what it is like on the OTHER side of the counter!

The anxiety there is at least 10 times what you experience. I know, because I couldn't take it anymore.

The job is impossible. And the good people who care get burned out, abused, robbed (yes criminals), ignored and insulted by management, insensitive greedy insurance companies, and every single patient with a unique lengthy problem with no time to solve them.
Being forced to give people drugs that may be harming more than helping in some cases. No breaks, no help, no lunch, 14 hr days standing...too many patients, not enough help and horrific working conditions. It is very difficult to call in sick so we go in feeling horrible, with fevers, throwing up, you name it.

Yes, people complain all the time... endlessly!

The caring people LEAVE this work. And then YOU are left with the insensitive, hardnosed type in the end. This is 40+yrs talking here!

Mrs. D.
Thanks for letting us see the the other side of the counter.
At my pharmacy I notice that they seem to be on their feet the whole shift.
Also, if someone calls in sick, someone else from another store comes in and ends up working an extra day.

I like the people at my pharmacy. It think I have left over anxiety from past situations.

Mari

I am a bit touchy today...the digging in our street to attach the new water main was just over the top...It has been two weeks of nightmare..anxiety etc.

There is no one to replace ME behind the counter <hint hint>

But I want to say, that in all my years, I never had problems with bipolar patients...in fact when I started at OBT and began reading bipolar there, I had some huge cognitive dissonance about this disorder. I knew which of my patients were bipolar by their meds. But it seemed to me that they were pretty well controlled, and the rapport with their doctors was good.

Most of my problems were insurance snafus, and drug addicts, liars and forgers,scammers, some violent etc. I guess my worst type patient was the borderline out of control type, unmedicated. Mostly female and pretty rare.
I have on occasion called their doctors at home to describe the acting out.
It was almost always over benzos and no other drug.

I guess what I see from the other side of the counter are personality disorders.
And it appears to me that bipolar patients can have any combination of personalities like everyone else, with bipolar layered in.

I don't know if you are following the trial in Seattle about Mr. N. Haq, who shot 6 women in the Jewish Federation building in July 06.. One woman died. And one was pregnant.
It is on TV in the daytime, and the details about his management are very complex and confusing. He has a dual diagnosis of schiztoaffective disorder.
But he certainly knew right from wrong when he did this.

I think it is important to understand when you go the Pharmacy that no one is out to target you or make your life more difficult or whatever. The easier it goes for both parties, the better. The enemy is the insurance company!

Doctors do not reward disorganized behavior in their patients. So I guess the best way to approach the refill time is to think ahead, plan ahead. If you have to write yourself reminders etc.

The closest I have seen to patient anxiety in the drugstore has been epileptic patients. Some are very very touchy and imagine that we are "judging" them,
etc. And you know, NO ONE CARES a whit. Everything is neutral and equal wherever I have worked. Now in a small town, where everyone knows everyone, and the clerks know you etc..it might be a little different. I have been asked repeatedly to open a place up North, town of 700. And I certainly won't do that ever. The gossip up there is huge. So it might depend on where you live.

But basically there is nothing to be anxious about in getting your meds. Really.
And if you do have a problem, report it, act on it, and it will get fixed.
I think that is rare, tho.

That was really good info. Mrs. D.
I had a problem with one pharmacist who was so unfriendly...actually seemed a bit mean to me. He NEVER offered to help in any, way, shape or form. Yes, I thought it might be because he was very busy, but the person who took his place on his day off was very helpful.

One day he ridiculed me in front of customers regarding an over counter medication I was looking for. The store didn't have it and it needed to be ordered. I had done this before at his location and at least once before at another location. So....I was very familiar with what I was talking about. It was originally rx only, but was now available without a prescription for at least two years. When I asked if they would order if for me again, he started yelling at me that I was trying to order a prescription medication and needed a doctors rx. I calmly explained that it was now available w/o a prescription and that the pharmacy had in fact ordered it for me before! He yelled at me again! I calmly asked the cashier to call the store manager. When he came, I asked if we could speak privately. I then LET HIM HAVE IT! I told him that the pharmacist was DEAD WRONG and that if he had even listened to what I was saying, he would have realized it. In addition, I had seen him bark at employees and be indifferent to customers NUMEROUS times. When I got out of the little room with the manager he (the pharmacist) was paging me. He said that he looked it up and discovered I was right all along. (Well, like duh!)
A few days later, I got a call from the District Manager apologizing. I ended up going to another branch of the same pharmacy and I take a few scripts to a local mom and pop place. IMHO, that guy might be overworked (I suppose this is obvious), but his horrible attitude doesn't help matters one bit.
Bottom line: Be polite, order ahead of time, if there is a problem...speak up. If the problem persists or someone is rude, ask to speak to the manager. To be honest, it is RARELY any problem at all...this was an unusual "fella" and an unusual situation.

All of those help programs have a shaming affect for us with emotional issues. Every one of them. I have only asked for assistance recently,and the questions on the forms make me feal like crawling under my chair. Then your honor is questioned. They seem to wonder if you are lying about anything. Why would I lie about something like this? I don't lie in the first place. I don't have insurance anymore either. BF

This is in reference to post #10 Sorry for it being out of order.

Hi,

This is one of my problems. I have huge brain fog and am generally disorgized anyway. With regard to pharmacies, I have an "expect the worst" attitude because I know any number of things could go wrong.
I've been picking up meds twice a month for 20 years under various insurance plans and different docs and at different stores now and I've seen things go wrong.

Things can go wrong because of a screw up by me or from any number of people in the chain (the docs screw up certainly) but they can also go wrong because of nothing that I could ever anticipate -- even after all these years of practice of trying to get it right.


These problems are rare indeed.
But I think that many (not all) of us would not bother to report. I certainly don't have the energy or the will.

And I can't explain things very well due to memory issues and brain fog so when I am in the situation I have strong doubts that my case would be taken seriously by anyone who can help.

It's frustrating and scary to feel so dependent on everyone in the health care team.

M.

One can find jerks everywhere. I've had a jerk dentist (who slapped me when I was a little girl and crying in the chair having a tooth pulled).

I had a terrible nurse when I delivered my son, who I had to report to her
supervisor (she kept grabbing my arm --which had phebitis from an irritating IV--which hurt more than my C-section incision).. I asked her to please don't do that--3 times. After being forced on that third time, I told her to get out and never come back. And she was indeed gone!

I have had jerks for doctors.

I've had jerks for neighbors.
I know jerk pharmacists as well. And they never change, as well.

Our society is devolving in many respects. Just this week are the Forbes report about CEOs who make 40-100 million a year running their companies into the ground. If that isn't a JERK what IS?

I sort of think of life that can be like swimming. The water does not swim for you. YOU have to navigate IT. There might be a rip current that catches you, or a big wave, and then you have to cope or lose. But swimming can be pleasurable too. How we reframe experiences helps our brains to cope. I truly think we can help ourselves for most things.

When it comes to anxiety--- and I live with this too, with NO drugs, it is the left over result of my abusive childhood-- the most successful coping I have learned is to ACT rather than REACT and lose control.
For example yesterday was BAD for me. This city project is driving everyone here nuts. Will I have water today? Where will I put my car? Will this pounding and shaking of the house, break something that will lead us to bigger problems? The dirt/dust is making everyone sneeze including pets.
Yesterday, it was really bad... REALLY...and I started pacing around and just getting away from myself at 9am no less. So after a 1/2 hr of this, I decided to take my camera and go down there and take some pictures. I ended up talking to some of the guys, and watching, and then walking around and taking
pictures of the neighbors, etc. I went down there 3 times watching them screw around looking for our old main. The worry was if our connection and the neighbor's which is 4 ft away are NOT copper...then they are digging up our whole front yard, which I have gardens on. I did not want this, of course, and I suspected we were copper because it was repaired 5 yrs ago. But the anxiety was considerable! I knew they were digging in the wrong spot..but they wouldn't listen to me. In the end they found the pipes and they were where I told them. (never listen to a woman, I guess). Interacting with them actually helped me in the end...when all I wanted to do was hide in the house!

here is a picture of it at one point:
The garden in front is the one at risk. With me being so impaired now, I can't face repairing it if it were dug up! Where the men are working is where we park our cars, since we don't have a garage, and live on the hill! The cars have been a big problem since these huge machines fill the whole road!
Everything has been a nightmare.
Next will be putting in the new curbs, and repaving which will be perhaps in a month. That means a whole month of car/parking problems.

We had to remove about 20% of the plants and rocks and part of my steps as it was...my son came in to help us, a weekend ago.
And he offered to help us fix the stairs, and put in the new blocks that we use along the curb to get into our cars.
It is lovely on the hill, and people ooooh and ahhhh but it is very difficult. And now with my physical challenges very hard on me.
I would like to move, but hubby won't. It is a family home for 4 generations. sigh.

I am standing on the sidewalk taking this picture looking down. The hill behind me is 20 more steps UP to the front door.

June '08 Consumer Reports has a whole evaluation on
Drugstores in America with lots of side data as well.

You cannot view it online without a membership, but you can visit your
favorite drugstore (LOL) and read it there, or the library.

In essence the companies that treat their employees the worst,
showed up the worst in the list. (eg: RiteAid)
It is a pretty good article...check it out.

What a nitemere Mrs.D....Your flowers are lovely!
thanks for sharing....I hope this ends sooner than later....
bizi

Yesterday they told us they were done. Next would be the road work, etc.

But today they stood around and hemmed and hawed...and they discovered
that they forgot to fix the manhole in the right front of our house.

So Monday they will BE BACK. So they left their giant digger parked in front
of our house and we can't park the cars because of it. (we are using the backyard of a neighbor who is in Florida but returning tomorrow).

We have verbal permission from the traffic supervisor to park illegally on the highway in back...but I don't like leaving the cars there at night, like sitting ducks for breakins/theft. She said if we are ticketed she will reverse them. Yeah sure.

Then the lightning started, and they left. Guess there is a union clause about lightning storms. At least the beeping stopped. Having 4 huge machines all beeping beeping together is pretty awful. There is the giant digger with a claw bigger than a person, another digger fitted with the tamper...which shakes the house, a huge red truck to take the dug up stuff away, and a huge bulldozer to bring more sand.

I am so glad I am not working right now... This would really P.O me then.