My PIC always said a pharmacy was like a box of Strongpak. Filled with broken things that used to be whole. I'm not (just) talking about the staff - today, I'm going to share some stories about times when things in my pharmacy broke.

Basket Case

My pharmacy has a number of good luck charms scattered throughout our work space. I'm looking forward to the day I can sign my name on the empty Metformin bottle that we've kept for eight years. We have a broken phone cradle with the 7 button missing - and never have we passed 7 pharmacy calls in all my time here. Not everyone believes in superstition, but even those who don't still don't want to mess with whatever voodoo magic we may have invoked.

Enter the basket. It's no different from the normal black prescription baskets I've seen at most CVS pharmacies - except that it's broken, with almost half of the thin plastic pieces broken off, the bottom cracked and a small guitar-pick sized piece missing. It's the last basket we'll ever use, but we never throw it out, because every time we've had to use it, we end up having a grace period with very few calls, pick-ups, and new prescriptions. Without fail.

And one day, it went missing. All of our baskets were in use. And that's when we noticed it - where was the basket? We looked around the production area frantically for a minute before finally turning to the floating pharmacist and asking if she'd seen it. "Oh, the broken basket?" she asked, dismissively. "Yeah, I threw it out. Why?"

She didn't think it was that serious, obviously. And then one basket broke as it was picked up from the floor. A little bit later, a second basket broke from being stepped on (how it got on the floor, no one knows). And we didn't get a single break from the rush all day. Every time something happened, we blamed it on the basket being gone.

Don't mess with the superstitions in a pharmacy. These places are haunted. We've since made a new basket totem, but it just hasn't worked the same. Maybe it takes a few years to build up the magic energy we need.

Bittersweet Symphony

Ever notice how you never need FLAVORx until one of the bottles expires, and then suddenly a dozen people demand it?

That happened earlier this year, and we were specifically out of the Bitterness Suppressor. The one that we needed in almost every requested flavor that came through. After a few days, we finally got around to ordering more, and (thankfully) they came in the next day.

I opened the plastic tote, unwrapped the bubble wrap, and picked up the bottle in triumph to show my PIC. We were happy. Of course, now no one needed FLAVORx. But we had it, just in case.

That is, we had it, for about a week. One of our interns decided to be productive in the downtime between rushes on Thursday, and was cleaning the Fillmaster. She picked up the bottle of Bitterness Suppressor to move it, and found out a second too late that the cap hadn't been secured properly on it. It fell, the contents spilling all over the counter.

Later that evening, someone asked for a FLAVORx. It's like they know.

Breaking the Habit

A month ago, we got a new tech. He'd left a job at a video game store to work here (and get more than 6 hours a week), but he had apparently worked for Rite-Aid before switching to the game store, so he was confident that he could pick everything up quickly. He was right - he picked up the various duties and workflow of the pharmacy in just about three days. So on the first busy day, he got thrown right into the weeds at production, to help us hack our way out of a backlog of reds.

The phone rings, and he picks it up mid-count, barely looking up from the tray as he put the phone to his ear. "Hi, thank you for calling Gamestop, where-"

He paused, cleared his throat, apologized, and started over. My pharmacist and I couldn't help but crack up. He finished the call and took a moment to reset himself, then got back to work.

A few minutes later, the doctor's line rings. Our intrepid new hire picks up the phone. "Hi, thanks for calling Game-"

He closed his eyes and somehow kept his good spirits as my pharmacist and I cracked up again. He eventually passed the call off to the pharmacist, but he'd lost count on the prescription he was in the middle of. It was only Metformin 1000mg, #180. No big deal.

Thankfully for him, he didn't make another mistake when picking up the phone again. Maybe my taping a piece of paper to his computer that said, "Hi, thank you for calling CVS" helped.

That evening, we decided to have him do some PCQ calls. He dials out, the patient picks up, and he puts the phone to his ear. "Hi, thank you for calling CVS..."

His voice trailed off, he hung up the phone, and he sighed.

We didn't make him answer the phone for the rest of his shift.

What does the fax say?

Sometimes, things break and you barely notice. Other times, the broken thing makes sure you know. Thus was the case of our fax machine, that one day - inexplicably - decided to "dial out" by emitting a nasty shriek that sounded like someone was attempting to torture a dial-up modem.

Amazingly, the fax machine was still actually dialing out, so we could still use it - and thank god for that, because it was the middle of January, and we were in the middle of transferring out prescriptions from no-longer-covered patients when the madness started. We just had to deal with the sound. So we took to warning everyone when we had to send a fax... and a couple of us decided to get creative with it.

"Be right back, just gotta do an Office Space."

"Heads up, going to start Y2K in the corner."

It was, in a stroke of brilliance, my pharmacist who walked over to the fax machine, entered the phone number, started the scan, and played this.

I wish I could say it was perfectly timed - it wasn't - but I still nearly died laughing. And now I can't listen to one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands anymore, without thinking of his shenanigans.

Sorry I don't have many stories to share today. I don't really have too many that deal with broken things (and people) - at least, not that I could share without being too specific for the pharmacy employees who I know are in my district and browse this sub.

But I do have a bonus story, one that at least fits the theme of musical titles:

Baby Shark

So, for a while, CVS sold little plush shark cubes that played the earworm "Baby Shark" song when you squeezed them. They were a great annoyance, because every child and even some adults who saw the box on our pharmacy counter would squeeze one (or two, or five) and make it play. The damn thing is still stuck in my head.

But I digress.

CVS has some horrible hold music, yeah? At least, that's the general consensus around my district. So in an attempt to protest the hold music, if another store called to ask if we had a drug, I'd put them on hold... by putting them on speaker and using those cubes to play Baby Shark at them through the microphone.

I got a few laughs, and a couple genuine WTFs, but it was good fun... until the day I did that while my district manager was at the store on the other end of the line. According to him, what I did was "unprofessional" and "against company policy".

So I bought two of the cubes and gave them name tags. I named one "Unprofessional" and the other "Company Policy". They made great mascots for a few weeks.

LINKS TO MY PREVIOUS POSTS

Why is his stuff $0.50, when mine is $50.00?

The day I saw the "In case of emergency" box open, and other short stories

"Where do you put your pee?", and other short stories

"Is this a lotion, or a so-lotion?", and other short stories from the Pick-up counter

"I just have a lot of imaginary friends", and other short stories