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Monday, June 8, 2020

New Game - Round II

CP: I decided to turn my favourite post series, If The Real World Worked The Way Pharmacy Does, into a game called How To Play Patient In The Real World.
CPP: Each round of the game will present a challenge originated by a patient's actions/interactions within our pharmacy.

CP: Today's round will be Supply Issues. Take it away, CPP!
CPP: <Overly nasal, enthusiastic announcer voice> Welcome back for another round of How To Play Patient In The Real World!
CP: <more nauseatingly enthusiastic> It's good to be back to the game that teaches regular pharmacy people how to behave in the real world. Give us a phresh reminder of the rules, CPP!
CPP: We take normal patient interactions. . .
CP: Normal by the patients' standards. . .
CPP: Indeed they are because we would never dream of acting this way in public, let alone the professional realm of the pharmacy.
CP: Right you are, Ken. Yet here they are, acting like a conspiracy of lemurs frolicking under the canopy drunk on fermented fruits.
CPP: Today's round, supply issues, puts us in the middle of that fight; lack of enough product to supply them asses.
CP: That's "THE Masses", not "them asses".
CPP: Is it though?
CP: Good point! As we see everyday, backorders are a part of life in the pharmacy, becoming more and more prevalent thanks to more and more recalls.
CPP: And just how do people take this news?
CP: As if we are personally responsible for this inconvenience. They yell and scream and cry and threaten us with bodily harm or, worse yet, the dreaded call to corporate!
CPP and CP : <gasp in horror and clutch each other>
CPP: And this is the basis for today's round. What is our exercise today, CP?
CP: Today we are going to any store that sells products.
CPP: Intriguing.
CP: Search for any bare spot on a shelf and ask an employee if they have more in the back. When they respond in the negative, crank up the volume and gesticulations. Yell that they have to find this particular product at another store, another chain, another state, but that you are more important than anyone else in the history of time and you'll be damned if they are going to treat you like a lower class citizen, depriving you of your Orange and Blue Oral B toothbrush with soft bristles!
CPP: Accept no substitutions. No compromises!
CP: No retreat, no surrender!
CPP: Ask why they are out of flour, or sanitizer wipes, or sugar, or strawberries.
CP: Well it is peak strawberry season.
CPP: No excuses! Their store exists to serve you! Other people also eat strawberries? Not my problem. That's on the poor soul unfortunate enough to be faced with your righteous indignation right now.
CP: You alone are deserving of this product, whatever it may be. Is there a nationwide shortage?
CPP: <ahem> see March/April 2020.
CP: That is entirely the store's fault! Do not let them off the hook because a pandemic caused a shortage. Or that multiple manufacturers were found to have levels of NDMA in the metformin.
CPP: Pish. How do we score points in this round, CP?
CP: Points are awarded based on how many store personnel are brought in to explain to you that backorders are out of their control and how many products you can find with empty holes on the shelves.
CPP: Bonus points awarded if you can find the same products at multiple stores and receive the same results.
CP: Remember, the store that sells the product is also in control of manufacturing and distribution of said product. That's just solid pharmacy patient logic right there.
CPP: At least that's how our patients treat the pharmacy staff so it must be true.
CP: Hence, the name of the game: How To Play Patient In The Real World.
CPP: Because if they act like that here, we all must all be allowed to act like that elsewhere.
CP: Them Asses.

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