I work as a pharmacy benefits manager.

Customer: “Is OxyContin covered by my insurance plan?”

Me: “Yes, it is. [Blah, blah, copay things].”

Customer: “So, how can I get them?”

Me: “You would need a prescription from your doctor.”

Customer: “Oh, you guys can’t just send it to me?”

Me: “No. We are not a pharmacy; we only manage your pharmaceutical benefits. Even if we were, that would be extremely illegal.”

Customer: “Oh, well, is there another way?”

Me: “Not legally.”

Customer: “Can you tell me?”

Me: “No.”

Customer: “Can I talk to your manager?”

He seemed genuinely surprised that my manager couldn’t “help” him, either.

I work for a health insurer, and one of my jobs is to help members log into our website or app so they can view their claim and benefit information. It’s a process that some people can find complicated. I’m walking a caller through the process when I hear what sounds like a voice on a speaker in the background, and the caller says:

Caller: “I’ll have a number four meal with a Sprite.”

It dawns on me what the whirring noise I’ve been hearing in the background during this call is.

Me: “Sir, are you driving in your car right now?”

Caller: “Yeah, I’m on my lunch break.”

Me: “Please park somewhere until this is finished. I don’t want you to be distracted while you’re driving.”

I can’t imagine how someone could enter a twelve-character high-security password (twice!) and drive at the same time.

I am on the call with a health insurance representative, and it sticks out to me because his name is the same as my cat.

While we are talking, I hear a bunch of roosters cockadoodling in the background. The more I hear it, the more I laugh.

Representative: “I’m sorry for all the noise. My neighbor has a bunch of roosters.”

Me: “It’s okay.”

He then proceeds to tell me this story.

Representative: “Back when the [global health crisis] was starting to get bad, my neighbor thought he would be smart and get chickens for few dollars each to have a supply of meat and eggs. Well, the joke is on him because all of the chickens are boys!”

I laugh, and he continues.

Representative: “So, for Thanksgiving, my neighbor had an idea to cook up one of the roosters. He did, and let me tell ya, it was soooo dry and tough!”

Me: “Oh, my goodness, that’s probably why we don’t eat roosters!”

Representative: “So now, I’m surrounded by roosters who never shut up!”

Caller: “Hi, I need a quote on some car insurance.”

Me: “Okay, let me take down some details.”

I get down the basics, including the make and model of the car.

Me: “Okay, and what’s the condition of the car?”

Caller: “Well, until about an hour ago, it was great.”

Me: “…an hour ago?”

Caller: “Well, it’s pretty totaled now. That’s why I need insurance.”

Me: “Sir, have you just had an accident?!”

Caller: “Yeah.”

Me: “I’m afraid insurance doesn’t work like that. You need to be covered before the accident.”

Caller: “Yeah… I figured as much. I just figured I would call you and ask since I have time, what with being trapped in the car and everything.”

Me: “Sir! You need to call 911!”

Caller: “Oh, don’t worry, I did that just before calling you. I’m not an idiot…”

This event happened in April of 1982, and I remember it well. I was working for a very large Boston-based insurance company that locally employed over five thousand people. I had only been there for two years at that point, so I only had ten vacation days. I was a payment clerk, so my salary hardly broke the bank for the company.

I woke up one Friday morning to the news that the local Public Transportation Authority had staged an unannounced one-day strike. Perfect. I had no way to get to work. After doing some checking, I was told that it was a minimum of a three-hour wait — probably longer — to get a cab, and given the huge traffic jams, it would easily take two hours or more to even get to work once the cab did show up. Not to mention that the cost of a round-trip cab fare would have been about the same as my day’s salary.

Although I obviously had never done it, I estimated that walking to work from where I lived would have taken at least a good two hours each way. 

So, finally, I called into work and talked to my manager. (He drove to work and had a spot in the company garage.)

Me: “Hi, [Manager], there’s just no way I can get in today. Cabs are a three-hour-plus wait, walking is just too far, and as you know, I don’t own a car or even a bike, and there’d be nowhere to park them anyway.”

Manager: “Yeah, I’ve been keeping up with the news. A lot of people here have the same situation and can’t make it in either. Don’t worry about it. See you Monday.”

After returning to work the next week, I was told that just over 40% of the company staff hadn’t been able to get in. Most who’d made it had cars and already had parking privileges in the company garage, a few had come by bike or walked, and even fewer had managed to get cabs.

Later that day, word came down from the Vice President of Human Resources for one of the largest employers in the State, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, that we had to use a vacation day or take an unpaid day off to account for the day lost due to the Transportation Strike. Otherwise, “it wouldn’t be fair to those who came to work that day.” This was all HR directive. Cheap, heartless HR.

I had already used three vacation days, and I had a planned vacation coming up, so I really had no vacation days to spare. So, I took it as an unpaid day off. Office scuttlebutt the rest of the week consisted of everyone complaining about how one of the wealthiest companies in the State couldn’t afford to pay its workers just one day’s pay for something completely out of their control.

This happened nearly forty-five years ago, and it still pisses me off.