in seemingly all at once which created a fairly long line, and that usually adds to customers stress, and again, usually I sympathise. After dealing with a lot of customers who managed to find a way to be polite after waiting in line for 10-20 minutes, a heavyset woman with a VERY bad disposition came to the front of the line.
"(Me) Hello, thank you for waiting. May I have your last name please?"
"Hand."
"(Me) Thank you, and how are you spelling that?"
"HAND! H-a-n-d!"
"(Me) Thank you. And date of birth?"
"(Omitted for legality)."
Nothing came up on the computer, so I aked the customer to confirm the birthdate, then I asked her to spell the last name again in case I heard it wrong.
"HAND! H-A-N-D!"
Checked again, and you got it, nothing. Again I asked the customer to confirm the birthdate, and to spell the last name.
"HAND!!! H-A-N-D!!!"
At this point I can tell she is close to exploding, but it kind of fell under "what can I do?" I went to another computer that has more detailed records for customers.
I did a search for "Hand" by itself. Nothing.
I did a search for the birthdate. Nothing.
I did a search for "Han" and "Hen" in case it was a sound alike. Absolutely nothing. She was ready to have a meltdown, and I was all out of options.
I politely explained to the "lady" that she was not showing up on my computer, and she would have to do to the drop off window (less than 20 feet away) to see if the techs could located the presciption. The next phase was very easy to predict. A meltdown. Her voice boomed so loud you could hear her on every corner of the store. Customers stopped what they were doing to see if someone was hurt. She was insulting me at top volume, and oh yes. She was using four letter words. She made the way to the drop off window, and a tech came down to my computer about 30 seconds later and entered the following text in the "Last name" field of the pick up screen on my computer.
"Heneshaw".
"Wtf?" I thought to myself. And while I am thinking it, the woman is still screaming at the top of her lungs about what an idiot I am.
"Yeah, lady. I am the idiot." I thought to myself. I mean seriously, how was I supposed to get "Heneshaw" from "Hand"?
I have retraced this one in my thoughts quite a few times since then, but it wasn't like I only asked once and was not paying attention. Three times I asked her to spell her name, and three times she spelled it "HAND! H-A-N-D!".
A few days ago I was walking out of a restaurant when she was walking in. I came close to saying something, but didn't. I glared at her, but she made it a point not to make eye contact. But I already had my comback ready in case I said something rude.
"Alright mister! I am going back to your pharmacy and telling them about your attitude when you are not working! What's your name?"
"HAND! H-A-N-D!"
I work at a pharmacy in sales, and usually it is hard NOT to sympathise with the customers. The pharmacy is usually the last stop for medical bureaucracy.
Everytime the pharmacy gets a prescription to fill, we have to send a fax to the doctor who wrote the prescription, who in turn has to fax us back. A lot of times we will fax the doctor on a Thursday, and he or she did not get to faxing us back on Thursday, forgot about about it Friday, and didn't work the weekend. So a customer (who dropped off their prescription on Thursday) will come in on Monday morning, and their prescription is not ready. Bloody awful. Also a LOT of times the doctor will mislead a patient on the price of a prescription so said doctor does not have to explain to the patient about the cost, then insurance will not bother to tell the customer that their prescription is not covered, so the customer will come to the pharmacy thinking that he or she is going to pay about $20.00 for two prescriptions only to find out that the total is over $200! I remember one elderly lady who came in for an antibiotic and a pain medicine. She thought she was going to be paying about $30.00 only to find out that the total was close to $175. It sucks twice because #1 it was a misserable time to get a bombshell like that, and #2 she did not KNOW she was going to have a $175 expense so she did not plan for it financially. She almost came to tears, then she did what I would have done. She paid for the antibiotic and left the painkillers at the pharmacy. So now for about $35 she only has one of her prescriptions, and has to find some OTHER way of dealing with post surgery pain. You get a few of those and you want to see if there is a website called "pharmaciessuck.com".
So while most of my customers are usually 100% right about the state of things, I will get the one or two who are 100% wrong, and "Mrs Hand" is a perfect example.
Twas a rainy Saturday afternoon, but that is neither here nor there. We had a LOT of customers who came in seemingly all at once which created a fairly long line, and that usually adds to customers stress, and again, usually I sympathise. After dealing with a lot of customers who managed to find a way to be polite after waiting in line for 10-20 minutes, a heavyset woman with a VERY bad disposition came to the front of the line.
"(Me) Hello, thank you for waiting. May I have your last name please?"
"Hand."
"(Me) Thank you, and how are you spelling that?"
"HAND! H-a-n-d!"
"(Me) Thank you. And date of birth?"
"(Omitted for legality)."
Nothing came up on the computer, so I aked the customer to confirm the birthdate, then I asked her to spell the last name again in case I heard it wrong.
"HAND! H-A-N-D!"
Checked again, and you got it, nothing. Again I asked the customer to confirm the birthdate, and to spell the last name.
"HAND!!! H-A-N-D!!!"
At this point I can tell she is close to exploding, but it kind of fell under "what can I do?" I went to another computer that has more detailed records for customers.
I did a search for "Hand" by itself. Nothing.
I did a search for the birthdate. Nothing.
I did a search for "Han" and "Hen" in case it was a sound alike. Absolutely nothing. She was ready to have a meltdown, and I was all out of options.
I politely explained to the "lady" that she was not showing up on my computer, and she would have to do to the drop off window (less than 20 feet away) to see if the techs could located the presciption. The next phase was very easy to predict. A meltdown. Her voice boomed so loud you could hear her on every corner of the store. Customers stopped what they were doing to see if someone was hurt. She was insulting me at top volume, and oh yes. She was using four letter words. She made the way to the drop off window, and a tech came down to my computer about 30 seconds later and entered the following text in the "Last name" field of the pick up screen on my computer.
"Heneshaw".
"Wtf?" I thought to myself. And while I am thinking it, the woman is still screaming at the top of her lungs about what an idiot I am.
"Yeah, lady. I am the idiot." I thought to myself. I mean seriously, how was I supposed to get "Heneshaw" from "Hand"?
I have retraced this one in my thoughts quite a few times since then, but it wasn't like I only asked once and was not paying attention. Three times I asked her to spell her name, and three times she spelled it "HAND! H-A-N-D!".
A few days ago I was walking out of a restaurant when she was walking in. I came close to saying something, but didn't. I glared at her, but she made it a point not to make eye contact. But I already had my comback ready in case I said something rude.
"Alright mister! I am going back to your pharmacy and telling them about your attitude when you are not working! What's your name?"
"HAND! H-A-N-D!"
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