Do They Prescribe Caffeine Pills Here?
Employees, Ignoring & Inattentive, Pharmacy, UK | Working | December 31, 2021
I need to regularly obtain a specific over-the-counter medication to treat a mild chronic condition. I have been using this now for getting on for a decade.
This is how it goes whenever I go to the only local pharmacy that stocks it, which is about once every two months. The encounter is with exactly the same member of staff every time.
Me: “Hi, I’d like two packages of [medication], please.”
Employee: *Looking at me blankly* “What’s that?”
Having anticipated this, I show her an empty package of the last consignment.
Me: “It’s this.”
She looks at it with a puzzled expression on her face.
Employee: “I don’t know whether we stock this.”
Me: “You had it last time I came in, a couple of months ago.”
Employee: “I wouldn’t know. I don’t think we have it.”
Me: “Can you ask one of the dispensing pharmacists?”
Employee: “Well, okay, but …”
And she drifts off out back, where I see her through a window showing the package to the pharmacist on duty, who instantly goes to where it’s stocked and shows her where it is, and hence, she picks up a fresh package of [medication].
Employee: “Is this what you wanted?”
Me: “Yes, please. Can I have two, please? It saves me a journey if I can have two of them.”
Employee: “I don’t know whether we have two.”
Me: “Can you just check? It saves me a journey.”
She wanders out back again, where she talks to the pharmacist on duty again, who goes to exactly the same place as last time, showing her where it is again.
Me: “Can I have the old one back?”
Employee: “What old one?”
Me: “The one I gave you to show you what it was.”
She floats once more out the back, where she talks once more to the pharmacist, who picks up the old package from the counter where the subject of our anecdote put it down, and puts it into her hand.
Me: *Eventually* “Thank you.”
I paid and left.
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