Ode to the Walgreens Clientele

I love Walgreens. No really, I do. There’s no better retail chain out there, I don’t really care what you say. Frankly, your opinion doesn’t count. With the most up to date technology, the most user friendly interface (we can even text message you when your medication is ready for pick-up!), and with being the most innovative and progressive in terms of scope of practice for the working pharmacist, Walgreens is your one stop shop for pharmaceutical care.

Besides, have you ever walked around a Walgreens?! We sell everything in the world, literally. From milk, to lotion, to coffee, to as seen on tv products. I mean, where can you get your prescriptions, a tomato grower, a bra-strap fixer, the latest perfume, your kids favorite orange juice, toilet paper, and some Preparation H for those hemorrhoids you’ve seemed to develop all in ONE place?

And the best part about your local Walgreens (especially if you live in NoLa)? Me, of course!

Walgreens and I have a great history together, and this company was made for me. From cashier, to student, to intern, to graduate extern, and now onto pharmacist, this relationship isn’t breaking up any time soon (sorry Wal-Mart…if something happens you will be the first one to know!).

Ahhh….my career is set, and work would be absolutely perfect…if it weren’t for you. Yes, you! Maybe it’s you reading this, maybe it’s that person sitting next to you, or maybe it’s your mamma, your daddy, your first cousin, your neighbor…maybe it’s your classmate, or your mail-man, or that teacher of yours. All y’all drive me and everyone else who works in the pharmacy INSANE!

Lucky for you, I am quite good when it comes to customer service, but I got news for ya. If you see me walk from that pharmacists station to the front counter, because you are arguing with one of my co-workers, god help you. Listen to me, I am your last resort. If you piss me off, I promise you, you will walk right out that store with your prescription in your little rude hand, because I am not dealing with you…but don’t worry, I will send you on your merry little way with a smile on my face. I’ll even be glad to direct you to the nearest pharmacy.

So for the general public, let me help you help your local pharmacist.

1. Your Doctor is Your Problem

It’s as simple as that. Your doctor wrote you the wrong medication on your prescription? Not my fault. Your doctor won’t answer your phone calls? Not my fault. Your doctor won’t deal with your insurance company so you can get that medicine you’re about to pee on yourself for? Not my fault. Your doctor doesn’t like you? Not my fault. Your doctor won’t respond to your 16^th request for that refill on your Prozac? Seriously…not…my…fault…!!!

Even though it’s not my fault or my problem, I am there to do what I can to help you. I will willingly try to contact your physician for you, so that all, can once again, be right in your messed up medicated world.

BUT

When you start fussin and cursin and hollerin at me? At my counter? In my store? Oh no baby, you gots to go. I’m gonna play dumb as a door knob, and you are about to go home mad as hell and without that Prozac.

So before you start cuttin up, just remember that I can be your biggest ally or your worst enemy. The choice is yours.

2. I’m Smarter Than You

So you think you’re smart? You think you got it all figured out? One way or another you got that prescription pad, and you are about to write out fake prescriptions for every controlled substance this side of the Mason Dixon line. You are so good that you know how to fake your physician’s signature, you know how to properly label a prescription, and you even know how to spell the drug name correctly…probably because you googled that mess before you wrote it out.

And once you’ve perfected that bogus script of yours, and probably dapped up all your crack-head friends who are waiting for you in the car, in the Walgreens parking lot, talking about, “Oh Oh we bout to have a real good time tonight – we bout to feel real good!” After all that, you come walking to my pharmacy counter, acting like your leg is about to fall off or something, with this pathetic look on your face, with that scruffy gross beard of yours, funky breath, thinking if you look nasty, I’ll feel sorry enough for you, and I’ll fill that prescription you just wrote up. And you aren’t smiling on the outside, but you are cheering for yourself on the inside, because you just know you got this, and it’s only a matter of time before you are in 7^th heaven alone with that Oxycodone you smashed up and are about to snort.

And who do you see at the counter? Oh look! It’s me. You see me…and what’s the first thing you do? You go straight to telling me how pretty I look. Ok…stop!

First of all, I could smell you before I could see you, so I already know something is up. Then you get to telling me how beautiful I am? Do you have eyes? Do you know I have no make-up on? And my hair is all back, and I am not in the mood? Let’s be real, I don’t look good right now, and you know it. All this and I didn’t even see your prescription yet, but I know it’s fake, because homie, you just gave yourself away.

But I’m gonna play along with you, because for all I know, you could have a gun. And if I just turn you away like that, and you blow my face off, what good is that to anybody? So I take that immaculate prescription off your hands, and I take one look at it, and tell you I’m going to the back to see if I have everything in stock. And I smile.

I get to the back counter and look at your masterpiece that you wrote up. And oh, are you for real?! 4 controlled substances????? 3 of them being class 2’s??? And oh, what’s this?! You musta started feelin yourself too much, because although the first one is written for a quantity of 30, the next one is written for 90, and the next for 130, and the final one for a quantity of 240?! You got real greedy real quick. You must be out your mind! I shake my head, show my technicians, and walk back to you at the front counter.

As I smile at you and tell you oh so politely that sorry sir, we don’t have such large quantities in stock, and that you’ll just have to try another pharmacy. You undoubtedly start to argue with me over the validity of not only your prescription, but your extremely high level of pain…and as I stare at you and completely tune you out, all I really wanna say is…”Fool, do you know you wrote that last medication in a different color ink??? How the hell are you gonna try to fill a fake script with three medications written in black ink and the last medication written in blue?!”

You finally leave my counter, taking that long sorry walk back to your crack-head friends waiting in the parking lot for you to return with nada. I calmly go to my phone, and proceed to call not only the physician who’s prescription pads and signature you jacked, but every other pharmacy in town, to warn them that you and your sorry club of idiots are on the way.

I’m sure the police will be at the next counter you show up at, just to make sure you get what’s coming to you.

3.  Just Because You Have Medicaid Doesn’t Mean Every Prescription Is Always Free

So I’ll get down with Medicaid…some people really need it. And although it’s true that a lot of prescriptions processed through Medicaid end up costing $0.00, that’s definitely not always the case. God forbid, the prescription should end up costing $1.00 or $0.50.

And it always happens, without fail, that when I am in the process of checking you out, and I say, “Alright ma’am, your total is fifty cents…” that your mood goes from straight up to straight down. After a second of staring at you staring at me with this look that says you are about to punch me in my face, I politely repeat myself in the hopes that you just didn’t hear me. “Fifty cents ma’am…” I say with a smile on my face.

What ensues next is a hail storm of curse words, flying arms, fingers pointed in my face, and random uses of the words Medicaid, free, and my baby.

And I let you. I let you put on your Oscar worthy performance. After all, you have this down to an art. And when you are done, I politely inform of you of the fact that in case you didn’t know, I am not Medicaid. My name is Christine. I would love to give you and everyone else in the world their medication for free. However, Medicaid sees it differently today. They want you to pay fifty cents. Fifty freakin cents. And in case I still don’t have you convinced that fifty cents is not a big deal, and that you waving your long pointy finger with that broke funky colored finger nail in my face is unwarranted, and that yes, I agree with you, your baby is lovely and needs medicine…in case all of that isn’t enough…I proceed to inform you of the price of that very prescription WITHOUT the use of Medicaid. “Ma’am, without Medicaid the prescription is $34.95”

This however, doesn’t work, as you continue to curse me out talking about you ain’t got no $34.95, and “…is I outta my damn mind.” To which my response is, “Ma’am, you don’t need $34.95, all you need is fifty cents.”

“Fitty cent….fitty cent?!” you scream in my face, “Gurrrlllll I ain’t got no fitty cent…gurllll if I had fitty cent I wouldn’t be on no Medicaaaaid.” And as you are screaming this in my face with your eyes so big I fear they might pop out of your head and onto my counter, I look behind you at your baby, carrying a McDonalds happy meal box, trying to stuff a French fry up her nose.

“IS YOU LISTENIN TO ME?” you scream, your hot breath all over my face. And I politely inform you of my thought process. McDonalds happy meals cost more than fifty cents, so how did you get that? And if you can’t cough up fifty cents, then you are not getting this medication. And, for the love of God, get out of my face, please. And I say all of this with a smile.

And as you grab your child and dash out of the store like a mad woman, I scream down the aisle that we will have your prescription on hold for whenever you would like to pick it up, and I also note to my co-workers that your child unsuccessfully shoved that French fry up her nose, because it is lying on the floor in front of the pharmacy.

Not two minutes later, my technician screams at me that you were just seen driving like a Nascar speed racer through the drive through lane…in a Lexus.

And I shake my head…no “fitty cent” but you have a Lexus?

For God sake, will someone just get Pablo from photo department to clean up that booger fry on the floor?

The perfect picture of three little situations that happen over and over again. If you or someone you know fits this picture, warn them that there’s a “Christine” in every Walgreens pharmacy across this great nation of ours. And frankly, that crap doesn’t cut it.

So next time you decide to call the pharmacy in a rage, and you hear, “This is Christine, thank you for calling Walgreens, how can I help you?” Be a little bit nicer, because chances are, I just finished dealing with a complete looney.