One of my high school jobs is working at a large retail chain pharmacy company. I do just about everything at the store except manager duties and running the one-hour photo machine; you need to be eighteen to use it.

One summer day, I’m working at the front cash register and things are just normal, no big rushes, no problematic customers, just a dull, humdrum day.

As I’m up front ringing up a couple of customers, I see a local man come in. This regular customer comes in a few times a month when the weather is nice. This regular, I’m told (and from what I can tell from a few interactions with him) is not all there mentally. I’m told he’s around forty years old and, due to bad head trauma from a motorcycle accident when he was around twenty, he now basically has the mentality of an eight-year-old. He gets around on his pedal bike and he’s very nice, but he’s not much of a conversationalist.

He comes in every now and then when the weather is nice for biking, and he usually pays for some kind of snack or drink. I don’t know what just transpired back by the one-hour photo counter; all I know is that I am helping a customer and, all of a sudden, the regular comes running through the store and toward the front door in a full-on sprint. He’s running as fast as he can, and I can see he’s holding a couple of items in his hands, but I can’t make out what they are as he dashes past me.

The front entrance doors are sliding automatic doors; you walk on the floor mat and the pressure sensor in the mat triggers the door to slide open. The regular is moving so fast that the doors don’t have time to trigger and open, so he just puts his shoulder down and barrels through them! The doors are designed to swing open on hinges. He runs through the doors so hard that he almost knocks the doors off the hinges, and he continues running through the parking lot to where he parked his bike. 

I am standing there, not sure what is going on and not sure what to do. I look to my right and the store manager is walking up to the front to fix the doors, and he is laughing.

I ask the manager if the guy stole that stuff, and my manager is still laughing as he is fixing the doors.

Manager: “No. He didn’t steal anything. He was very excited about the kite he just bought because he really wanted to get outside in the nice weather and fly it. I’ve never seen someone so excited before to fly a kite.”

My manager couldn’t stop laughing as he walked away back toward the photo counter.

I work in a pharmacy. We have a sick kid with all kinds of health problems, physical and psychological, so he’s on a lot of medications. His parent/guardian is an absolute entitled jerk. She pulls the “I have a disabled child” card at every opportunity she can and uses that excuse to be super rude. She actively looked for problems before this incident, but now I’m pretty sure she’s actually trying to bait us into doing or saying something so that she can sue us.

[Kid] is taking clonazepam for his anxiety AND clobazam for his seizures. I’m sure you can guess exactly where this is headed. [Kid] ran out of clobazam, so [Parent] called the doctor to request a refill. She has an accent and has a stuffy nose when she called the doctor. [Parent] swears that she called in his clobazam, but the doctor sent clonazepam because that’s what he heard. The doctor checked the kid’s profile and saw that he was taking clonazepam, so that’s obviously what he sent. It is too early to fill the clonazepam, so we just put the script on hold.

[Parent] calls and demands to know what is going on with the kid’s medication.

Me: “It’s too early to fill that prescription; you’ll need to wait for two more days before we can fill it.”

Parent: “He ran out of his pills three days ago. He needs it now!”

Me: “We can’t fill the clonazepam because it’s a controlled substance and it’s too early.”

Parent: “The doctor called it in! Why can’t you just do your jobs?!”

And blah, blah, blah. [Parent] does not get [Kid]’s medicine that night.

At this point, the kid has been without clobazam for three days. Guess who has a seizure and has to go to the hospital. And guess who calls us first thing in the morning and immediately demands:

Parent: “Where is your manager?!”

Apparently, in Entitlement World, all pharmacists are managers. [Pharmacist] has to hear about how we allegedly refused to fill [Kid]’s seizure medication and he ended up in the hospital and she is going to sue us, blah, blah, blah.

[Pharmacist] looks at the kid’s profile and sees the script for clonazepam, but she scrolls down further and sees the old script for clobazam without any refills.

Pharmacist: “Which medicine did you tell the doctor to call in?”

Parent: “The clobazam!”

Pharmacist: “Clobazam and clonazepam sound very similar. Are you sure that’s what you called it?”

Parent: “You should have known which medicine my kid needed because he was already out for three days. You should have just filled the one he needed!”

[Pharmacist] calls the doctor.

Doctor: “[Parent] absolutely called in clonazepam last night, not clobazam. I sent the script for clonazepam.”

[Pharmacist] calls [Parent] back.

Pharmacist: “[Doctor] heard you request clonazepam and sent over the one you asked for.”

Parent: “You should have known which one he’d been out of for three days and needed a refill for! It’s your pharmacy’s fault my son was admitted to the hospital!”

She didn’t blame the doctor for sending in the clonazepam script. She blamed the pharmacy for filling the clonazepam script instead of magically knowing it was supposed to be clobazam.

The whole fiasco was [Parent]’s fault for waiting until the kid was without his seizure medicine for three days and then requesting the wrong medication when she called the doctor.

She kept calling and trying to make us apologize for “sending her kid to the hospital”. We told her that we felt sorry that it had happened to her kid, but we didn’t say we were sorry FOR what happened. She kept calling back trying to get an apology, so I think she was trying to get a cashier or new tech to say, “I’m sorry FOR what happened,” so she could sue us.

I’m very young and have just started my career as a pharmacist.

Two sixteen-year-olds come into the pharmacy to pick up [painkiller] for their grandfather. They give me all the numbers, even their own birthdates, etc. When the script comes up on my screen, it says, “DECEASED,” in big bold letters.

I just start laughing.

Me: “But he’s dead?!”

And suddenly, they were in a hurry to leave. Should have called the cops, I guess.

I work at a pharmacy. Due to assorted unexpected issues, we were struggling to work as fast as we usually did and had a large line backed up waiting. Thankfully, everyone was being fairly understanding about the delay.

One man, in particular, seemed completely indifferent to the wait, reading something on his phone and seeming completely relaxed as he waited. At least he did, until he suddenly gave an unexpected gasp, typed something on his phone real fast, then looked up with clear excitement and impatience, eyeing the door as if he planned to run out right then.

Me: “Sir, are you okay?”

Man: “Yeah, just… my wife’s labor is early! She’s hours away right now, and I really want to get there in time. If I didn’t need this prescription…”

Customer: “Oh, congratulations! Go ahead in front.”

All the other customers in line made similar offers, allowing him to skip to the front of the line as we rushed to get him his prescription as quickly as possible. He gave everyone a very sincere-sounding thank-you as he practically ran out the door with his prescription.

Sometime later, I saw the man in our line again.

Me: “It’s you again. How did the delivery go? Did you make it in time?”

Man: “Oh, wow! I’m surprised you remember. Yes, I sort of made it, thanks.”

Me: “Sort of?”

Man: “Seems my wife was really impatient to be done with the pregnancy. Not only did she go into labor way early, but she went through the whole labor and birth in record time. She dislocated our daughter’s arm pushing her out so quickly. I got there just a few minutes too late for her birth.”

Me: “Oh, no. I’m sorry about your daughter and your missing it.”

Man: “Oh, it’s all right; she’s fine now. And I did at least make it in time to be there for our son’s birth!”

Here he grinned from ear to ear at me as he held up his phone showing a photo of his newborn twins, complete with the most adorable tiny sling on his daughter’s arm.

Man: “Other than some jaundice, they’re doing great. Please thank everyone that was working that day again for helping me get there in time.”

I work in a pharmacy.

Patient: “I need to pick up [prescriptions].”

Me: “Okay. It looks like we don’t have that ready quite yet for y—”

Patient: *Already angry* “I need those scripts now. I can’t go without them!”

Me: “I understand. We have your prescriptions; they’re just not ready for pick-up yet. We only have two techs right now. Did you want to sit and wait, and I’ll call you once we get them finished?”

Patient: “That is ridiculous. I just got discharged from the hospital, and I’m supposed to start these medications tomorrow morning!”

Me: “Okay. Well, they’re not ready. Did you want to sit and wait until we get those done?”

Patient: “No.”

Me: “Okay.”

There’s silence for a moment.

Patient: “I’ll just sit down and wait.”

Sigh. This is why I don’t even bother arguing with these people.