Too Stupid for a Job. A Statement not a Question

Last week I posed the question, “too stupid to work?” Today, after a conversation with my Doctor’s office, I wonder how some people can manage to get up in the morning or navigate their way to work let alone hold down a job.

Following a hunch, I phoned the office to double check they had filled the prescription.

Good thing.

“You called in a prescription? For what?” Pause. “For Prozac?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who you spoke with?

“The person that answered the phone when I called last week Wednesday.”

“Ok. Let me check with the nurse. Did you want us to call this into the Pharmacy or where you gonna stop by the office and pick it up from us?”

“No, when I called last week I specifically stated that I wanted a three month supply via mail and provided a website per the Doctor’s instruction.”

Subtext: If I wanted a one month supply from CVS I would have phoned in the refill and saved myself this whole annoying process.

“Ok, well I have to check and see who took this.”

“Great, my insurance expires on Friday so I really need to get this taken care of.”

A few hours later, they call back. “Hi Alyssa we have the prescription. Do you have a phone number for us to call this in?”

Oy vey…

“No, I wanted a three month supply I provided a website last Wednesday.”

“Well it would be much easier if you had a number to the Pharmacy. We are not members of that website and it will take a few days.”

“I do not have a few days. My insurance ends on Friday.”

“It would be really helpful if you could just give us the number for the Pharmacy.”

“I don’t know it.” Pause. “I called this in on Wednesday of last week. Why…Can I please speak to you office manager?”

Unphased, “I will have her call you back.”

Five minutes go by.

“Hi Alyssa, this is the Doctor’s office. The website you provided is for the patient not the doctor. We tried calling the number on the site and that is for patients only too.”

“Why are you just dealing with this now? I called this in last week.”

“We just got the prescription late yesterday afternoon.”

“But, I called on Wednesday.”

“The Doctor was unavailable Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.”

Ok, I assert “unavailable” means we forgot. Please refer back to my original conversation from this morning.

I respond, “Here is what you are going to do. You are going to call Blue Cross/Blue Shield. You can find the number on my insurance card, which you made a copy of in my file. And you are going to call them and figure out how to get three months of my prescription the drug I take to for anxiety. If you had called me about this problem last week I would have been more than happy to assist you. I called in to double check on this because I didn’t trust the ability of the person who answered the phone. So you go do that and call me back to confirm that this is done.

Never did any of the people I spoke to say any variation of the word sorry. They deflected blame to the Doctor for being unavailable to me for providing the wrong website. In fact if they even alluded to an apology, or a comprehension as to why I was upset, I might not be writing this blog. Not only did they not understand they wanted me to solve their screw up.

Sadly, they didn’t posses enough pride to call Blue Cross/Blue Shield to avoid 1) looking completely incompetent and 2) irritating an already high stung patient.

In business, as in all of life, please do not make your screw up my problem. Rub two brain cells together and THINK to find a solution. Also, when you do err say you are sorry.