The Heavens Smiled

Long day. Evening shift. Techs are gone. I'm alone. Cue dramatic music.

Mr. Clueless walks up to the pick up window and pronounces his name. I get his lone drug off the will-call shelf and start to ring it up. I scan the label. The computer confirms there is one lone drug ready for pick up. As I'm scanning, a regular of ours steps into line.

"There's supposed to be several prescriptions," he states.

"Well, this is all I have. Was there something supposed to come in this evening?"

"No, it was 5-6 hours ago," he says, perturbed that they're not filled and ready for pick up.

"We haven't received anything else, otherwise we would have filled it and it would be ready to pick up."

"NO," he says, angrily now, "MY doctor said he was going to send it in TODAY. Look on the computer AGAIN," he says, with attitude.

"I don't need to look," I said. "If we had received anything, it would be filled."

Mr. Clueless grabs a business card. "Is your name Mickey?" he asks. I've been down this road so many times I know what's coming. "No, I'm Crazy." I point to my name tag. It says "Crazy RxMan."

"I honestly don't understand why you're angry," I continue. "I don't have any other prescriptions for you. If something had been called in, we would have filled it. That's what we do."

"Well I'm going to tell my MOTHER all about this and I'm going to transfer all my scripts to another pharmacy," he says, in anger. Mind you, this guy has ONE script in our database, he is 35 years old, and lives with his partner. I have no idea who his mother is. Perhaps she's an operative for the CIA and tomorrow I will just "disappear," but I doubt it. He storms off.

The lady in line steps up and shakes her head. She heard the whole thing. I ask her, "What did I do wrong?"

She says the guy is nuts and she'd be happy to vouch for me if necessary. Just then Mr. Clueless reappears with one of the sub commanders from the grocery. The manager says, "I'd just like you to look at the computer and verify that there isn't anything for this customer."

I tell her that no, there isn't. I tell her that when I scanned his prescription the computer would have alerted me to it. She seems satisfied. And then the lady in line, very nicely, tells Mr. Clueless that she saw the whole thing and there was no reason in the world for him to be angry... she tells how she's been a patient of our humble Goofmart Pharmacy for years and that we're dedicated to helping patients...  she went on and on in front of the manager and Mr. Clueless about what a great pharmacy we are and how we've never given anything but top notch customer service.

It was truly amazing. She was smooth like a Matthew McConaughey Lincoln TV ad where you want a Lincoln so damn bad now you'll do anything to get it... except it was ME she was promoting. She portrayed us as the best pharmacy in the world. Me... the guy who most people would view as Left Shark at the Super Bowl, is actually Thor and Captain America all mixed into one Super Pharmacist.

I swear to you: Mr. Clueless then apologized to me for his behavior. Later in the evening he called the pharmacy to apologize again. He said he had a bad day and took it out on me.

This is one of those things where it could have turned into a complaint and a write-up on my "attitude." But because I had a witness, the nut case backed down and admitted to the world that the customer isn't always right. The Heavens smiled upon me today.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is another day.