Thursday, March 13, 2008

I Don't Have Pet Peeves; I Have Major Psychotic Fucking Hatreds

Not really. Well sort of... I'm just trying to see how many posts in a row I can use George Carlin references in the title.

- Not Marking Opened Bottles- It's pretty irritating when you get a prescription for 30 tablets of a medication, and you go to the shelf and grab what you think is a nice 30 count bottle only to open the bottle and find it's already been opened. Therefore, you have to waste your time by walking back to the shelf to get a second bottle. Just put a nice X on every bottle you open. It's not that hard. It takes 2 extra seconds.

- Not fully ripping out the foil and leaving in the cotton- I can't stand when I go to pour tablets out of a bottle and find that the foil was sloppily punched through leaving an irregular hole which impedes the flow of tablets during pouring. Rip that foil off. It looks neater and the tablets pour out much more easily. In addition, if there's cotton in a bottle, please take that shit out when you open the bottle. There's no reason to leave it in once the bottle has been opened.

- Manufacturers who decide that a great place for the patient package insert is INSIDE the bottle- Why do you do this? That stupid insert becomes just one more thing I have to take out of the bottle in order to get the tablets to pour out easily. Secondly, the second that bottle gets opened, I'm just going to throw the package insert into the trash. All package inserts should be glued to the side of the bottle. There, it doesn't get in your way, so you never have to throw it out. Furthermore, if you ever had to read the insert for something, you could do so without opening a new bottle.

- Coupons and Gift Cards- I don't know or care about what items are on sale in the store from day to day. I am a pharmacist. I'm not a cashier. If your toothpaste rings up for $3.00 instead of $2.00 like it says it should on your coupon, I don't want to hear it. Go to the front end to get that shit sorted out. Don't waste the pharmacy's time. I firmly believe that all coupons and gift card stuff should be handled by the front end. If the store is offering some kind of gift card promotion, the pharmacy shouldn't be the one handing out those gift cards. If the gift card has something to do with prescriptions, then I'm willing to give someone some kind of signed ticket for them to go to the front end to get their gift card. I just thinking it's fucking stupid for us to waste our time filling out gift card logs and do all the rest of that bullshit that comes with giving out a gift card.

(Section edited out to maintain anonymity)


Anyway... I'm still sick, and I have to get through one more day of work tomorrow. Just 10 more hours to go. I can do this.

4 comments:

Jaded Pharmacist said...

The 'unmarked open bottle' is the biggest of my irks. A few weeks ago, I about lost it when I saw 5 bottles of 1000-count Metformin 500mg, 4 of which were opened, none of which were marked.

Hope you feel better soon. It always sucks to work while under the weather...

Anonymous said...

I have to say one of my biggest pet peeves is the package insert in side the bottle. The biggest problem child is Levoxyl, they fold the damn thing over and then shove it in the bottle so that the V shape goes down and then it expands and you cannot get it out of the bottle. The thing is extremely thick so you cannot just bend it and get it out. I actually had to cut one apart the other day just to get the damn tabs out....

Just glue the damn thing to the outside of the bottle like everyone else so I can rip it off and throw it away!

Anonymous said...

The foil is the one that bugs me the most. Even more so when it's been punched in on an unmarked open bottle. I'm about ready to leave one on "display" for my fellow techs with a note explaining that open bottles should be marked and that the foil should be removed.

Anonymous said...

As a pharmacy manager, my techs don't get away with that "I'm taking my lunch 30 minutes before I leave" shit. We have set times for breaks (depending on shift worked------no one goes on break between 4 and 7, period) and it seems to work out pretty good. I did the same thing with my pharmacists (I work for WAG so we are schedule 8.5 hrs with 30 minutes for lunch). On RARE occasions, I do let it slide for RPhs (leaving town for the weekend, I'm on, and I knew about it well in advance). If you don't put your foot down, you'll get trampled on.
Regarding the bottles: I'm sure it's the same douchebag that doesn't mark the bottles that half-ass opens the foil as well, leaving the cotton and dessicant in too. Fuckers. If I catch you, I'm going to duct tape you to our sign out in front of the store.