Giving Their Anger A Boost

It’s booster time at the pharmacy and the lobby is completely full of people: people standing in line to be helped and people sitting in chairs waiting for shots. We have TWO registers and a couple of computers for checking people in. People are picking up prescriptions, dropping off prescriptions, getting checked in for shots, getting rung out for shots, and also receiving their required paperwork to do shots. I am barely staying on top of helping everybody while I check people in and ring people out. We’re fully staffed but in the middle of a Monday morning rush.

Without warning, a customer comes up to the counter.

Customer: “My appointment was at 11:30.”

It’s now 12:15 pm.

Me: “Did you check in?”

Customer: “I shouldn’t have to check in; I did all that online.”

I’m thinking, “Okay, he just made his appointment online, showed up at 11:30, and sat his butt down expecting someone would eventually give him a shot.”

Customer: “You’re not doing your job. I want to speak to the pharmacy manager!”

Me: “The pharmacy manager is not here, but I can get the store manager.”

Customer: *Pointing* “Who’s that guy over there?”

Me: “He’s our staff pharmacist.”

He gets angry and accuses me again of not doing my job, saying that he shouldn’t have to check in, so I go page the store manager.

Customer: “I have to leave soon. Just give me my shot.”

In the time this has taken, my coworkers and I have managed to check him in.

Me: “You have to fill out this paperwork and I have to ring you out.”

Customer: “I’ll fill out the paper; just give me my shot.”

I hand him the paper and he starts to walk away. At this point, the store manager shows up.

Store Manager: “What’s going on?”

Me: “This guy has a problem with us.”

The store manager went to talk to him, so I went in the back part of the pharmacy and complained to my coworkers about the insanity of it all.

When you go to a doctor’s office, you check in at the counter and you sit down and patiently wait for a nurse to call you back. Not once have I ever seen somebody throwing a self-entitled tantrum at the doctor’s office. Yet people seem to find it okay to abuse hard-working pharmacy employees who are trying their best to help everyone.