Ah, Employment...

Yesterday I survived a harrowing journey to have my fingerprints taken for work. I won't bore you with the details of my adventure, not when there's so much more to talk about. I've been doing several months worth of training and driving all over the city running silly little errands for my place of employment. Hopefully fingerprinting was the last of these lovely trips, but knowing the Phunny Pharm that probably isn't terribly likely.

Yes the Phunny Pharm. It's a pharmacy in a large chain but I think my nickname better suits it. This pharmacy is on the shady side of town. The side of town where you try not to go very often. The side of town where if you work there your dad warns you every day that if someone asks you for the cash drawer you open it up and hand it to them wether or not you think they have a gun. (Which is probably why all the cash registers have little safes for all the bills bigger than a 10.)

I like working in the pharmacy much more than I thought I would. I like seeing things getting done and at the pharmacy we constantly get things done! If not the customers would be irate. But it's not like having their prescriptions ready on time always does the trick. Here are a few of my favorite “blessings” as one of the other technicians dubbed them.

My 'favorite' customers are the ones who come up and tell me “I want to pick up a prescription.” Well that's just dandy! “I would like to pick up a prescription for John Doe,” is far, far more helpful. Also, I seem to be terrible at being able to spell names. I surely should have known that Shanequa is spelled Shaqenita, how silly of me. One customer came to the pick up counter with her hand embedded within her mouth, or I assume it was embedded because it never seemed to leave her mouth. I deciphered that she wanted a prescription but her name seemed to be Mruph Huruph.

“Can you spell that?”
“K-A-T-R-I-N-A S-M-I-T-H!”

Ah, silly me again, I should have taken that extra semester of grunt and point in college.

An obviously pregnant young girl comes in with her boyfriend and her attitude. Her prescription is found and rung up, and her copay is $2.00. All has gone well except that this particular customer is on medicare. Medicare means that money comes out from my paycheck every week, is handed to the government who then lets customers come into the Phunny Pharm and demand to have everything handed to them for free. If everything isn't free (like if they want an over the counter drug (OTC) which medicare stopped paying for) they get whiny. And when I say whiny I mean think of an adult acting like the last bratty two year old you saw in the super market who has just been told that he can't have candy today.

“I ain't never paid no copay in my whole life!”

“Well this is a brand name drug so there's a copay.”

“Why ain't you givin me the generic?”

“There is no generic, that's the price.”

“But I ain't never paid no copay before! I have medicare!”

I stand there with no pity waiting for her and her attitude to go away. She waddles off in a huff with boyfriend in tow. I feel some pity for the boyfriend.

A customer comes to the drive thru window and hands me a script (the piece of paper the doctor gives you when you leave that you eat your food over and fold and squash into the dark recesses of pockets and purses before finding and handing to me.) I see that the script was written for a narcotic. To check if we have the drug in stock I ask the pharmacist. The pharmacist looks at the script.

“Yeah we have that but we can't fill it.”

“Really? Why?”

She points to a scribble in the top left corner.

“They scratched something out, no one is allowed to scribble anything out on a narcotic prescription because it means it's been tampered with. They probably took it to another pharmacy who wrote that it was too soon to be refilled.”

I return to the customer.

“I'm sorry we can't accept this.”

“Why not!”

“Something has been marked out and it looks like it was tampered with.”

The paper is snatched out of my hand and the customer speeds away.

A prescription comes in for a narcotic pain killer, one of the popular ones. The name on file for the customer has no insurance to bill it to and the price is over one hundred dollars. Since nearly everyone who comes into the Phunny Pharm is on medicare and refuses to pay anything at all for their drugs I assumed that they would not pay for it, but we fill it just in case.

A few hours later a man comes in wearing a Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses, and a low brimmed hat. He gives the name on the prescription. I tell him the price, I decide that if he pays for it he must be a drug dealer. He responds with,

“Yup.”

I panic.

“... Can I see your ID?”

The name and birthdate match and it doesn't appear to be a fake ID, but then I'm not exactly an expert on these things. I skeptically hand back the ID. I ring up the prescription. 

Drug dealer...

The customer whips out a stack of large bills held together with a rubber band and hands me several.

DRUG DEALER

I hold it to the light and check to see if it's real. It passes my test. I spend a few moments figuring out change and give it to the man with his prescription. He smiles, thanks me, and leaves the store. I tell the other tech and vow to catch him next time. Somehow, I will catch him. The crafty devil hasn't come back yet...

The phone rings.

“Hi this is the Phunny Pharm, how can I help you?”

“Do you sell air conditioners?”

“... No.”

“I have a prescription for an air conditioner.”

“Uh...”

“Do you know where I could get it filled?”

“Um, Lowes?”

“Really?”

“I doubt it, let me transfer you to the pharmacist.”

I put them on hold.

“Do you know where they can get a prescription filled for an air conditioner?”

“An air conditioner?”

“Yeah.”

“.... Lowes?”

That's plenty for today, I'm certain that there will be more phunnies in the pharm the longer I work there. At least they keep my job interesting.