And now for something completely different...

In honor of the holiday season I present my own personal version of the tradition of the Advent calendar, entitled, 21 Days to Christmas: A Countdown on the Dangers of Religion

Every day, from now until Christmas, I will add a new, fun little tidbit on why religion is socially crippling. I'm not saying that it's bad to believe in a higher power, I do. I'm saying this is what happens when religious charlatans manipulate the emotions of large groups of followers to the detriment of society and, indeed, mankind.

#21

This guy is on the House Science Committee.

396 Days Later

It's been a while since I've posted: to the tune of over a year. I've finally gotten off my lazy ass and gone back to the books in hopes of attaining that wonderful designation of PharmD so that I too may one day be an ass-hat douch-canoe pharmacy intern and subsequently a decent pharmacist.

On any educational journey, starting from scratch sucks. Really though, it's awful. I know that it's important to some to be a "well rounded student", but I wish that I didn't have to endure some of the crap that is less than pertinent to my chosen profession. Don't get me wrong, I've managed to do well even in the classes that I don't care about, but I wish I could expedite the process.

But on to important things, like pharming.

I had to all but quit at my tech gig to go to school; fortunately for me, my chief pharmacist is a proponent of education and sees some potential in me that I don't and has allowed me to work only when I can (read - have the energy to). That being said, I left a vacancy at the phunny pharm that had to be filled: enter the deceiver. The technician that has filled those shoes has catalyzed a social reaction that was just itching to happen. My once peaceful and amiable place of business has been transformed into a cess pool of two-faced, backstabbing, clique-y nastyness. Now, instead of a group of technicians who mostly get along, there stands two factions: The Coven and the rest of us.

As cliche as they come...

EVERYONE who has worked in pharmacy for any period of time has run into this guy. As soon as I start in, you'll know the guy I'm talking about. The reason I think that this particular conversation is noteworthy lies in the last few lines. Enjoy.

*phone rings*
DaftTech(DT): "Thank you for calling Atypical Pharmacy, this is Daft. How can I help you?"
Bitter Moron(BM): "Yeah, I wuz wunderin why you guys shorted my meds."
DT: "I'm sorry, which medication did we short you?"
BM: "You shorted me three pills."
DT: "OK. which medication did we short you?"*Haven't we been over this?*
BM: "All three of 'em."
DT: "well, I only see three prescriptions on your profile did you not recieve any of them?"
BM: "Naw, I didn't."
DT: "I see, well it looks like your prescriptions are out of refills. We have sent a fax to Dr.whatshisballs to request refills but we haven't heard back yet."
BM: "Oh. Well I'm all out."
DT: "Of all of them?" *of course you are, you were as dumb as you sound and waited until the eleventh fuckin' hour to call for refills, asshole.*
BM: "Yeah."
DT: "I'm sorry, sir, but we'll have to hear back from your doctor before we can issue you a new prescription."
BM: "Well, why did my doctor not give me refills to begin with? I've been on all of these meds for 15 years?!"
DT: "No you haven't."
BM: "What'd you say to me? Are you callin me a liar? Yes I have!"
DT: "No you haven't. Pristiq has only been available for three years and both Januvia and Chantix have only been available for five. Has it taken you the full 5 years to quit smoking on Chantix? not a very good success rate if you ask me."
BM: *click* *dial tone*
DT: "My work here is done."

Pharmacy Interns and You

As previously discussed, I am a fan of most pharmacists; pharmacists and technicians operate in a symbiotic relationship. While a pharmacist is capable and legally authorized to perform any and all functions of a technician, given the current climate of the health-care industry, it would be impossible for said pharmacist to complete all funtions of a pharmacy alone while maintaining sanity and patient safety. Between verifying orders, checking prescriptions/products, counseling, taking telephone orders and administering injections, the pharmacist is a rather busy fellow. That's where technicians come in as a very valuable resource. That being said, lets get on to the point; ass-clown, med-school-reject pharmacy interns. Unless your intern started as a technician and wanted to earn more than just above poverty line wages, he/she has probably spent just this side of ZERO time in an actual functioning pharmacy prior to pharmacy school. This leaves a very large gap in knowledge from veteran technician to never-been-behind-the-counter newbie pharmacy intern. This does not stop some (read; a shit-load of) interns from assuming they are Christ's gift to the practice and all of us lowly technicians are not worthy of their runny, beer laden, frat boy stools much less the time of day.

This. Chaps. My. Ass.

So, listen-up interns, I'm about to crack a mother-fuckin' egg of knowledge all over this bitch.

As a technician with many years of experience, I have seen a lot of shit. Frankly, more than you. There I said it. I have seen more than you in the practice of pharmacy. I have great respect for education level. However, there isn't a goddamned thing that anyone can do in a classroom to give you the experience that I have in the field. So, you might have scratched your way through a bachelor's degree and blown the dean for an acceptance letter to pharmacy school where you spent a couple years studying the theory of pharmacy practice only to be shat into my pharmacy reeking of cheap beer, cigarettes and date-rape. But I have more experience than you do. In a year or so of practice, your education will kick in and you'll be my superior, where you'll probably do a great job.

But for right now.....

If you want to ask me a question about practice, policy or procedure only to do EXACTLY the opposite of that which I told you and then wonder why you have to have a little chat with the pharmacy director, only to glare at me afterwards, go fuck yourself.

Please don't come into the pharmacy at which I work, and ask me how to take a phone order (this actually happened....today.). If you were hung-over from that "rager" and skipped the day in school that you went over how to talk on the phone and take notes, quit. Drop out of school and go back to whatever over-privileged neighborhood in Seattle you came from, there is no help for you. I can't help you, your sorority sisters can't help you, neither can the parents that paid for your schooling. So, quit.

If you look a bit lost and I kindly (which rarely happens) ask you if there is anyway I can help you or anything I can explain to you, and you douchily and curtly tell me you are fine, only to fuck up whatever it is I could have helped you with, please for the safety of my patients, take a 100-count bottle of MS Contin and a fifth of gin and GO TO SLEEP. .... permanently.

You are here for one reason, FREE LABOR. You need credit for a rotation, the pharmacy needs free labor. But as the man says, "There ain't nothing in this world for free." I guess it will be the patient that pays for your shitty attitude and unwarranted, cocky behavior.

Forever hanging with the crazies-
DaftTech

Maiden Voyage

Hello Everyone.
Not that anyone out there will give 2 shits about what I have to say, but I figured writing down some of my thoughts and rantings could be fun, and hell, even therapeutic. I am a pharmacy technician at an independent pharmacy that specializes in Psychiatry. Because technicians get paid in bags of feces and the occasional lunch from drug reps, I also moonlight teaching Pharmacy Technology at a technical school at night. In my opinion, which is worth about as much as my wages (translated, jack-shit), I have a pretty solid knowledge base of the principles and practice of my trade. That being said, I am not a pharmacist, although I am pretty certain that I am better at slinging drugs and have more knowledge about how that is done than some of the morons/fucktards/megalomaniacs/rejects/whathaveyou that have the designation of PharmD. I emphasize the word "some" for this reason; most of my favorite people in life are pharmacists. And not your bottom-shelf types, most pharmacists I have had the pleasure of knowing are nice, thoughtful, genuine, intellegent and funny-as-shit people.

Enough with the fellatio of my superiors.

Working in a psychiatric pharmacy has many challenges but also offers endless entertainment; while there are no shortage of asshole patients/junkies, many of them are restricted by their 3rd-party payor to one pharmacy. In essence, what I can get away with, some in chain pharms could get the ax for. A wonderful example of just such an idea is our compliance packaging service. The patient comes in once or twice a week and is handed a customized bubble-pack designed to keep them on the straight and narrow. If they were issued a 7-day supply on Monday and come in on Wednesday for more, I get to say my favorite word in all of the english lexicon; "No." Two simple letters that give me sadistic joy throughout the day. And when they get mad at this response, which most are want to do, they don't get to have their prescriptions transferred; they are fucking stuck. I guess they should have thought about that before hand and made those ativan and vicodin last the full seven days, eh? Although that brings up another point to ponder; are these people capable of any kind of forethought? In my experience the answer, yet again, is my favorite word, no, but I digress. I have worked in chain retail before and can't imagine having to put up with that shit now. I get to do what I do, because I have been lucky-as-shit and found a niche. And while I bitch about how pissed-off I get at patients and prescribers alike, I love my niche.