Friday, October 9, 2009

Oh Crap...

After a wonderful 14 hours day I don't have much energy to write so it'll be a short one. Today I was ringing up a lady for some birth control pills and notice that she is a skinny, asian girl (pretty cute) that happened to have what looked like a 5 month belly on her. I sadly was too chicken to say something when she picked up the drug, though I did ask if it was for her and she said yes, but after she left I asked my female technician if she thought the girl looked pregnant. My tech said yes she did and she was going to say something but today we were back up like crazy (day before a holiday weekend and all) and didn't get around to it. So I realize I have to man up and ask this lady if she is pregnant, so I call her on her cell phone and introduce myself.

Hi this is TPDD from suckyoursoul pharmacy, could I speak to cuteasianlady?

This is she

I noticed you were buying birth control today and remember saying that it was for you, I do not mean to insult you but are you pregnant?

No...why do I look it?

(F-U-C-K!)

Well you appear to be rather thin, but you do look like you may be pregnant, are you sure it is not a possibility?

I am sure, I am currently having my period.

Well at this point I apologize, probably sounding more like a wuss than I should but I've heard stories about women killing men over stuff like this so never can be too careful. Anyway, I'm not sure if a woman would have a period or period-like flow if they were pregnant and on BC, but it seems like it could be a possibility. I guess this is just another missed opportunity to perhaps do some good and possibly follow up with her Dr., but the masses of Ambien amphetamine addicts needed appeasing.

Monday, October 5, 2009

My day at the grind

Don't get me wrong, I generally enjoy my job (I know, blasphemy in the pharmacy blogworld) but sometimes it really amazes me how stupid people can be. This Sunday was massively busy and I stayed a half hour late to catch up on some work. The front store remains open past the pharmacy on weekends so I had the gate closed, doors locked working away at the drugmill. While working, I hear excuse me! I ignore it thinking it could not possibly be for me as having the gates closed is a clear sign that we are not open. Excuse me! Excuse me!...I finally look up after the third or fourth attempt to get my attention and I shit you not, the customer asks if she can ring up her milk here. Now really...how stupid/rude do you have to be?

Today we had our flu clinic and I decided to get the shot. As you all know, Mondays at the pharmacy are hell, though I was quite surprised to see that the pharmacists scheduled to run the clinic had nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs most of the time. Anyway, I went to have my shot given and I asked the pharmacist to just stick it through my shirt as this was the kind I could not easily roll up to expose my deltoid. She said that she didn't think it was a good idea and argued about it with me for several minutes, so finally I just took the damn syringe and jabbed myself. I don't think I have ever seen an asian face go so pale in all my life, she was mortified but I didn't have time to dick around as a backlog of 45 Rxs were already waiting for me.

Later during the clinic they had a child that was NOT going to get a shot. I decided to have a crack at it and showed him the needle I was going to be using. In my hands was a 50ml sodium bicarbonate syringe that we use to make prevacid suspension (the damn vials are a pain in the ass) with attached needle that had to be 2 inches, 18 gauge (a little trick I picked up from the pharmacy chick). I saw another face go whiter than my skin, I'm albino btw, and gave the ole, whoops this one is for the adults, this one (the regular syringe) is for the children. Luckily, the child was more than happy to comply with the "child-sized" injection and the family went away quite happily.

All in all a rather good day, though I was just reminded this evening that my family would be going camping for the long weekend and I can't go because I have to work every day, damn them!

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

My addition to the universal necessity to chime in on the healthcare debate.

Let's not make it some kind of secret, I identify myself best with the libertarians when it comes to politics. I know, anyone who is a fan of the drug monkey is probably going to leave now, but that's just fine, but if you stay hear me out for a second because he would moderate my comments on his site (which is something I will never do here just because I don't agree with you). I've seen the statistics for how well government run healthcare works in other countries like France, Canada, England etc. but can we really use those statistics to predict how well the system will work in America?

Let's face it folks, we see first hand in our daily working lives (if you are are working retail) that Americans are generally selfish, lazy, stupid slobs who can't/won't tie their own shoes without help. America is a proverbial fat farm, we over-consume everything and save nothing except when we are in a crisis. This very notion is what helped us to become the economic powerhouse that we are, but it is also a major flaw in our foundation which is libel to give way at any second. Our people average around $10,000 is credit card debt, even those who make plenty of money. We have rent to own stores in even the wealthiest of neighborhoods. With all this, can we really be compared to the average Frenchman who is a healthy weight, spends only want he can afford and is not stressed 100% of the time?

It has been quoted many times that around 80% of Americans agree with "universal healthcare" and why wouldn't they, they are hearing free drugs, free doctors, free everything that only the "rich" will pay for because they can afford it. Hey I too would love to have everything I want for free and never have to work for it, so what exactly are those 20% disagreeing with? Perhaps they see that free is not really free, nor can it be in a system of finite resources. Can our culture really handle universal healthcare, and if we fixed our culture, would we even need it?

Monday, September 28, 2009

"Meaningful" post #1

Alright fellow pharmacists, nurses, doctors and Percocet seeking masses hoping for a score on the net and got to this blog by mistake, lets get started. Pharmacy is at a major cusp right now and I think you all know that it is going the wrong way. Corporate bs is taking over and the incredibly inept professional organizations (I'm pointing at you APhA) have their heads so far up their asses they can't see anything except "expanding patient care". Now let's get real here, we can have all the unions we want but if we are individually weak, cowardly and break more easily than the zipper of a wedding dress on a 300 lb woman, we are going to fail. You can put a million pieces of crap together and when you are done all you have is a huge pile of shit.

So how do we become strong individually? well here's where the money part of the blog comes in. We have been taught from an early age that "money does not bring happiness" and "money is the root of all evil" so barring the fact that there is strong correlation between wealth and happiness and wealthy people commit far less crime than non, we have to face facts that money is power. Everyone has heard of the golden rule, but what they really should have taught you when you were a kid is the original and true golden rule "whomever has the gold, makes the rules". So I know some of you are saying, you don't want to dictate other people's lives and people with money always turn out to be jackasses, but money is just a tool like a wrench, axe or gun, it is what the person does with it that matters. Corporate pharmacy has the power because they have the money and you don't. Most Americans cannot survive a month without a paycheck, and this includes pharmacists. Sure we make more than 95% of the population, but we spend more, have more debt and are just as insecure. This situation lets your company own you. If they cut your tech hours you hang your head and do nothing. If your DM slaps you across the face because you took a bathroom break during a 14 hour shift, you turn the other cheek and say "thank you sir, may I have another?".

So if you really want to stand up to the giants, you have to give yourself the power to flip the bird and walk away from them. Save up enough that you can be off for 2+ months without pay, have your credit cards paid off every month and put your luxury SUV on a diet. This stuff is not rocket science and we are smart people, so how is it we are slaves to the people with money like the rest of the country?

Intro

So what the hell is this blog about and who is this guy named TPDD? Well this blog is about pharmacy, the good, the bad and the bullshit that goes with it. This blog is also about money, it is about money because quite frankly, the vast majority of people are clinically retarded when it comes to making and keeping it. This blog is also about politics, religion, sex and any other taboo subject I can think of.

So on to the second question, who is TPDD? Well I'm a fairly new pharmacist (graduated sometime in the last 5 years) and I'm ready to push some pills. I've been in pharmacy for around a decade now so it goes without saying that I'm sick of the crap this profession throws in our faces on a daily basis. My writing style will be like the lovechild of TAP and JP, sometimes logical and well composed and sometimes completely off the wall and bitchy (all in love TAP).

Oh yeah, my spelling sucks so get over it.