It's our fault you're stupid?

[Grrrrrrr]

Tuesday afternoon, doing the pharmacy thing when someone comes through the pharmacy drivethru. I am waiting on a customer so I cannot get to the drive thru right away (it's five people in line vs someone who cannot be bothered to get out of their car). While I am working on the line, the customer in the drive through sends a tote through, presumably to get my attention.

Keep in mind the pharmacy, and the pharmacy drive thru are on completely different sides of the store, and we use the vacuum tube system. You know, the kind that banks have been using since the 1930's?

I get to the drive thru and I find out that the customer is dropping off two prescriptions to be filled. I send the tote to the customer, so she can send them back. About 2 minutes later I get an *empty* tote.

Me = Me

CS = Mean old bitch.

Me: Maam! The tote you just sent me is empty.

CS: What?

Me: The tote you just sent me is empty. Did you put your prescriptions through?

CS: Yes, but I didn't put them in that thing, I just put them in the hole and pressed the button.

That's right. The lady put her two paper prescriptions on top of the plastic tote in the drive thru, then pressed the "send" button. What is left of the prescriptions is floating somewhere in our vacuum tube system. We send the tubes back to see if we will get lucky and find the prescriptions on the other end (it has happened before) but no such luck. Per my managers instructions, I inform the lady that her prescriptions are gone and that she will have to contact her doctor for new ones.

Me: Maam, I am sorry but we cannot retrieve the prescriptions from the drive thru, and you will need to call your doctor for new prescriptions.

CS: I've never done this before and I didn't know how to do it!

Me: I understand, but the prescptions are gone, and cannot be retrieved, and you will need to contact your doctor.

CS: You really need to put instructions out here! There is no sign or nothing!

Yeah! Go ahead and argue! I was just being lazy and did not want to press the magic button that would get your prescriptions back as said button was JUST out of reach, but hearing you argue that your inability to use a piece of simple technology that has been around longer than the wheel was somehow the pharmacies fault motivates me to get cracking to get those scripts out of two miles of vacuum tubes before I get fired!

Me: I am sorry maam, but you will need to contact your doctor to get him or her to write you new presciptions. We do not have any way of getting the old ones out of the tubes.

CS: (Huffs) (Exact words) I am never doing this again! (drives off into the sunset)

Never doing that again? What do you want, an arguement?

"No, PLEASE destroy some more prescriptions in the drive thru! PLEASE, I AM BEGGING YOU!!! If you do not give the drive thru prescriptions for nourishment, we have to feed it puppies!"

I relayed the message of "never doing this again" to my manager, and needless to say the pharmacy had a nice little giggle. But I guess it will be the last one because, ummm... she will never do that again?

[Bented]

Honestly, what did she expect? I have never seen a vacuum tube system that didn't use a container to get the items back and forth.

Maybe she thought it was a teleportation system.

[underemployeed]

Same idea. We have 16 pumps. 4 of them are clearly marked diesel, we often ask people who are trying to fill up before paying at one of those pumps if it isn't obvious they the style of vechile that needs it. I often get "Well why can't I get gas from this pump", because it diesel only. And the classic response "Whats that have to do with anything!". I hate that line, when people realize they dumb they blame it on me with that line

[tollbaby]

Um.. I'm in Canada - I've NEVER seen one of those vacuum tube thingies up here (except in hospitals, and then only the staff use them). We don't have them at banks, and we don't have drive-thru pharmacies full stop.

I've seen them in the states, but if she's new to the area or to the country, I can see how she could have been confused. Granted, a healthy dose of common sense should have been applied, but that's in short supply these days.

[BoredOp]

Also a Canuck here (Ottawa & the Valley) - haven't seen the tubes, but quite a few drive-thru pharmacy windows. Loblaws has the drive-thru thing at some of its Superstores and NoFrills stores in Ontario, but the window is actually in the pharmacy area, not at the opposite end of the store, and you hand the Rx to the pharmacist. As for the tube/tote, maybe the SC is right (get instructions), but then you have to write them in language that a kindergarten kid could understand, so as to avoid any further stupidity/lost prescriptions/suck/etc.

Going back to my call center days for a moment, we used to get similar cases and all the suck that went with them. People who placed online orders would call in/e-mail because their items were being shipped to "the wrong address." The SCs claimed that they "changed the address but [our client's] system reverted to the old address." Um, there are two addresses you need to change and/or verify before submitting your order: there's your billing address (must match that on your credit card account or the order won't go through) and your shipping address. Obviously the SCs changed their billing address but most likely didn't bother to change the shipping address, so that gadget that Pete Porter in Pasadena ordered is on its way to his old place in Plattsburgh, NY, and there's no stopping it now. If he had called and reached a CSR within maybe 15 minutes of placing his order, there would be a slim chance that we could change the shipping address before the order hit the dreaded "Released" or "FPA" status (where nobody, not even the precious supervisor/manager, could make the change). And no, UPS/Fedex/USPS will not redirect the package, and we will not compensate you - it's not our fault you're stupid. Enjoy your trip back to Plattsburgh!

[Flying Grype]

Um.. I'm in Canada - I've NEVER seen one of those vacuum tube thingies up here (except in hospitals, and then only the staff use them). We don't have them at banks, and we don't have drive-thru pharmacies full stop.

Same here. I've only encountered them in three places:

1) My grandmother's bank in Atlanta
2) An episode of Reading Rainbow about the Library of Congress
3) An episode of The Simpsons

I think it's reasonable to expect that older non-technologically-inclined people may need some help using them.

Granted, if you had already given her the plastic tote, I think she could have clued in that she's supposed to put them in the tote. And then we come to the point where we may very well be dealing with people who have dementia or brain disorders or are on medication that makes them foggy... so yeah, there should be clear instructions.

[Plaidman]

Whoa. I haven't seen those since I was a kid!

Look, when we deal with something every single day, its easy to get jaded. Esepcally when people don't know it. We know it cause its easy, and we deal with it constentally. Every day. However, how often do people don't even flush the toilet? Something thats been around longer then most peoples great grand parents?

I'm sorry, but at least she didn't scream or yell at you. She was mad at the machine more then anything, and likely, it should have some sort of details on it, because she likely honestly thought that you could just put the prescription in it itself.

It could have been alot worst.

[trunks2k]

I think it's reasonable to expect that older non-technologically-inclined people may need some help using them.

I'd expect that the older non-technologically-inclined people would be the most familiar with them. Vacuum (pneumatic) systems like this have been around for ages. Large office buildings used to use them to deliver messages and mail quickly through the building. They've definitely been used since before 1950, and even the very first subway in New York City was pneumatic.

[underemployeed]

I think it's reasonable to expect that older non-technologically-inclined people may need some help using them.

Granted, if you had already given her the plastic tote, I think she could have clued in that she's supposed to put them in the tote. And then we come to the point where we may very well be dealing with people who have dementia or brain disorders or are on medication that makes them foggy... so yeah, there should be clear instructions.

The bold part bothers me because we are talking about a drive thru, all of those things you listed fall into the category of you really shouldn't be operating a motor vehicle in my opinion (and on many pill bottles)

[Flying Grype]

The bold part bothers me because we are talking about a drive thru, all of those things you listed fall into the category of you really shouldn't be operating a motor vehicle in my opinion (and on many pill bottles)

... This is true.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Same here. I've only encountered them in three places:

1) My grandmother's bank in Atlanta
2) An episode of Reading Rainbow about the Library of Congress
3) An episode of The Simpsons

From this list I can tell that you have been culturally deprived. You need to get and watch the movie The Shadow. It features a extensive vacuum tube message system, besides being a darn good movie.

[AriRashkae]

Plus there's always the Geico commercial showing when the gecko worked in the mail room.

[dalesys]

From my putzing around, pneumatic tube transporters have been in use since the 1860's...

[lineswine]

Here in the UK, they are known as "Lamson tubes" & they use them at my local Tescos to move money from the tills to (presumably) the back office.

[MoonChild2007]

Well, usually when you don't know how to do something, wouldn't the right thing to do is ASK how something works instead of ASSuming?