It's not me, it's you.

I broke up with my pharmacy.  Well, that makes it sound confrontational, which it wasn't, but after six years together I definitely consider it a break up. 

When I first moved to my neighborhood I absolutely loved my local CVS pharmacy- the head pharmacist really had his shit together and ran a super-tight ship.  He's still there and he's still great, and if he opened his own pharmacy I'd be first in line.  But over the past year or so the decline in quality of service has pushed me over the edge.  Although I don't have specific complaints about any of the new workers, I do believe the problems with the service are in direct proportion with the rapid increase in staff.  Whereas once upon a time there would be two people at the pharmacy, there are now almost ten young pharmacists stepping on each other's toes- too many cooks, y'know?  And actually, even though they're all nice, I do have a problem with some of them.  Some of the newer pharmacists are just careless, and I'm afraid being nice and apologetic just doesn't make up for that when it comes to health care.  I had one girl try to give me a generic prescription even though the order was specifically written out "Dispense as Written."  It's a good thing she told me how cheap it would have been and I was able to catch her mistake for her.  After that my annoyance has mostly come from lack of supplies- it seems like every medication I need is out of stock or they just don't carry it period.  I can't remember the last time I was able to get a medicaiton without having to wait until the next day. 

The biggest strike came after my colonoscopy- as I mentioned in a past post, this particular pharmacy denied me access to a bathroom.  They told me to go to Starbucks.  I'm sorry, you have sick people coming to you all day and no bathroom for any of them?  I was dumbfounded.  And then this past Monday I went to pick up my Cortifoam refill and that clinched it.  When I got home I realized I had been given only a one week supply instead of a one month supply (not the first time I've been given the wrong amount of my meds).  So I called and explained the situation and said I'd come by the next day for the rest of it.  But when I got there I was told "Oh we tried to call you, it'll be in tomorrow."  LIE.  No call on my cell phone, no call on my work phone, and I even asked them to verify the numbers they had in their system.  So I had to go back a third time.  At this point I was already ready to make this my last date with CVS ever, and was praying that my meds were in order so I could just pick them up, turn around, and never look back (which is pretty much how it worked out).  But as I was picking up my meds, this stupid asshole bitch plopped her purse down on the counter next to me, practically leaning on me, and started digging around for something as I was talking to the pharmacist about my rectal foam.  WHAT? I shot around and asked for some privacy and she just walked away without even looking at me or apologizing.  Not quite CVS's fault, but kind of because why don't they enforce any kind of privacy practices?  The pharmacists are rarely ever discreet, and God only knows the other customers aren't that considerate. 

So the plan now is to get everything written out for my mail-order pharmacy- it's just the cortifoam and Prednisone I've been picking up locally.  So when I see the doc on Monday I'll get those scrips and next time I need one ASAP I'll hit one of the little mom and pops.