A typical day for a Pharmacist goes something like this. You are always focused. That focus mode starts as soon as you walk up to the security pad and punch in the numbers to turn of the alarm system. Zap! You hear all the lasers turn off inside the Pharmacy. The motion detectors stop humming. The cameras go to "day mode" and greet you as you step through the portal into the pharmaceutical environment. You walk over to the biometric reader and it scans your fingerprint an bingo, you are ready to fire up the control system to bring all components of the big brain into action.
Up pops your system with what needs to be handled first and a list of pending prescriptions that are staged for assembly and verification and pickup all during the day. The list grows by the minute as patients add their requested prescriptions to your growing work load. You notice that the little indicator light is flashing telling you that some Doctor's office has left you their verbal orders for prescriptions, waiting to be transcribed. You glance up and to the left and notice that there are a bunch of e-Prescriptions waiting for you to translate into a prescription for the system to process. Just below is a list of e-Fax prescriptions that are waiting to be printed and processed. You take a look behind you at the Fax machine and there are a stack of Faxed prescriptions from offices who have not entered the 21st Century and still use the old fashion system of faxed orders. It is at that point that you realize you have your work cut out for you this morning.
About that time, your Technician rolls in with a dolly filled with crates filled with thousands of pills, suppositories and capsules and pints of medications to be checked in and put on the shelves. That is only the first order of the day. There will be two others coming later in the morning and early afternoon. Invoices have to be printed and controlled substances have to be checked in by the Pharmacist. Oh, yes, don't forget to scan in the Central Fill Prescriptions which have been filled for you overnight at the Central Fill Facility in San Antonio. When all this is done, you can print a total of all the prescriptions filled the previous day and note that total in the ledger. It has been 30 minutes since you have walked in the door and your have 30 minutes to finish all this stuff and get the morning waiters filled before the patients begin lining up to pick up their prescriptions. The pressure is on. No Mistakes Are Allowed. You feel the muscles in your back tense and the counting tray reflex begins. It is like preparing for a battle. You put your best smile on your face and greet the crowd which is already forming at the front counter. There is only a sturdy metal bar grid standing between you and your audience. About that time, you feel the first joke of the day coming on.....
"Hey Kelley....
did we get that Henway in the order this morning?"
Kelly looks puzzled and turns and looks at me and says,
"I'm not sure. ...What's a Henway?"
I reply..... "Oh, about 5 pounds."
And we are off and running. Little bits of humor thrown into the day always puts a smile on the face and lets you laugh away the tension. It is the glue which binds a team. It is the lubricant for free flow of information. It is damned funny at times. And, it all is in the timing. We all do it, all day long at our Pharmacy. "Keep em laughing" is my Motto.
My boss is a tall fellow. He towers over me. Bob is a gentle giant of a man with a sharp sense of humor and I find it hard not to try to keep him entertained. Most of the time he has a smile on his face but lately I have noticed more and more a deep vein of focus coming into his professional attitude. He is good at what he does and takes our practice very seriously. But, he gets pretty uptight every now and then. Friday was not a tense day. I walked in at the beginning of my closing shift and everyone greeted me with all kinds of smart remarks. Bob belted out a greeting in a rather good, but fake, Scottish accent, playing on the use of the Star Trek engineer's name of "Scotty"... It was funny at the time. All the Techs chimed in and came up with their own comments. One of which was the question of did I notice the miracle performed by Bob? There were no baskets to be processed on the counter when I walked in. They had been working hard and had everything caught up before I entered the door. Without missing a beat, I walked down the line to my work station and replied back...."Hey great job!" Turning to Bob, I said, "You know that is why I look up to you Bob. You are a good man.....that and the fact that you are so much taller than me!" Everyone got the one liner and we were off and running.....
The other day I got an email from corporate wanting me to fill out an electronic form about myself and attach a photo for their files. I have worked for my company for 29 years. You would think that everyone knows what I look like by now. You would also think they would know my address and phone number by now. But, being the good employee that I am, I attempted to fill out the form online. It did not work. All the typed in information stuck, but the photo would not attach properly and so the form kept showing up at Corporate without the picture I was using. It was frustrating. It seems that everyone was having the problem and so they sent out another email with the fix. By then, I decided it would be easier to do this at home, so I waited till I got home that night. I filled out the form and attempted to attach the picture and still it did not work. So, I thought for a moment and decided to try a different route of creating the form with the picture and sending it as a different format. I figured it would not work since nothing else had worked up to now.... so, I attached a funny photo of myself wearing a Viking helmet with large bull horns on each side. I was making a funny face since I was singing in the picture... Now, you have to understand that up to this point, I had not been successful with any attempts. I had emailed the sweet office lady at Corporate that I just could not seem to get this to work and perhaps she could do a sketch of what she thought I looked like and attach that to the file from her end. She replied that was funny and would I please try again. Ok, well you might have guessed by now, the last attempt worked and so there was my new file sitting in a Corporate computer file with that Viking photo attached. But, I did not know that.
I got a call at work the next day from Jody at Corporate which went something like this....
J "Scott?"
S "Yes"
J "I got your file in the email and I just have to tell you something."
S "Yes,,,"
J "I was on the phone with a potential new employee from Florida and was scrolling through my email when up popped the form you sent. I burst out laughing so hard, I could not talk for a moment....that picture was great....but, could you send one with your smock and name badge for our files?"
S "Sure, but don't you want to use that file instead? I kind of liked that picture and it is the real me...."
Laughter is the best medicine ....try it sometime.
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