Wednesday, February 20, 2013

A Clear Explanation for Upper Management Behavior

How's your pharmacy patrons? More people on Medicaid ON YOUR TAX DOLLAR when you know they shouldn't really be on it? People taking advantage of the system (Like Miss Loosey), others complaining that their co-pay went up by a dollar, or people only filling the narc and leaving the antibiotic behind? How about unreasonable expectations that an Rx be filled within minutes even when you have ten waiters in front of them?

How about your pharmacy company? Low inventory, "organization" projects (which do not increase script count), fewer tech hours, no lunch breaks for the pharmacists, inventory nightmare ideas (such as Quake-N-Zap), strange requests and bizarre mandates which make little or no sense whatsoever? Emotional outbursts from managers, RPMs, your pharmacy director, over things that are indeed trivial matters? Do you feel like all your managers are bi-polar? 

Yes, you're probably working for the same pharmacy chain I do. You scratch your head in wonder: Why? Why do they do these things?

I'm certain I've figured out why. It became crystal clear when I was reading the current article Leading Geneticist: Human Intelligence is Slowly Declining about how the intelligence of society today is dropping compared to our ancestors. As the article states, "Despite our advancements over the last tens or even hundreds of years, some ‘experts’ believe that humans are losing cognitive capabilities and becoming more emotionally unstable. One Stanford University researcher and geneticist, Dr. Gerald Crabtree, believes that our intellectual decline as a race has much to do with adverse genetic mutations."

Fluoride, Pesticides, and Processed Foods might have something to do with the genetic mutations. Or in the case of my company's managers, BAD HIRING PRACTICES. All I know is that there seems to be some really dumb patients out there and even dumber managers. It's making life at my pharmacy extremely annoying.

5 comments:

Footie said...

Astute diagnosis. What can I say except keep fighting the good fight and with apologies to Yeats...
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
....
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity"

Texas Pharmacy Chica said...

You picked 'Dumb and Dumber' for your daily graphic. One of my top-five favorite movies is 'Idiocracy', and for every day that goes by, it becomes more and more obvious to me that is more of a futuristic documentary than a comedy. Another movie to explore, however much I dislike it: Johnnny Mnemonic - the information overload we are exposed to (Keanu Reeves may have gotten first billing, but Ice-T and Henry Rollins in the same movies was way cool, though!). Pretty sure that Magellan and Tycho Brahe did not have to keep track of all the weird facts we have to today. Turn to the book 'Cultural Literacy' by E. D. Hirsch and the 5000 (five thousand) things he lists as a competency level for cultural literacy. Our culture. Do we know ourselves? If we were living in simpler times, would our minds find more ways to explore instead of being constantly barraged by information to keep track of? Having three kids and navigating the school system I sometimes feel caught in the same bureaucracy that caused Earth to get blown up in 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.' - which I see as a strong reference to Franz Kafka. See what I mean? I just overloaded the post with references......

Hildy said...

Maybe our environment is more toxic, but maybe also "more civilization" has allowed weaker/less equipped members to live and reproduce. A Swedish friend once remarked on our tendency to protect and warn. Why post a warning not to enter a pond in winter in case the ice wasn't fully frozen? he said. In his country, the thinking was that if you're stupid enough to venture out without testing, we're better off if you die. Draconian, but it does winnow out the less intelligent.

Anonymous said...

I ge the sense from your posts that you pretty much have no tolerance for anyone on Medicaid. I have to think not all of them are scammers. And no, I'm not on Medicaid or any other form of public assistance. I pay more than my fair share of taxes, too. I know there are some people out there mooching off of the rest of us, but I still don't understand your attitude. You can't tell me you aren't mistreating some of the innocent people out there with your attitude.

Crazy RxMan said...

Thanks for all the comments on this post.

With regard to the last comment, I can honestly tell you that the only mistreatment is FROM patients on Medicaid, not from me mistreating them. I'll address this in a later blog post, but I can tell you right now that the landscape has changed dramatically in terms of a culture shift. What can you expect when half of our population feeds off the taxes of the other half?

For the most part, people on Medicaid NOW are extremely belligerent not only about what is covered and how much they pay (literally nothing), they gripe and complain about how fast it is filled. I have been screamed at, insulted, threatened, pointed at, flipped off, hung up on, and stared at (meanly, I might add). I have DONE NONE of these things in return.