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^^ My register counter is right about at natural waist height. And being unable to sit down is pretty par for the course for cashiers. Unless you work in Europe or Aldi's in the states. My feet used to kill me until I made an effort to get in slightly better shape. And get yourself a pair of New Balance walking shoes. No inserts required and your feet will thank you! Your register table does seem way too low, though  I've sincerely had it. The scheduling budget at my store is incredibly low. There are typically only 2 people scheduled for the entire day. Our store starts getting busy at about 2:30pm and it doesn't let up until closing. The key holder works on recovering the back half of the store and generally performs no cashiering or cleaning duties. The non-keyholder has to check out all the customers, recover the entire front half of the store and perform a really long list of nightly cleaning duties. It's just impossible. We are far too busy for me to perform any of my jobs to my utmost ability and it creates huge amounts of stress. If we just had an extra person from 4-8pm, the cashier's job satisfaction would improve immensely. They recently added a whole new list of weekly cleaning tasks that must be completed and it's just never going to get done. Last night was very busy, but we managed to have recovery done on the whole store by 8pm. We were ecstatic. That gave me an hour to tackle my cleaning duties. Then a giant throng of people entered the store with a million kids. By the time we locked the doors, it looked like recovery hadn't been done for about 3 months. Kids had pushed every single item all the way to the back of the shelves, there were 3 bags of jelly beans opened on the floor with most of their contents scattered everywhere and handprints all over all of the glass and stainless steel that I had just cleaned. Corporate makes billions in profits every year. Surely they can give us an extra 4 hours of payroll a day so that their employees aren't suicidal, right? It's just insane. By the time I walk out from behind our register area and take 2 steps towards whatever aisle I'm working on recovering, a customer comes to be checked out. I get nowhere. And when I do actually make it to an aisle, I'll recover 2 items and I'll get someone yelling how they've been waiting 5 minutes and they hate this store. I've been gone from the register for 22 seconds. Please calm down. I think I'm going to start drinking again. I hate my life.
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Mar 23, 2013 14:38
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A lady purchased a bunch of items on the 16th and came in today informing us that we didn't give her one of the items she had purchased. She had crossed off the items we *did* give her and circled the one we didn't. I asked why she didn't call the day of the purchase, but apparently she didn't have access to a phone this whole time. I didn't give her squat because the inventory matched when checked on the computer/stock. Surprisingly she wasn't angry, just shrugged it off and walked away.
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Mar 23, 2013 17:39
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Admiral Goodenough posted:I work at a discount bookstore on weekends and during school breaks and the register desk is a cheap IKEA kitchen table, I'm pretty sure. I'm not allowed to have a chair so I stand up all day and it's killing my back. Does anyone have recommendations for good insoles that could relieve some of that pain? Are you also really tall? I'm 6'4" and my register desk is about the same and it is complete murder on my back.
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Mar 23, 2013 19:11
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Sankis posted:Are you also really tall? I'm 6'4" and my register desk is about the same and it is complete murder on my back. I am only 6'2" and I had the same issues when I was in retail, I got one of those rubber mats for the floor. Another way is before you twist your back pick up your foot when you pivot. reduces stress on the knees and also the back.
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Mar 24, 2013 02:08
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Admiral Goodenough posted:I work at a discount bookstore on weekends and during school breaks and the register desk is a cheap IKEA kitchen table, I'm pretty sure. I'm not allowed to have a chair so I stand up all day and it's killing my back. Does anyone have recommendations for good insoles that could relieve some of that pain? Dr Scholls works wonders for me and I stand all day. To add more content: dear God I wish people would realize how giving a bad survey really doesn't do anything on making the company change policies, but just has them come down on me and drop my sales rankings. I'm usually really good with surveys, but something about this month has me just getting 2 good 1 bad all month long. What sucks is the rep ratings and the comments are all 10s and "he was great," but literally the only part that counts on my score is "would you recommend the company?" So if they love me but hate the company, I'm SOL. Better than my last gig though, which docked my pay if I was sucking on surveys.
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Mar 24, 2013 13:08
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Here is the thing about working retail that I've found. Be enormous like me! I'm 6'5 and hover around 250 pounds. In my time at Walmart (now well behind me, thankfully), I noticed that I could magically get a lot of stuff done with customers that other sales workers (often small women) could not. This is because something goes off in someone's brain when they see someone bigger than them, something along the lines of "If I piss this guy off, he will break my neck and no one will stop him." This isn't a rational thought, it's just the first thing to pass through most peoples' brain mush when they start talking with me. I can't really help that much, but I can use it to my advantage. Meanwhile, I think the average reaction to short women from a problem customer is something along the lines of "Women are bitches and poo poo, and I can manipulate them!" Well, nobody fucks with Mongo. Some of you other tall retail workers may make the mistake of being lanky. gently caress that noise. Be as big as possible. Lift weights or something, or failing that, eat a lot of the food that people working retail have to make do with. And, I'm half-serious here, consider shaving your hair down to get a cage fighter look (I don't do this, but since losing my hair to cancer I've only become more physically intimidating). You won't even have to pound your fist into your hands when an ornery customer shows up, the blood will just drain from their face because they know they've met the department bouncer. The very first post in this thread, where a customer freaks out on a manager for days at a time? No one in my history of retail, which goes back some years, has ever dared gently caress with me like that, because anyone who thinks like that has an inordinate respect for physical intimidation, and can therefore be intimidated easily. This does not mean I intentionally intimidate people (don't do this). I don't go in trying to be "intense," ever. I'm actually pretty polite. They just cannot handle picking on someone beyond their own size. This resolves 90% of customer altercations before they occur, because it's mostly stupid assholes who would ever raise a true stink in the first place. This has subtly helped me in every job working with people that I've ever had. A guy comes into an office at the university with a history of making unwanted advances on all the attractive women who work there? Forget about that poo poo, here comes Mongo! (This even works on sleazy professors). Because of pure physical presence, I've calmed down people who were screaming their way through entire departments, sometimes other than my own. As an added benefit, when I'm fixing your $20 cellphone so that it works right (which is all an electronics sales person at Walmart really does 90% of the time), people listen. (None of this advice counts for anything if the customer is insane, of course). For some of you, this advice unfortunately means nothing, because you are a 5'3 woman or something. I hope you get promoted out of regular customer interaction, I really do. It's the women who mysteriously get the worst customers because our society is still very sexist, and in lower-end retail you are going to hit lowest common denominator pretty fast, of course. Want to reduce negative customer interactions? Hire football players and people who look like Vinnie Jones. If you're a huge badass motherfucker, or can fake it, a wonderful career in retail awaits you somewhere. If this post makes you somehow envy me, consider that it made the one summer I did neighborhood political canvassing significantly more difficult. (Don't canvas unless you want the worst job in all of politics other than maybe phone canvassing, anyway). quote:Really, my only complaint about it was that they made a huge deal out of me wanting a lunch break. I was entitled to a 30 minute lunch, but I could tell management really didn't like the fact that I wanted to take it (most people at the store didn't take one at all and just scarfed down what they could on their 15 minute breaks). So I would be forced to come in a half-hour before or stay a half-hour later than the usual shift to make up for my lunch. It was kind of a hassle because there's not a whole lot you can work on in 30 minutes before everyone shows up or after they all leave, especially as a trainee. Yay! That's loving illegal. There's a reason people at Walmart get written up if they don't take their lunchbreak by five hours in. In fact it's one of the only things your manager will really give a poo poo about.
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Mar 26, 2013 09:24
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It would be really interesting to try being a dude in retail for a day just to see what difference it makes in customer interaction. I'm the only worker in the store 99% of the time and being young and a woman is honestly a bit scary sometimes when obviously drunk people come in. I can't act with the authority I want to when I'm half thinking about how the customer could easily overpower me if things get ugly for whatever reason. Thanks for the insole tips, by the way, I bought myself a pair of Dr Scholls and they are amazing. MIDWIFE CRISIS fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Mar 26, 2013 |
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Mar 26, 2013 14:20
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Yay! That's loving illegal. There's a reason people at Walmart get written up if they don't take their lunchbreak by five hours in. In fact it's one of the only things your manager will really give a poo poo about. I always kind of had a feeling it was, but I was new and a retail drone so I felt kind of like the most disposable of all the disposable workers if I had made a thing out of it. If you were a minor, they would MAKE you take a lunch because they were worried about child labor laws, but they like if you were an adult you could opt out of it. I never got around to it, but I was actually supposed to give them something in writing saying that I wanted a lunch. And from that point on, I was always treated kind of like "Oh you're that weirdo who wants a lunch break," even though if you pressed about it they would back off and act like it was perfectly fine. Management had a way of making you feel bad about it by saying stuff like "Oh, most ADULTS here don't take a lunch." And then the scheduling thing, which was such a hassle it kind of felt like a punishment sometimes. It's not like it would have been that hard, my managers at other stores just scheduled their shifts with the assumption there would be a lunch break in there and it all ran smoothly.
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Mar 26, 2013 15:11
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Try being a 5'1" woman and managing a video game store. Worst job I've ever had.
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Mar 26, 2013 15:14
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Saeku fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Jun 23, 2013 |
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Mar 26, 2013 15:32
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If one more person does the whole 'stares for a second too long, slowly turns to look at their shopping before sloooooooowly turning back to me and incredulously saying "erm... yes?"' routine when I ask them if they need any bags, I will scream. It's 2013 and quite a loving lot of people bring their own bags. Deal with it.
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Mar 26, 2013 17:36
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Saeku posted:I notice in the comic/game store I work at, it's the dudes who get the surly customers. The women just get chatty nuisance customers who are excited to have a captive female audience. I play D&D, often at game stores, so I have had a lot of contact with Magic players. I will make an exception and totally break their necks if I have to. quote:Try being a 5'1" woman and managing a video game store. Worst job I've ever had. Worst job I've ever had by a mile was working at a busy Costco as one of the food stand people. Costco has a reputation as being the best retail work you can possibly find. This doesn't extend to the food sales people, who are contracted out. For starters, you won't get any hours (probably less than forty a month) unless you are an old bitty who has been doing it for ten years. And I do mean old bitty. The veterans didn't like anyone new, because newbies are competition for hours, not help. So more often than not they would actually try to sabotage people in some way and lay their own work at your feet to make you feel as unwelcome as possible. Whatever you're selling will have about three bullet points to harp on. You are expected to repeat these things endlessly even if you are selling potato chips in a room full of wall-to-wall people who give no shits and couldn't stop to listen to you if they tried. Make sure to tell everyone that your product is high in Vitamin C (basic nutrition fact: loving everything is high in Vitamin C). I went hoarse on my first day. I actually made a career contact via small talk while I was there, so the first time I got written up, I read the writing on the wall (and the ridiculous complaint on the write-up) and quit in a heartbeat (my broke roommates thought I was insane). By far the shittiest job I've had. Teaches you respect for the people that do it and manage to be personable at the same time. quote:It's 2013 and quite a loving lot of people bring their own bags. Deal with it. Man, living in Seattle is like a different planet from the rest of America. Plastic bags are banned entirely and most everyone has their own bag.
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Mar 26, 2013 18:56
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The talk about how Walmart writes you up for not taking your lunch break no time reminds me of talking to a friend recently. She was saying something about her shift was really long, when I asked it was 9 hours. Over the course of the shift she sent me some emails about silly poo poo going on at the store... I asked when her break was and found she had a lunch at 2 15 minute breaks. Think she said she always got a lunch and at least 1 15.... I remember when I started at BBB, if we worked less than 6 hours, we got a 15 minute break. 2 years in corporate decided to change it so we couldn't get that 15 minute break (also apparently the break was paid so we didn't have to sign out, but we were never told about that part). I almost always worked nothing but 10-11 hour shifts with only one 30 minute break. I've been there 14-15 hours before and only still had that 30 minute break (though 8-9 hours would be when the store was open... rest were after hours so I could still get a snack and drink during that time at least). But we pretty much were never given any kind of double break if we worked an open-close or super long shift during store hours. Not entirely out of some kind of lovely treatment, but the fact that generally we were so strapped for workers that 1 person taking a break was almost crippling to an already nearly crippled store (like Saturdays when we would have probably 100+ customers in there and at some points of the day only 4 workers on the floor and 2 for registers)... Though also usually open-close was a case of someone calling out and the person taking over their break... and something would somehow happen and they'd have to find a "new" break time for the person covering the call out. Bleh.
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Mar 26, 2013 19:27
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MaxDuo posted:The talk about how Walmart writes you up for not taking your lunch break no time reminds me of talking to a friend recently. She was saying something about her shift was really long, when I asked it was 9 hours. Over the course of the shift she sent me some emails about silly poo poo going on at the store... I asked when her break was and found she had a lunch at 2 15 minute breaks. Think she said she always got a lunch and at least 1 15.... It probably depends on the state, but I know where I live the law says you have to get a 15 minute break for every 4 hours and a 30 minute lunch break if you're working over four hours. So for your standard 8 hour shift you get two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch. Usually the 15s are paid, the 30 usually not. So that's not some store policy that corporate can just change, those are labor laws they're blatantly breaking (which knowing most stores, it wouldn't surprise me).
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Mar 26, 2013 20:43
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At the grocery store, anyone who worked under 5 and a half hours was given a paid 15 minute break. If you work 6 hours or more that day, then you get an unpaid 30 minute break. Neither were truly guaranteed despite being state law. For one thing, it was your sole responsibility to take your break; management never dismissed you, but you still had to get their permission first. Oftentimes I was denied because we were "too busy" and needed everyone on the floor. So most days I plugged along at work for 5 hours straight, which of course compared to today is nothing. Very rarely, I would get a 6-hour shift, but not always my 30 minute break. The main reason was the other workers. One of them was an older woman who worked the opening shift full time, and she was usually the first to arrive. However, she would always take her lunch very late in the day. I was always mid-shift- anywhere from 10-3 or 12-5 (for the 6 hours, 10-4 or 11-5), while she often worked 7-3. She would always take her break about an hour or two before she left, and there were others that came in after her before me. Often she would take full hour breaks! Naturally this hosed me and others over. No one ever spoke with her about this and asked her to take earlier lunches because she was also friends with the cunty manager. There were many times where I just decided to go home a half hour early because gently caress it. Oh, and the punchclock was right by the front door, so if you were on your way to clock in/out for your breaks, you will always get stopped by customers. Always. I wised up after a few months and wore my jacket over my uniform polo, or for warmer weather I had a t-shirt underneath and would take off the polo when necessary. Another thing I should add about my old job, was that sometimes taking a break was literally impossible. During the times I worked closing for the bread counter, I would almost always go overtime. The routine was to show up at the counter at 3pm, and continue to serve samples, slice bread for customers, and bake more batches as needed. At 7pm, my station was "closed". That's when I start slicing up all the unsold loaves, cleaning the counter and floor area, washing dishes, and preparing for the next morning's batch. Oh and don't forget those customers who stop by and waste your time and ask you for irrelevant poo poo because they think I'm a concierge desk or just show up way too late for poo poo ("Whaddya mean you're out of sourdough!?" "No more samples!? This is an outrage!"). I had exactly one hour to do all this! Most of the time, I'd be able to get out around 8:30, but then there were times I'd punch out at say, 9:02. Just barely over the 6 hour mark. About a couple weeks before I quit, the store manager wrote me up for "failure to take mandatory lunch breaks". I explained to her how it was impossible to do all my tasks within one hour, and even if I did decide to take a break if I thought I was coming close to 6 hours would be futile anyway. It would only mean it would take me even longer to finish my tasks! It also didn't help that the deli proper "closed" at 9 and everyone likes to leave no later than 10. I'd only be slowing them down. And yes, even though the actual deli also had an hour to close down and clean, they were a crew of 4-5 people. I was on my own in bread, so yeah. very unfair. My current job is so much better with breaks. Everyone who works an 8 hour shift gets a mandatory, unpaid 30 minute break. The first one to enter the store takes their break first, and each one dismisses the next person to go. And my current closing duties are a hell of a lot faster and easier to do!
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Mar 26, 2013 23:55
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Admiral Goodenough posted:It would be really interesting to try being a dude in retail for a day just to see what difference it makes in customer interaction. I'm the only worker in the store 99% of the time and being young and a woman is honestly a bit scary sometimes when obviously drunk people come in. I can't act with the authority I want to when I'm half thinking about how the customer could easily overpower me if things get ugly for whatever reason. As a man who works at a doctors office the difference is terrifyingly day and night. I've seen patients be downright mean to any of the women at work but barely if anybody will ever say boo to me. If I call someone about anything if they want to reschedule an appointment or something they'll usually ask 'for the secretary'. I also have to make it obnoxiously clear that I'm not THE doctor, let alone A doctor. I'm not even a nurse. I have gotten referrals addressed to me as Dr. (last name) though. In my entire time working there I've only ever come across two other male support personnel on the phone that were not nurses.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:56
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Here is the thing about working retail that I've found. Be enormous like me! I'm 6'5 and hover around 250 pounds. In my time at Walmart (now well behind me, thankfully), I noticed that I could magically get a lot of stuff done with customers that other sales workers (often small women) could not. This is because something goes off in someone's brain when they see someone bigger than them, something along the lines of "If I piss this guy off, he will break my neck and no one will stop him." This isn't a rational thought, it's just the first thing to pass through most peoples' brain mush when they start talking with me. I can't really help that much, but I can use it to my advantage. Meanwhile, I think the average reaction to short women from a problem customer is something along the lines of "Women are bitches and poo poo, and I can manipulate them!" Well, nobody fucks with Mongo. Really? I'm 6'6" and as wide as a truck, and it seems like the only things people think when they see me are "He's so tall, he must play basketball!" or slightly less commonly "He's so wide, he must play football!" Customers have always been more than happy to be complete shitheads to me.
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Mar 27, 2013 03:22
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DarkHamsterlord posted:Really? I'm 6'6" and as wide as a truck, and it seems like the only things people think when they see me are "He's so tall, he must play basketball!" or slightly less commonly "He's so wide, he must play football!" I guess you are just going to have to gouge someone's eyes out to set the tone. More Roy Batty.
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Mar 27, 2013 03:30
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DarkHamsterlord posted:Really? I'm 6'6" and as wide as a truck, and it seems like the only things people think when they see me are "He's so tall, he must play basketball!" or slightly less commonly "He's so wide, he must play football!" I think its more about how you act than how you look. Early in my retail sentence, I was probably too nervous/deferential. You just need to project a lack of respect/concern for your customers and their problems. And start reacting to their complaints as if they're jokes and just laugh. I don't think it hurt my surveys, and I never had to get managers anymore (aside from one dude who decided because I wouldn't switch out his company-provided phone [ie, not his phone], I must be racist. Bringing over my non-white manager didn't help that rear end in a top hat).
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Mar 27, 2013 03:33
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Yeah, the most terrifying manager I've ever had was maybe 5'9", 145 or 150. But when he needed to, he'd act huge. He'd speak very quietly and politely, invade the screamer's personal space juuuust a little bit, and lock them in an MMA death glare. He also had no fear and I saw him face down armed crazies (not robbers, this was in Texas where a lot of people pack heat as a matter of course) more than once. He, however, used to be an orderly in a mental ward for the criminally insane.
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Mar 27, 2013 04:08
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:For some of you, this advice unfortunately means nothing, because you are a 5'3 woman or something. I hope you get promoted out of regular customer interaction, I really do. It's the women who mysteriously get the worst customers because our society is still very sexist, and in lower-end retail you are going to hit lowest common denominator pretty fast, of course. Want to reduce negative customer interactions? Hire football players and people who look like Vinnie Jones. If you're a huge badass motherfucker, or can fake it, a wonderful career in retail awaits you somewhere. I am a 5'3 woman and I do not get bad customers. I do not get bad customers because I do not take that poo poo. I have been screamed at ONCE during five years of retail at the same chain, and that was in my first week. I do not let people treat me badly. You don't need to be a big motherfucker not get the bad customers. You just need to handle them well. Also, is anyone else doing donations for MDA at their stores this time of year or is this mostly a south east Michigan thing. Literally every retail location around here is asking for donations, so our donation numbers this year are sooo low. I was top seller last year damnit. I hate listening to people list off excuses for why they don't want to donate. OH I give at work, NOPE I did the other day, nooo I give to a lot of other charities, I give $500 a year to other charities. Just say no, guys. I don't really care why not, just...no is fine.
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Mar 27, 2013 05:13
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Magikarpal Tunnel posted:I hate listening to people list off excuses for why they don't want to donate. OH I give at work, NOPE I did the other day, nooo I give to a lot of other charities, I give $500 a year to other charities. Just say no, guys. I don't really care why not, just...no is fine. But if they don't bullshit up a good enough reason, you'll go and tell your other worthless cashier friends what a bad person they are so they get shitlisted at every store because obviously cashiers are only friends with cashiers or some such malarkey  I never minded asking about Operation Homefront when we did it. It was the only time my drive item numbers could really be satisfactory because when you phrase it like "Would you like to purchase a toy/school supply today to donate to a military child in need?" most people can't say no. Because seriously. It's a loving dollar or two or three. And I get judged on how much you fuckers buy.
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Mar 27, 2013 09:41
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Ahaha, too true. I guess it's often a case of "there are so many collections this time of year, and I kind of want to keep a little bit of money for myself.." but people don't like to be seen as greedy and heartless and are afraid their minds will be read or something and that some random person working somewhere will even care. So out come the excuses. The longer the tale the more obvious it's a made up story, I tend to think. "Don't have anything on me sorry" is more effective if the person would rather not just say "no thanks"
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Mar 27, 2013 10:57
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Dealing with assholes (pharmacy edition): Refill this. When's it gonna be ready? (looks at bottle. Refills Remaining: NO REFILLS) Mam, it looks like we cant refill this medication because it's out of fills but I can send a fax to the doctor ask.... WHY IS IT OUT OF REFILLS? WHY WONT YOU FILL IT? Well, your doctor only wrote you a prescription for 1 fill. You picked that prescription up on x/x/xxxx. So that means the prescription has no refills. It says on the bottle in bold right there on the 'Refills Remaining' section that there are NO REFILLS. And that is why we cannot refill your medication. This is ridiculous! You must of made a mistake. Well, let me pull the prescription and double check. (takes 30sec-5min to find prescription depending on if the patient might be right, or the patient is just being a loving dick) Alright, I found the original prescription. Here it is. It says "bla bla bla.. quantity of whatever". And it looks like the doctor circled a '0' on the 'refills' portion. SO YOU'RE NOT GOING TO loving FILL IT? No we are not going to fill it. You should call your doctor's office and ask for a new prescription. I can also send a fax to your doctor requesting a new prescription if you'd like. FINE DO THAT!(if said person is respectful, we might even offer to forward a couple pills while we wait for a new script so long as its for a blood pressure medication, or anti-depressant, or something kind of serious. This is something we technically should not be doing since we are distributing a medication without a specific physician's order. The pharmacist takes a legal risk every time he/she decides to do so that could destroy his/her life and career in a case where a physician clearly wanted a patient to NOT TAKE ANY MORE EVER of a particular med. Old people/disabled people get a free pass since there are quite a few with cognitive deficits that truly do not have a complete grasp of what's going on, and get confused. That's cool. Not their fault. However, for the rest of the fuckers who are clearly trying to coerce us into giving them what they want in the fear of what essentially is an adult temper-tantrum; they can get hosed. It is their responsibility to recognize when they are getting low on a medication, to read the refills portion, and to contact their physician for either a new script or to schedule an appointment. If they try the tantrum/threat method, then they get a face full of logic. If they stare at us in silence afterwards, then we just stare at their forehead until they decide to say something ((I once had an awkward silence last over 20 seconds)). If they get even more livid, then we call security+PD.) This is the one thing I love about pharmacy compared to the rest of the store. We are not required to bend over backwards and get a dick rammed up our collective rear end in a top hat by showering someone with free Vicodin and discounts and 'I'm sorry' giftcards, and other 'customer satisfaction' horseshit. It is actively discouraged aside from very rare and very extreme circumstances. Be nice. Avalanche fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Mar 27, 2013 |
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Mar 27, 2013 11:33
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Avalanche posted:Be nice. This is all most people have to do to get so much more of what they want. Tis crazy. As an observer I do notice that pharmacies are probably one of the worst places for awkward customers. Excuse the stereotype but older people (sick more) often seem to be in more of a hurry. Combine this with a pharmacy where everything has to be checked, triple checked, lots of paperwork etc and people often have to wait 5-10 minutes while their prescription is filled. And you have a recipe for bad moods.
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Mar 27, 2013 11:47
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Avalanche posted:Dealing with assholes (pharmacy edition): Let me guess that was a narcotic or a schedule 3-4?
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Mar 27, 2013 14:51
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Avalanche posted:(if said person is respectful, we might even offer to forward a couple pills while we wait for a new script so long as its for a blood pressure medication, or anti-depressant, or something kind of serious. This is something we technically should not be doing since we are distributing a medication without a specific physician's order. The pharmacist takes a legal risk every time he/she decides to do so that could destroy his/her life and career in a case where a physician clearly wanted a patient to NOT TAKE ANY MORE EVER of a particular med. Old people/disabled people get a free pass since there are quite a few with cognitive deficits that truly do not have a complete grasp of what's going on, and get confused. That's cool. Not their fault. I actually wish this practice will stop. We won't do it if the person hasn't filled with us in a couple of months, but we miss out on proper med counts because the notation that we advanced them a couple isn't always there. However, I love being able to tell people "no". No, you cannot wait in my drive-thru while we work on your prescription. There are other people behind you. No, we will not fill your controlled substance 2 weeks early. No, we will not have this CII ready in 5 minutes while we are so busy. No, you cannot return the prescription you picked up a week ago because you decided it wasn't right. I had a woman start cursing up a storm over the phone once because she had received her husband's prescription through mail order and picked it up at our store after I told her we could not return it. I simply told her if she continued I would have to disconnect the call. Her story changed so very quickly with tons of apologies. I was able to give her some advice on what she could do and in the end had her thanking me for being so helpful. GargleBlaster posted:As an observer I do notice that pharmacies are probably one of the worst places for awkward customers. Excuse the stereotype but older people (sick more) often seem to be in more of a hurry. Combine this with a pharmacy where everything has to be checked, triple checked, lots of paperwork etc and people often have to wait 5-10 minutes while their prescription is filled. And you have a recipe for bad moods. Soccer moms are the worst. We're in an upper middle class neighborhood where it seems like every kid is on some ADHD medication. The pharmacist alone has to fill these while verifying all the others we've filled, answering doctor phone calls, checking voicemail, counseling patients, and potentially helping on register. Yes, it really is going to take an hour. Azuth0667 posted:Let me guess that was a narcotic or a schedule 3-4? No, we will not just advance you a couple of your Vicodin / Ambien / Adderall / other control or CII. kdc67 fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Mar 27, 2013 |
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Mar 27, 2013 15:05
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kdc67 posted:Soccer moms are the worst. We're in an upper middle class neighborhood where it seems like every kid is on some ADHD medication. The pharmacist alone has to fill these while verifying all the others we've filled, answering doctor phone calls, checking voicemail, counseling patients, and potentially helping on register. Yes, it really is going to take an hour. It's not just pharmacies. The vast majority of the terrible customers I had were your stereotypical soccer moms who seem to universally behave like spoiled brats and think the whole world needs to bend over backward to serve them. I had one pretty much throw a mini-tantrum when I offered to help her with something.  That isn't to say all moms are terrible customers, it just seems like everytime I had someone fly off the handle about some trivial bullshit or throw a fit because we wouldn't violate store policy to cater to them, it was some 30-something woman with 2 or 3 kids in tow (while also wearing/carrying designer everything and probably driving a giant SUV if I had to guess). Or a big grumpy old "mountain man" stereotype, which was kind of unique to our store. While I'm sure pharmacy work is its own special kind of hell, being able to say no to customers without repercussions sounds like some kind of magical dream world. 
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Mar 27, 2013 16:46
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Kimmalah posted:While I'm sure pharmacy work is its own special kind of hell, being able to say no to customers without repercussions sounds like some kind of magical dream world. Oh you have no idea. I think I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but at the station I work at we actually have a 'We reserve the right to refuse service' sign right by the door. After getting yelled and swore at once, both my boss and my boss's boss told me I, and this is a paraphrased quote, 'don't have to take that poo poo' and should've just turned and walked away. After working somewhere with the exact opposite policy for so long, it's a real culture shock, but it's so drat nice.
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Mar 27, 2013 17:28
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Angry Guacamole posted:Oh you have no idea. I think I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but at the station I work at we actually have a 'We reserve the right to refuse service' sign right by the door. After getting yelled and swore at once, both my boss and my boss's boss told me I, and this is a paraphrased quote, 'don't have to take that poo poo' and should've just turned and walked away. After working somewhere with the exact opposite policy for so long, it's a real culture shock, but it's so drat nice. Yeah, my store's policy was basically "if we can somehow manipulate the system to make what the customer wants happen, we'll do it." I think the only time I was allowed to say no was if our computer system absolutely could NOT do it (cash refunds after 30 days, expired/incorrect coupons) or if they were asking me to do something blatantly illegal like selling ammo to minors. Otherwise it was pretty much always "let me get a manager and lets see what they can do" since I couldn't do some of the crazy overrides it would take to please some people.
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Mar 27, 2013 17:36
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One time I didn't realize my insulin prescription was up and seeing that I was super worried the pharmacist gave me a bottle to get me through while they faxed my doctor. I was so thankful I cried, it was embarrassing. I was just so greatful. Being polite goes a long way.
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Mar 27, 2013 22:33
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kdc67 posted:No, we will not just advance you a couple of your Vicodin / Ambien / Adderall / other control or CII. The point I was trying to make was that its usually the people getting controls that throw tantrums over refills. While were talking about terrible customers. The one's that get me are the "why didn't you do this for me" customers and the "gee my medication is expensive but I need X so I can't get the medications right now." My state just changed their medicaid plan and every customer on state medical assistance was sent a letter requiring them to respond by picking their insurer. They were also told of this before by their caseworker at least a month prior. Yet for some reason they couldn't do it themselves even though 9/10s of the other customers did do it and its our fault they didn't do it. We are almost guaranteed a tantrum a day because of that. The other kind, we had a father come in that needed a rescue inhaler for their daughter who had already been rushed to the ER and nearly died because of an asthma attack. His response when I told him the medication was 4.00$ was "We really need a dvd player so I can't afford it." Then he went and purchased a 34.99$ dvd player. Azuth0667 fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Mar 28, 2013 |
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Mar 28, 2013 02:25
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Olive Bar posted:One time I didn't realize my insulin prescription was up and seeing that I was super worried the pharmacist gave me a bottle to get me through while they faxed my doctor. I was so thankful I cried, it was embarrassing. I was just so greatful. Being polite goes a long way. Insulin is over the counter in many places. No pharmacist in their right mind is going to deny you any if you say you're diabetic, and I can't see any of them doing so if you have a prior prescription. That's a life or death, pharmacist is going to get sued the poo poo out of situation.
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Mar 28, 2013 02:36
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Asthma prescriptions for kids can be a pain in the rear end. A pretty common one is: (Patient shows up at 5-6pm) "Hey, my kid was having asthma attacks all morning, and it having trouble breathing right now. Can you refill his Ventolin? "Sure, let me check." (checks computer) Refills remaining 0. (informs pt. and calls doc office. Doc office closed) informs patient to go to Urgent Care. And then there is a meltdown about how we are a bunch of assholes for not giving them a corticosteroid without a new RX. No. gently caress you. gently caress you for not giving a poo poo about your child until the very last minute. If your child has asthma, then YOU NEED TO BE ON TOP OF YOUR poo poo in terms of monitoring refills and reading the god drat sticker on the box that says how many refills are remaining. Those always suck. You really want to just toss the kid a box of Proair or whatever and be done with it. I don't like seeing anyone in respiratory distress, and I especially hate seeing kids with breathing issues. But that can be dangerous. Maybe, the reason why there isn't a new script in the system is because Mommy told little Billy to take 10-12 puffs of the inhaler instead of listening to the physician or reading the directions about 2 PUFFS MAXIMUM every 4 hours or whatever. And because of this, Billy's veins clamped tight causing what was before a mild-moderate respiratory issue into a life threatening situation ultimately requiring hospitalization. So Dr. Whatever does not trust the parent anymore AT ALL, and really wants to see the kid in the office again/go over in detail why what she did was BAD before giving out any more inhaler Rxs. (for those who don't know, steroid-based inhalers can kind of be a catch 22. They dilate the bronchioles which allow more air to permeate into the lungs, but a side effect is that veins end up constricting which can increase blood pressure pretty significantly, and not allow for deoxygenated blood to get recirculated as quickly. So after giving yourself the maximum prescribed puffs, all that more puffs are going to do is cause problems rather than alleviate anything. I don't think I need to explain why these can be very dangerous if misused especially in the elderly population).
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Mar 28, 2013 13:16
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Azuth0667 posted:The point I was trying to make was that its usually the people getting controls that throw tantrums over refills. While were talking about terrible customers. The one's that get me are the "why didn't you do this for me" customers and the "gee my medication is expensive but I need X so I can't get the medications right now." My state just changed their medicaid plan and every customer on state medical assistance was sent a letter requiring them to respond by picking their insurer. They were also told of this before by their caseworker at least a month prior. Yet for some reason they couldn't do it themselves even though 9/10s of the other customers did do it and its our fault they didn't do it. We are almost guaranteed a tantrum a day because of that. The other kind, we had a father come in that needed a rescue inhaler for their daughter who had already been rushed to the ER and nearly died because of an asthma attack. His response when I told him the medication was 4.00$ was "We really need a dvd player so I can't afford it." Then he went and purchased a 34.99$ dvd player. And that is when child services should be taking the kid away. Holy gently caress.
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Mar 28, 2013 13:36
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Avalanche posted:Asthma prescriptions for kids can be a pain in the rear end. A pretty common one is: (Patient shows up at 5-6pm) "Hey, my kid was having asthma attacks all morning, and it having trouble breathing right now. Can you refill his Ventolin? I go to a health sciences school that is mainly a pharmacy school and I cannot wait until I here some of this stuff from my friends who are doing the program.
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Mar 28, 2013 13:43
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We had a lady in the other day who was trying to return two products which had been expired for about a year and a half. One of the products has a three week shelf life and has to be kept in the fridge; one has a four month shelf life. She was claiming that she had no idea when they expired when there's a sticker on the bottom with the expiry date, the date it was made, and the name/face of the person who made it. (The sticker was mysteriously missing on the four-month product, so I had to smell it to confirm it was bad. It pretty much smelled like rotten fish.) And that she had no idea how to use it when it says how to use it pretty clearly right under the name and type of product. But why should she have to read the label if she didn't know what to do?! Besides she'd tried to come back to ask us a hundred times but the store is always so busy, she just literally can't fit in! And we never, ever answer our phone! So she should clearly get her money back. No, of course she doesn't have her receipt. OK, maybe if you tried to come to the store a hundred times in December I'd understand the crowded shop complaint. The shop is, indeed, tiny. But we always answer our phone within three rings, even if it's just to say "Thank you for calling XX Cosmetics, can you hold please?" And, oh, also you've had these products for a year and a goddamn half, so I have a really hard time believing we just never ever responded and were always always crowded, especially since this is a weeknight and you're one of a grand total of two customers in the store. She'd already been told she could probably exchange the mask by the SA, so I didn't want to tell her that there was no way she could exchange product that aged with how she was being, but I did tell her she'd have to purchase a new slice of cleanser. She went on about bad service and made an SA show her five different times how to properly use a facial cleanser. I get people calling at least twice a week going "you know, I bought this and I just don't remember how to use it." That's not a problem, I'm happy to let you know. We get someone probably once a month who forgot that they needed to refrigerate their face mask and now it's molded over, and nine times out of ten we just exchange it for a new mask because they're kind and apologetic about it. But this lady was just so full of BS, and we're lucky enough to usually have really kind customers, so it just really pissed me off.
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Mar 28, 2013 22:02
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baquerd posted:Insulin is over the counter in many places. No pharmacist in their right mind is going to deny you any if you say you're diabetic, and I can't see any of them doing so if you have a prior prescription. That's a life or death, pharmacist is going to get sued the poo poo out of situation. Not in the US. I'd love it if you could prove me wrong.
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Mar 29, 2013 02:04
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More hosed up pharmacy stories: (as told by our pharmacists I work under) If you work at a drive-thru pharmacy, DO NOT EVER FORGET TO LOCK the Rx vacuum tubes from the drive through after closing. Many drive-thru pharmacies use a system where you have the oldschool pneumatic tubes where a patient will put a bottle/rx/something into the capsular tube, shoot it through the tube system, and it will end up inside the pharmacy. It's quick, efficient, and prevents drive-by robberies since there is no direct contact with the inside of the pharmacy and the individual in a car. Why though? Because if you somehow piss someone off, people will stick poo poo in the tubes. No, not figurative poo poo. Real poo. Like, take a giant crap, put it in the tube, and drive away. So what happens when the pharmacist pressurizes/opens up the system after opening up in the morning? poo poo hits the fan. And the ceiling. And the walls. And goes ALL OVER ALL of everyone's filled prescriptions, the stock prescriptions, and into the pharmacist's face. This ended up shutting down a Wal-Greens for like 2-3 days while a Hazmat team came in and cleaned everything up. Another fun one to do is to put rocks in the tube system. Pharmacist gets the system going, and gets a facefull of pebbles, sand, and dirt that sprays everywhere. That one is almost more annoying because it's not a good enough reason to shut down the pharmacy, and everyone gets to spend the day fishing rocks out of the fax machine, keyboards, printers, Rx bins, hell loving everything. gently caress people.
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Mar 29, 2013 02:15
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 02:40 |
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You blew my mind at the idea that the American public is so lazy they need to have drive through pharmacies. Though I suppose Australians have drive through liquor stores so I guess it's a matter of priorities.
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Mar 29, 2013 03:39
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