fiona was here
wishing she had a clever tagline

I hate my pharmacy. I have for the longest time. The only reason they got my business in the first place was because they had a lesser dispensing fee than anywhere else. But I don't like them for a myriad of reasons.

• The staff keeps changing so anytime they get to know me, new people suddenly appear who have no idea who I am which bothers me because it makes the world a less stressful place when your presence is intrinsically understood and you don't have to explain who you are all the time.
• They never seem willing to go above and beyond the call of duty until I go in person and make them do so; over-achievement is a quality I embrace in my service professionals and none of them have displayed it since Fenton, my favorite pharmacy assistant ever who deserted me years ago.
• And when the price of one of my medications goes up unexpectely, they don't warn me or even mention it until I query thier seemingly random price fluctuations.
• In order to get a refill on a prescription I have to navigate a horrible electronic touch-tone system that sucks up far too much of my time with it's assine requests for more numbers.
• But the clincher is that the pharmacy is part of Loblaws (who, I'm secretly convinced are evil and going to take over the world but make a fine chocolate chip cookie) which makes me feel guilty for supporting an evil empire (although they aren't evil on a Wal-Mart scale).

So today, I had to go and visit them in person and berate them for not making a greater effort to fill my prescription. It is, they keep telling me, "backordered", as though that absolves them of any responsibility to talk about the matter. After making them phone other pharmacies to find another place that could fill the prescription, I left (a line had started to form behind me).

When I got home I called the little pharmacy down the road and talked to the pharmacist there (who actually answered the phone himself. Physically answered the phone. In this day and age, if you can believe it) and asked him about my medication. He too was fresh out but he very pleasantly told me the full story of my desired drug and what the company was saying and how they kept changing the date for more production and when it might come in and what pharmacy was I using now? He caught me off guard and I told him the truth and felt about three inches tall. And then he asked me my name and I know if I go in tomorrow, he'll remember.

Tagnorati:pharmacies, pharmacy, loblaws, guilt,