In the UK, restrictions have been lifted in most places; however, people are still required to wear a mask in certain places such as pharmacies.

A customer comes up to the counter, prescription in hand, and asks to borrow a mask as she is without one. Of course, no problem. I take her prescription, tell her it will be about five minutes, and then go and grab the box of masks. When I come back with them:

Customer: “Oh, no, thanks, it’s fine. I’m inside now.”

I suppose at least she was polite and took one when I told her they were mandatory. But who knew you could only catch a sickness over the threshold of a business’s premises?

I work as a pharmacy technician at a well-known pharmacy and convenience store. A man comes up to the counter and asks for a refill on his prescription. The pharmacist informs me the doctor did not call it in yet.

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, the doctor still did not call in your refill.”

Customer: “Can you call him now?”

Me: “Of course!”

I call his doctor, but they have already closed for the day.

Me: “They left for the day. We can give you a few pills to hold you over.”

Customer: “No, I don’t want that! Every time I come here there is a f****** problem!”

Me: “What would you like me to do, sir?”

The customer walks away in a huff. I think this is the end of it until the phone rings thirty minutes later.

Customer #2: “Yes, my husband was just there and told me the doctor did not refill his prescription and you told him, ‘What would you like me to do?’ What kind of s***ty customer service is that? I work all f****** day. I don’t need this s***.”

Me: “Miss, I don’t know what to tell you. I called the doctor and they had left for the day, so I offered your husband a few pills to hold him over and he refused that, as well.”

Customer #2: “There had better be a prescription there tomorrow or I will blow up your f****** store.”

Me: “Miss, that probably would not be a good idea considering I have your name and address right in front of me.” *CLICK*

Some people are not too bright.

I’m a pharmacist with a major corporate chain. I’m talking with a patient about a medication that she should have refilled but hasn’t yet.

Patient: “Oh, I don’t need that one refilled. My doctor took me off it.” 

Me: “Sounds good. I’ll put that in the notes.” 

Patient: *Jokingly* “Besides, I just dropped over $300 at your pharmacy a couple of days ago. I don’t think I need to spend any more right now.”

Dear readers, I can only ascribe what happens next to this being the end of a very crazy twelve-hour shift. I want to say, “Let’s give your pocketbook a break.” For some reason, my brain decides to change the word “break” to “rest” halfway through the word. So, what actually comes out of my mouth is:

Me: “Oh, yeah, let’s give your pocketbook a breast.” 

Exhaustion is a powerful drug, guys.

A customer comes in with a small digital thermometer, the kind that generally goes under the armpit or in your mouth. As such, they’re designed to be resistant to fluids, although they’re not entirely waterproof because, hey, they are cheap.

Customer: “I bought this a few days ago and took a couple of readings, and now it’s stopped working. I think maybe it’s the battery. Can I have a refund or an exchange?”

Coworker: “Let’s have a look and see if we can change the battery first.”

My coworker opens the battery case of the thermometer and finds it rather brown inside. As she’s new and unsure of what to do, she asks my opinion.

I take note of the brown and then notice that the outside of the thermometer is damp.

Me: “It looks wet. Could it be water damage?”

My coworker tilts the thermometer to try to see the battery better, and suddenly, about two teaspoons of very brown, very murky water run out of the battery compartment and onto our bench.

Customer: “Oh, no, it’s not water damage. I mean, I did wash it, but it was broken before that. I used it on my horse because he’s sick and I didn’t think you’d want to handle it unless I washed it first.”

Yep. We now had horse poo water on our bench and on my coworker’s hands. From the condition of the battery compartment, I strongly suspect that this may not have been the first time the customer had washed the thermometer.

Despite my misgivings, my manager gave the customer the exchange anyway. My coworker disposed of the used thermometer and scrubbed the bench and her hands very thoroughly.

Ah, the joys of working retail.

I had a lady pick up [painkiller] for a dog. It was a pretty early refill and I was bored, so I went to our manager, and it turns out the dog had been filling this prescription all over town.

I just thought I’d try and broaden the search, so I just did the owner’s name and date of birth and found multiple other dog names all filling [painkiller]. I called the office and it turns out the vet this dog owner was using had just stepped down to be with her family and was not practicing. The owner used to work there but had been fired for calling in fake scripts. The office said they would take care of the issue.

The part that still makes me laugh about this whole sad situation was that the first dog’s name was Scrappy, and one of my techs chimed in, “I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids!”