apparently, I can do math.

So there's this RPh who can't stand working with me. I don't take it personally, most because he hates ALL oregon state grads, and therefore hates me by default. Anyway, on days that he works, about 90% of the things that I do are wrong. Here's an anecdote from today. It's funny, it really is.

scene: I'm peeling a label off a prescription hard copy because we're gonna change the drug to something else (and thus will generate a new label).

RPH: what are you doing?

me: peeling this label off.

RPH: why?

me: because we're gonna get a new label for that because i just changed it.


RPH: stop. i can't believe we're paying you per hour to be doing this! I don't care what you'd be doing if we paid you by salary, but you're paid by the hour, and not being paid to peel stickers. blah blah blah blah blah ( i tuned him out as he lectured on and on about how i was wasting company money by wasting that time).

me: ok....

hmmm...let's do the math.

wasting 5 seconds of my time to peel off a label. 5 seconds = 0.00138 hours. at my pay rate, i've lost the company a total 2.3 cents in "unproductivity".

wasting 1 minute of his time as a pharmacist to yell at the intern for being unproductive. 1 minute = 0.0168 hours. at his pay rate as a pharmacist, he's lost the company a total 83 cents in unproductivity.

hmmmm i'm no genius at math, but....ISN'T THAT EVEN MORE UNPRODUCTIVE?

not my preceptor, guys.

NOTE: no names/identifiable information is mentioned for privacy purposes.

So for those of you who haven't been my stories, I've been dealing with a lot of cat ladies so far.

week 1: cat lady #1 insisted that we were stealing her cat's meds

week 2: cat lady #2 (was a nice nice lady), but nonetheless was grumpy having
been recently attacked by her psychotic-diabetic cat in the car.

and now, i give you, another cat story.

the whole thing started yesterday. I was on the phone with a customer, and while i was doing something, she randomly asked me what her caretaker should do (she was just bitten by a cat). I really didn't know what to tell her, but she interrupted me by asking if she should go see a doctor since they don't know where the cat's been. I said "yea, that really sounds like a safe idea." didn't think much of it then. she replies "boy, i sure hope she doesn't get rabies", and sends her caretaker off to the ER

today, i was at the drive thru window and this lady pulls up and asks for the said customer's meds. she identified herself as a caretaker. I rang everything up and such but realized that a box of medication was too big to put in the tube system so i politely asked her to pull up to the regular drive through window (much larger). She refused after looking at a long line of cars and decided to just get out of her car and walk over to the big drive through window.

That's when I saw it. Her entire right arm was bandaged and put in a cast. possibilities ran through my head. How did she break it? wild images of an angry cat sinking his teeth into her flesh ran through my head as she approached the window. I wondered if they tested her for rabies. I slid the medications and leaflets out the window drawer, but in the process, carelessly let one of the leaflets slip to the ground.

and that's when all hell broke loose.

she looked at me. then at the leaflet on the ground. and then let out a long shrieking (nonhuman sounding) scream that I've ever heard in my adult life. I heard her, we all heard her, even through the glass window. Suddenly I felt like I was the cat that bit her and realized the cat must have died a horrible death after biting her. i sure wanted to crawl in a hole. I tried apologizing, but i don't think it was sincere, mostly because I was still in shock.

anyway, she walked away after that.... but the scariest thing was, there was already a car in that drive through lane and she was standing about 6 inches away from the driver, who i must say, was more paralyzed with fear than i was.

I told my preceptor about it later. He thinks she caught rabies.