Pharmacy. Jim Plagakis. Pharmacist

A couple weeks ago, I looked at my account at Google Analytics and saw that the number of “unique” visitors per day had been nearly 700.  I took a look at what was on the Main Page.  It was the letter written by a female WAG pharmacist.  It was directed to Mr. Wasson, WAG’s CEO.  It was highly critical.  The pharmacist suggested that Wasson had ruined Walgreens and that he should resign. 
Last week, I wrote the “Vacation” essay below.  Google Analytics report that around 600 unique visitors visited last week.  I had written, once again, about the non-pharmacist, bean-counting, MBA Masters of the Universe.  I don’t have to be polite here. This is not Drug Topics.  I’m not going to pretend anythng, but the truth.  That is:  I hate the MBA Masters of the Universe fuckers and what they have done to ruin our industry.  Notice that I did not say profession.  The fuckers cannot hurt the profession.  Only pharmacists can hurt the profession.
I asked a sophomore at a Boston college to design this site.  I asked Drug Topics to include www.jimplagakis.com in my bio in the magazine.  That was in Novemeber, 2005.  That’s it.  That is the only way that traffic on this site went from arouund 10 a day to 700 unique a day.  Ronald Benson in Alabama probably counted for 4 of the 10, coming back multiple times every day.  Jay Pee’s most loyal fan, and a friend. 
After looking at the 700 and 600, I concluded that you don’t give a shit about cutesy stories about the obese 30 year woman with a pretty face who comes to see the pharmacist for moral support for her diet.  I am just a frikkin’ enabler.  She still eats crap.  I tried tough love. She has a pretty face.  Those eyes kill me.  She didn’t come back for three weeks.  I am an idiot thinking that I can help people like her.  Am I an idiot?  My point is, If I am going to write a cutesy, feel good essay, I better follow quickly with some RED MEAT.
You are motivated to come, read and comment when the essays are about real shit.  Finally, finally, we are getting attention shown to our working conditions.  We had to come through the back door.  Pointing at the fact that these conditions compromise the pharmacist’s ability to deliver POISONS safely.  The public is in jeopardy every day around 8:00 PM in most CVS stores.  Think about it.  The pharmacist has worked 12 hours and still has 2 hours to go.  The tech left.  The pharmacist is working alone.
It was The Pharmacy Alliance that started punching the message a tired pharmacist is a dangerous pharmacist about 2 years ago.  TPA planted the seed.  I invite you to go to www.thepharmacyalliance.com take a look and join.
A couple weeks ago, at 8:45 PM on a Friday night, I was presented with 28 prescriptions. 19 for a just released heart transplant patient and 9 Rxs for a just released kidney transplant patient.  What the…?  We had other work to do.  The technician was scheduled to leave at 9:00 PM.  I called the manager on duty and said this, “I have all this new work.”  I shook the 8 x 11 paper Rxs.  “Plus other prescriptions.  I am keeping Tom.  We may not get out until after ten.”  She said, “Okay”.  Pretty cool.  I would guess that a CVS or RAD pharmacist could be screwed.  Tom took care of all of the regular work.  I scanned, typed, reviewed, filled and verified all of the 28.  Think about it.  28 new Rxs when closing time is in 85 minutes.  Would your company allow you, a 2 day a week pharmacist, to make the call about keeping the tech.  We got it all done by 10:00 PM.  I did NOT counsel. My weekend was screwed.  I am truly too old for that shit.  It is killing me.
Now, what I really want to write is an invitation to non-pharmacist, bean-counting MBA Masters of the Universe to give us their view of the failing INDUSTRY and to tell us that I am wrong.  It is not their fault.  Here it goes.
Dear Masters of the Universe.
Come and tell is why Jay Pee is full of it.  Now, remember that Jay Pee has accused you of having NO STANDING in pharmacy.  He has claimed that none of you have ever stood at a Drive Through window and been forced to inhale poison exhaust from an old 1997 Cadillac Seville.  Jay Pee has said that a drunk at the Drive Through has never been part of your work day.  You have never had to deal with an old lady at the Drive Through.  She pays with a check, then she doesn’t leave.  She sits there and records the check in her check book and then.. she has to do the subtracting to record her check book blance.  You have never had to deal with the NEXT person in line who blames you because she had to wait.  “I have been sitting in this line for 15 minutes.”  Then you tell her that her order is not ready.  “What?  I called it in to the computer.” You turn and see a guy at the register.  His face is red.  His throat is bulging.  His eyes are damaging you.  “Why did you help those people in their cars first?  I brought my prescription in an hour ago.”
Admit it, MOTU, you know nothing about the Drive Through and you still send out policy statements about the Drive Through.  Like how fast we should get to the window.  You have NO STANDING, man.
Jay Pee says that you, Mr. MOTU, have never taken an insurance card for an out of towner who works for the Sisters of Mercy Grade School in East Original, Wyoming.  You have never even entered a MEDCO card. (It’s Paid Rx).  You have never entered a new patient, with allergies and health conditions.  You have never typed in a new prescription. 

You have never filled a prescription.  You have never compounded a simple cream of two ingredients that are both water miscible.  You have never put away an order.  You, Mister MOTU, have NO STANDING in the pharmcy.  How could you (or anyone who knows NOTHING about the pharmacy) think that your programs for the pharmacy are intelligent?
The duties I listed here are technician jobs.  Guess what?  You, Mister MOTU, could easily get qualified as technician.  Take you 6 weeks of wood shedding.
I didn’t even list pharmacist jobs because you could NEVER qualify as a pharmacist.  Your MBA would not transfer.  You would have to do the 6 years.  If you are NOT an RPh and if you have NOT worked in pharmacies for at least a year, you, my good MOTU friend, have NO STANDING in the pharmacy. 

It is a joke when you go all happy faced to the executive suite and cheerily announce, “I got a good idea.  Let’s promise WAIT TIMES of no longer than 15 minutes in the pharmacy.  If we fail, we give a $25 gift card.”  Throw money.  That’s always your answer.  You cut tech hours to pay for the gift cards.  How fucked up is that?
Jay Pee says that you are a joke.  You have NO STANDING and you believe that you can cut tech hours and save money.  I know, I know, your job is to be like a pig rooting for waste.  Asshole, cutting tech hours is an idiotic move.  It pisses people off.  They go elsewhere when they have to wait 2 hours and their order is still not ready.  What happened to customer service?  The 2 hours a day that you cut, the tech is not filing her finger nails.  She is working hard to make money for the company. 

 
Jay Pee says that you, MOTU, need to get out of the pharmacy and be sent to the variety store where you belong.  He wants a good pharmacy merchant pharmacist to take your seat at the table.
What do you think of that?
Jay Pee says that he reserves the right to return to this subject.  Because, you, have been ruining a great business for 3 decades.  You really need for a pharmacist to find you and a pretty girl at a bar on Saturday night. 

You are looking good MOTU.  Nice black pants, sort of pegged.  A jacket with thin lapels.  A great shirt, not tucked in.  The problem is the look on your face when the pharmacist leaves with the pretty girl and takes her home for the night.
Come on, MOTU, let’s be friends.  Let’s work this out.  Oh, ignore that guy behind me with the knuckles.  He is just a CVS pharmacist from Tupelo, Mississippi.
Sincerely, with love
One of the 700

video-9

Jay Pee is a hopelessly INSTITUTIONALIZED Pharmacist. Click on “Video-9″

I do my best to be very precise about how I use the language. It makes V a little crazy on occasion, but the words mean something, I tell her. It does not work to use the word ‘always’ when ‘once in awhile’ is more accurate. Is exaggeration a female thing?

Pharmacists have been mixing up the ‘JOB’ and the ‘PROFESSION’ for years. You can read comments on the drive-through post that do that right here. Pharmacists will often write things like:

“This profession is a piece of crap and I’m getting out as soon as I can find a different way to make $10,000.00 a month.”

“You students would be smart to pull the plug right now and find another way to make a living. The profession of pharmacy is the arm pit.”

“I would never encourage any young person to go into pharmacy. The working conditions are terrible. You can’t eat lunch. You are expected to work 12 hour shifts with no breaks. Be a teacher. You can have the summers off.”

You have heard those kinds of remarks over and over again. Well, you know what I have to say……”Tough SHIT”.

It is your own damn fault if you don’t get 15 minutes to eat an uninterrupted meal. You have become so used to Fritos, Diet Coke and a Snickers that your wife thinks you are ill when you can’t finish the good meals she cooks.

You are so accustomed to multi-tasking and instantaneous results on the computer that you have forgotten how to have a conversation with your 13 year old daughter. She already knows you are stupid and you confirm it every time she wants to talk. I can see your eyes glaze over. Your daughter wants to share the whole story. She wants to squeal and have you laugh with her. You just want her to get at the point. She is offering a gift and you reject it. Eventually, she just gives up and shares no more.

It’s your problem if you work 12 hour shifts. Say NO, find another job.

You are the idiot who keeps on working when you have to go pee and dribble in your underpants.

You have earned the vacation….. Take it! It is not your fault that the company gives you 4 weeks and wants you to take it a week at a time, but never in the summer. It becomes your fault when you have worked for this company for 15 years and still have not been ALLOWED to take the three week “Honeymoon” in Italy that you promised your husband 15 years ago when the best you could get was a long weekend in Bakersfield.

That’s the JOB. Not the profession. How can you possibly not see that? The profession of pharmacy is just fine. It is the JOB that is often undignified. It is the JOB that you are not proud of.

You may not feel much self-worth because of the JOB. Trust me, if you want a JOB that is dignified, one that gives you self-respect and a sense of integrity, you could have one. You and most of your colleagues have put up with a humiliating situation week after week, month after month, decade after decade. That’s your own fault.

It is the JOB that can be problematic. The profession is fine.

So, my friends, when you bitch and moan and whine… be precise. Put the blame where the blame belongs. With your JOB and with YOU.

“A Little Dignity” Jay Pee Radio

Click above. Turn on the sound.

My first shot at Jay Pee Radio.  I will get it.  I have to slow down.  Pause at the right places.  Enunciate clearly.  If might help it I worked with notes.

Jimi Hendrix ‘All along the Watch Tower’.  A Vietnam War protest song very popular with our soldiers.  It may be a war protest song for retail pharmacy ‘Galley Slaves’.  That epithet was coined by ‘The Ole Apothecary’.  Check his blog.

This very short talk is about ‘Dignity’.  I just did it, without any rehearsal.  Many of you can relate.

Christmas Eve morning, 2007.  Victoria and I took a fifteen minute, early morning drive to a beach on the west end of Galveston Island.  This was right after the sun came up.  It is pretty messed up after the hurricane.  Some of these houses were lost.

I have received some comments at jpgakis@hotmail.com about Jay Pee Radio.  One woman said, “This is stupid.  You are a pharmacist, not a disc jockey.  You are the undignifed one.”   Well, Bxxxxa, this is the 21st Century.  It’s okay to have fun and perhaps I will say something worth listening to.”

Two guys told me that my “old timer music”, “vintage rock and roll” was really good.  The want me to record all of “All along the Watch Tower, by Jimi Hendrix.”  This piece is my choice for the protest anthem for retail “Galley Slave” pharmacists.  I will put the whole song up for you this weekend.

Two pharmacists who called themselves “a fan since Drug Topics” and “a Jay Pee addict” want me to show my face.  Well. that is a confrontation.  Maybe, one of these days, I’ll shave, put on an “island time” shirt and see what happens. 

The rest of you, take just a minute and comment on ”Jay Pee Radio”.