Oct

Jabberheads

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Cellphone, Engrish, Patient Education, Rude, Stupid People, True Story, Work Sucks

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At about 2:30pm today, a lady brought a prescription to the counter. I approached her, said hello, and immediately glared at the cellphone, which is now synonymous with American Culture, smashed against her ear. When cellphone talkers approach my counter, they get no sympathy from me. I’m not courteous of their conversation because they are on MY time. Anyway, I asked this lady her birthday, as she turned away and started to scamper off and chatter some more, and she had the nerve to turn, roll her eyes at me, and say, “12-15-67″ in a tone of voice that would lead me to believe that I was bothering her…can you imagine that…me…bothering her…

I have a sign at my pickup window that says, “For your safety and other patient’s privacy, please finish all cell phone calls before approaching the counter.” Some people completely ignore it. Some of my techs have the guts to call people on it, others don’t — some don’t give a shit either way. Most guests will close their phone as they read the sign.

This woman continued her conversation the entire time I filled her Metronidazole 500mg po TID #24. That usually doesn’t bother me in any way. Had the woman came in with another person and they had a conversation outside the pharmacy I wouldn’t give a shit — what’s the difference? However, it does irritate me that I can only hear one side of the conversation — the human brain wants to know both sides. If it only hears one, it gets confused and either tries to fabricate the other half of the conversation OR the person gets angry…like most people when someone is loudly talking on a cell phone in a public place.

As I finished the prescription, I walked to the register to ring the woman out. She continued the conversation. I glanced back at the sign — making it pretty obvious that she should hang up. She continued the conversation.

“Do you have any questions?”
“Hol’ on jus’ a minute…” (Into the cellphone)
“Do the directions be on the bottle?”
“Yes, ma’am — it’s three times a day. There’s also a handout in there for you to read if you want to learn some more about the medicine. There is one other thing we need to talk about…”
“Nuh uh…no she din’t…are you fo’ reaaaal? Ohh my wooooorrrrrrrrrrrddd……” (Obviously into the cellphone)
“What? Huh? You say sumdin to me?”
“Yes, ma’am. There’s something important I need to tell you about your medicine.”
“Aww…okay”
“Girl lemme hit you back in a minute. Bye…” (Into the cellphone)
“This medicine has a pretty severe interaction with alcohol. Even just a small amount of alcohol could make you very sick. I cannot emphasize enough that you should avoid alcohol for the entire time you are taking this medication and even a few days after you are finished with the last dose.”
“S.O.S. please some one help me. It’s not healthy for me to feel this way. Y-O-U are making this hard, I can’t take it, see it don’t feel right,” blared from the woman’s phone (a song by current hip-hop artist Rihanna).
“Hello…girl, I’m talkin’ to dis pharmacisss. Lem me call you back afta while…Bye.”
“Okay, what?”
“Don’t drink any alcohol while your taking this medicine.”
“Ohh. I don’t drank…”
“Okay. Good. Do you have any other questions? [No] Okay then. Thank you. Come see us again…”

Does this story infuriate you all as much as it did me? I mean, what if I had to tell her something REALLY important. She may have not caught any of it…But, she was 100% aware of something scandalous the caller was talking about…

I didn’t have my jammer with me today, otherwise her phone service would have magically started to fail as I was talking to her. I took it home as I was off for two days. I don’t want to leave it at work in case there’s a raid or something…:-)

Now, before I get any hateful comments about it — this lady spoke exactly like I wrote her words…in ebonics. I’m not trying to be racist, ethnicist, or any other time of -cist you all can dream up. I hate it when people butcher the English language — regardless of who they are. I try and speak perfect English. While I type in a very odd manor — as if I’m keeping everything as one continuous thought (using dashes and ellipses) — I speak very well. Hearing the language butchered irritates me…

Or Print it...

Sabine says October 29th, 2008 at 8:24 pm

When I have somebody on a Cell I just totally ignore them. Usually they will ask me after a while if I might be able to help them. My answer:” I am sorry, I hope you didn’t think I was ignoring you but I thought your conversation must have been very important and I did not wanted to interrupt you.” I have a smile on my face while saying it and they usually look pretty dumbfounded at me and to this point I have NEVER had anybody get mad at me about it. When they are in line I take the NEXT person and state the same if they give us “the look.” It works and in my twisted little mind I get some kind of weird satisfaction out of it. I guess I am learning from you. Keep on writing, it is fun and educational at the same time. How cool is that?

dm says October 29th, 2008 at 8:29 pm

you know, I think i’m gonna just stop helping people with phones. there’s obviously other stuff you can do, just wait until they get off. they’ll get off eventually to yell at you, then say you don’t help people on cellphones. and that jammer works too, i gotta get me one of those

Pharm Tech for...*sigh* Walgreens says October 29th, 2008 at 8:37 pm

What my old pharmacist used to do in Arizona was just keep on rolling along with the consultation, regardless of whether the person was absorbing the information. He would have a technician stand close by, to “witness” the consult, and send the pt on their merry little cell-phone-toting way. So what if they drink with Flagyl? I know that makes you really VIOLENTLY ill. But one has to think…perhaps a person like that has it coming, if they won’t shut the fuck up long enough to hear about it.

Just a thought. Love your stuff…I come home from work every night and double check for your venting. It makes my day seem so much easier…

thetwitchytechnician says October 29th, 2008 at 9:19 pm

I’ve started interacting with people who talk loudly on their phones in public places.

The Ole' Apothecary says October 29th, 2008 at 9:30 pm

My new mantra when encountering such women is one of gratitude—at least she’s not my wife!!

monster says October 29th, 2008 at 11:02 pm

I took a linguistics class and we actually spent a whole period discussing ebonics and how there *are* rules in ebonics that would apply in any language. Some grammatical concepts in ebonics are actually more standard than those in proper English.

For example, there is no contraction for “am not” in English, but in ebonics, there’s “ain’t”

As a big fan of proper English, however, it does bother me. As a fan of hip hop (sometimes)… I have no right to complain.

What about people who have their cell phones attached to their fingertips? Is it as annoying to have someone texting away as it is to hear half of a conversation?

I personally *hate* hearing ringtones.

BlueTech says October 29th, 2008 at 11:41 pm

I need a cellphone Jammer.

pharmintern says October 30th, 2008 at 12:14 am

I’ve learned just to point to the “no cell phones” sign we have at the counters in the pharmacy. Usually when I get people on cell phones, they hang up when they come to the counter and tell the person they will call them back, the pharmacy is taking priority. The one time I didn’t mind someone talking on their cell was when a woman came in to pick up a couple of scripts for a sickly neighbor who couldn’t make it to the pharmacy for her meds she needed (things for blood pressure, an antibiotic, and another med), she was asking the neighbor for the information needed to pick it up and if she had any questions. I wasn’t going to complain as it was later in the evening and was slow. The customer was pleasent and just trying to help the neighbor out, I see both come in to the store often are always very nice to everyone.

Of course there is always the opposite where you have the idiots on the cell phone screaming at me for not having their narc scripts ready in 5 minutes after dropping off when there is only the pharmacist and I in the store at 11pm. I also love having them say the “doctor” is on the cell and wants to talk to use to authorize either more narcs, early refills for narcs, or some other crap.

CS says October 30th, 2008 at 11:40 am

Yeah, I completely understand where you’re coming from. I think that people should have the courtesy to finish their calls before having someone HELP them.

PharmGamerKid says October 30th, 2008 at 9:24 pm

When I do consults on metronidazole, I tell the patient at least 5 times that they can’t drink alcohol. They might forget how many times they’re supposed to take the med, but at least they won’t be drinking any alcohol hahaha.

Watch, this lady is going to forget and take a shot of something during Halloween. Sheesh, ppl and cellphones.

thatREDHEADfarmist says November 1st, 2008 at 10:17 pm

whoa! I must be soooo rude. I wont speak with them when they are on the phone. Even my techs are instucted to ignore them and if they try to engage us in a conversation we simply tell them that we will be with them when they are done with their phone call (since our corporate office can’t decide whether to keep the signs posted or not– that tell them to be off the phone at the counter…..and most customers ignored it anyhow)