How to Make Friends with Doctors Relatives

I have a question for all of the techs and pharmacists out there. How many times have you wished you could reach through the phone and slap some holier than thou because I have a doctors permission to call in prescriptions receptionist/nurse? I have been quite lucky in that I can count on one hand the number of confrontations I have had with these types. Well I could have, until today, now I have to use 2.

So I go in at 2pm this lovely Monday, I drew the short straw so I got to close. I had been there perhaps 30 minutes when the phone beside me begins to ring. I pick it up and say, "Really Big Pharmacy." Now I Know this isn't really a company approved way to answer. I'm SUPPOSED to say "Thank you for calling Really Big Pharmacy, Dedicated Tech pharmacy technician speaking how may I help you?" I'm not a robot, and I HATE giving my name out. In my experience once a customer learns your name they try to act like you are best friends and want you to do them little favors...like refilling controls early, and I don't believe in that so the fewer people who know my name the better I like it. Not to mention the fact that its always weirded me out when a patient I don't know and have maybe waited on like 2 times begins to call me by name and use it like 5 times in the span of 2 minutes. Creepy. Wow...can we say I got off topic? OK back to the story...So I answer the phone "Really Big Pharmacy" The voice on the other line says "This is Rude Richardson at Dr Richardson's office. We received a voice mail from your store this morning about getting a pa for Lamisil for Parker Bradley(name changed here obviously). The person who called spoke to fast for us to understand so we need to get the information." OK... 1. This is a dermatologists office where the Dr in question is old as dirt and I just don't like dermatologists. Especially NOT the 2 in my area...both jerks with DAW 1 on the brain. 2. This person calling is his relative whom he has employed, probably his wife and this is going to be bad news anyway because in my years as a tech its always seemed to be that if a Dr employs his wife she tend to think SHE is the one with MD after her name. 3. We call on these things early in the morning like around 8 am its now after 2pm and they JUST now call back. Lets not even get into the fact that we've been leaving messages about this patient for over 2 weeks. 4. She had all of the information already except the name of the person who called this morning. She didn't know who to ask for.

Now it just so happens that the tech who had called this morning had stepped out to assist a patient with finding AZO. So I picked the phone back up and told her that the person who had called was unavailable and asked if I could help her. She tells me that she got the patients name and name of the drug, that they needed a pa, AND the phone number to call. What she wanted to know was the name of the insurance company she was calling. I didn't think it mattered all that much but I told her and then the fun starts. She proceeds to BLAST me for the way the message was left. "You people talk ENTIRELY too fast. Don't you know that its impossible to write all of that down when you talk like that. You need to slow down and you need to tell the rest of the technicians to stop talking fast. Its just ridiculous." I stood there in stunned silence for like 2 seconds and then my smart ass reflex kicked in and I couldn't stop the words, "Really? The pharmacists here say that about the scripts left on voice mail, but they have no trouble using the replay button to make sure they don't miss any details."

It was my turn to hear silence. This time it was an affronted silence and then came "Humph!!!" Yes, she actually made that noise at me and then hung up. I wonder if they'll do the PA for the patient?