Mean People Suck (originally posted 5/13/09)

Not an original idea - I know. We have all seen this on bumper stickers. I am not claiming the coinage of this phrase, so no need to contact the plagiarism police. Anywho, in rare moments where I find myself inexplicably being overly-nice in some bizarre form of personality spasm, I have noticed a trend. These weak moments of character where I disgustingly ignore my experience-defined jerk-osity (I will accept the coinage of this word) and divulge in conformity of social niceties and helpfulness, I have found that the recipients of my attempts at goodwill pimp-slap me back into my former state by reacting with an overall indifference or even viciousness. This occurrence truly alarms and amuses me.

Case in point, two days ago I inform a customer that his Rx is only for one tube of cream. He angrily tells me that it is supposed to be two. A quick glance at his profile reveals that there are indeed two Rx's, one written for 1 tube and the other for 2. I tell him that the Rx for 2 tubes is out of refills, and that I will send an electronic fax to his prescriber to get it refilled. I told him it would be beneficial for him to call the doctor's office the next morning to get the refill authorized, and to call the pharmacy before he shows up to make sure everything was done. He of course shows up having done nothing (after what undoubtedly was a night of binge drinking and complete, debilitating debauchery), and it is suddenly my fault that the doctor did not authorize the refills. He goes into to this long-winded, tiring tirade of essentially nothingness, and tells me he is going to transfer all his Rx's to another pharmacy. Boo-freaking-hoo. I can hardly stop back the giant, crocodile tears that are welling up as I recall this incident. I defer to the title of perhaps the best Green Day song, Good Riddance.

That will teach me to try to be nice! Every time I try to do something selfless for someone, it goes up in flames like Michael Jackson's hair in that Pepsi Concert, or - I guess, his career in general. A certain pharmacist friend of mine had a similar experience, but the unnamed yet clearly bearded person did not give me permission to recount the tale of the wayward idiot, so I suppose it will remain an in-joke. That's it for now, so until I feel like dutifully documenting another pharmacy play-by-play (I don't know what all the alliteration is about), I guess you all will - I don't know - painfully long for the next one...