Unfiltered Story #243837

Patient hands me a prescription

Me: Okay, that’ll be about fifteen minutes wait.

About twenty minutes later and a fair few other patients coming and going, I spot the patient sitting on the chair.

Me: Oh! What name were you waiting on again?

Patient: (Staring at me blankly) Don’t you have the name written down?

Me: Well, yes, but you need to confirm it.

Patient: I don’t know it.

(My colleague comes out. Rinse and repeat, more or less).

Patient: (Getting angry) I work in a hotel and there’s a sick woman who needs this prescription! No one told me that I would have to give the name!

Colleague: That’s because most people already know that.

Patient: Well, maybe if I was eighty and having to collect a prescription every day, I’d know that! But you need to tell everyone when they come in that they have to give the name!

Colleague: And if we did, people would get annoyed with us for telling them the obvious.

(At this point, I’m serving and tune out, only to then hear…)

Patient: (On the phone) I’m still at the pharmacy, They won’t give me the prescription because I don’t know her name. (Pause). Hey, sweetheart. I need to know your name….

(Because it’s easier to insist on talking to someone who’s sick rather than getting your colleague to look up the name on the reservation, I guess…?)