Harold
Two thoughts on my experiences at pharmacies in this fair city of Washington over the last 6 years:
I used to be a customer at the Rite Aid in my old neighborhood. When I would walk up to the counter to refill my prescription and I would see that Harold (a pharmacist) was on duty, even my worst days would fade into the haze of the traffic congestion of Dupont Circle. Harold always greeted me by name with a large smile before getting my prescription. We would make small talk--he was finishing pharmacy school while I was still in the midst of prerequisite classes for nursing school. Our relationship was the reason that I kept refilling my prescription there after we moved away two years ago, despite the inconvenience that it caused. He was a rare gem in a society that no longer values customer service or personalization, and I miss seeing him.
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Yesterday I was at the new CVS that opened across the street from me, getting a few necessities, including some pseudofed. Since the media blitz about the crystal meth problem in the U.S., jurisdictions and companies around the country have begun instituting rules about the sale of pseudofed--it's now behind the pharmacy counter, and, at least in DC, the pharmacist writes your driver's license number down next to your signature for the purchase. I asked the pharmacist while he was doing all this if these policies had helped stem the abuse of pseudofed for meth manufacturing. His response surprised me--pseudofed is so abundantly available on the internet that (in his opinion) the only thing the new policies had done was make busy work for him and other pharmacists.
I used to be a customer at the Rite Aid in my old neighborhood. When I would walk up to the counter to refill my prescription and I would see that Harold (a pharmacist) was on duty, even my worst days would fade into the haze of the traffic congestion of Dupont Circle. Harold always greeted me by name with a large smile before getting my prescription. We would make small talk--he was finishing pharmacy school while I was still in the midst of prerequisite classes for nursing school. Our relationship was the reason that I kept refilling my prescription there after we moved away two years ago, despite the inconvenience that it caused. He was a rare gem in a society that no longer values customer service or personalization, and I miss seeing him.
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Yesterday I was at the new CVS that opened across the street from me, getting a few necessities, including some pseudofed. Since the media blitz about the crystal meth problem in the U.S., jurisdictions and companies around the country have begun instituting rules about the sale of pseudofed--it's now behind the pharmacy counter, and, at least in DC, the pharmacist writes your driver's license number down next to your signature for the purchase. I asked the pharmacist while he was doing all this if these policies had helped stem the abuse of pseudofed for meth manufacturing. His response surprised me--pseudofed is so abundantly available on the internet that (in his opinion) the only thing the new policies had done was make busy work for him and other pharmacists.
Comments
Interesting too about sudafed. I haven't bought any since it is behind the counter.