Saturday, January 9, 2016

Bug and the "Magic Wand"

We have a new regional pharmacy manager (RPM). I'll call him Bug. Bug came by for a visit to introduce himself and tell us that he's not like the other Authorities and how he is a low key manager.

Then Bug told us how important it is to get the numbers up. So much for low key.

Bug told us how important it is to talk to people in the grocery and get their business in the pharmacy. He's telling us all this as we're trying to keep up with the workload that particular day. At no time did Bug, a pharmacist himself, attempt to help us with filling prescriptions.

So Flynn and I get caught up a little in the pharmacy. I take the break in the chaos to tell Bug that it is like this all the time and that we're pretty much maxed out as it is. To get more business we need time to promote the business. To do that we need more help. To keep up with additional prescriptions to fill, we will need more help. That seemed like a fairly straight forward, logical request.

Bug could have replied a number of ways. He could have said that he'll pass on our request, or he could have explained that upper management would not approve more technician hours without an increase in sales. Just about anything would have been better than his condescending response:


"I wish I had a magic wand in my back pocket that I could just pull out and make that happen."

Yes, he seriously said that.

So the next time Bug comes around to tell us how important it is to get the numbers up, I'm going to say the exact same thing.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Go to the dollar store. That is where I bought my last "magic" wand for work. It was nice...all glittery and had a star on top. True story. Bought one for work to make the impossible happen the next time I was asked to do so. Kept it in the pen cup.

AUpillroller said...

I am a medically retired pharmacist who worked 18 years as a chain retail pharmacist. After becoming unable to work full time, I worked part time in a hometown owned independent pharmacy as a fill-in pharmacist, working short shifts as I was able.
A few years ago, I finally became unable to hold out to work at all. The stress level at the locally owned pharmacy was so much less than the chain. I could not believe it.
After being retired for a couple of years now, I now have nightmares occasionally of people lined up looking at me waiting on their prescription. I have self-diagnosed myself as having PTSD of the years working in the chain world. The district managers of the world need to understand the stress of a pharmacy manager. I wish I could still work, but knowing what I know now, it would never be in a chain pharmacy, with a district manager telling me to get the Rx count up and the wait time down.

Anonymous said...

I think fairy dust would be even better......he'd be walking around with pieces of said dust on his person for weeks (so would you, but it still sounds like a fun way to get your point across)!

Your predicament is much like that of an educator.....get your test scores up, get them up, blah blah blah! And they make that possible by cutting teachers & increasing class size to in some cases (or subjects when mainstreaming) to 32 students! It's impossible!

It's just so easy for administration to make recommendations (aka demands) for something they are either clueless about because they've never been in the classroom or have been out of the classroom for so long they forgot!

Good luck! I hope they have a lot of gift cards printed!