The darkest day

2002-12-22 - 9:00 p.m.

That's me, Islefr the Snide. If I were a viking that is. Thank God I'm not a viking. Instead I'm a hillbilly named Billie Jane Thurmond. But everyone calls me Bea. And I'm a cereal called Fluffy Chocolately Rings. And while I'm at it, you can call me The Enchanting Kitty Katt or Hangnailed Knees Truman. Not that I'd actually respond to any of these, this was just a little demonstration of how lame I am, that I actually wasted my time letting some machine generate lame names for me. Geez.

So today was my 12 hour shift day. Started working at 7 this morning. I was the first pharmacist there for about 15 minutes. Dave the tech was there but there were no other techs. Nobody else seems to consider being on time a good thing. Dave is cool. I like the way he is totally willing to do things to help people. His idea of what is a reasonable expectation of someone at work matches up with mine and it's nice. My day went fine for the most part. I only pissed off one nurse today. And the worst part of that is that is was my fault. It wasn't entirely my fault, but it was mostly my fault. She spent almost the entire day trying to get a bag of D5NS with 20 of K from the pharmacy and only just got it when I left. Apparently every time she called for it she talked to me. The first time she called for it I said I'd send it right up. I debited a label and forgot about it. It's supposed to work that a tech will pull the label off the printer, fill it, and send it up to the floor. After debiting a label I shouldn't have to worry about it again if all goes well. To make a long story short, the techs never filled that label. The nurse called for it again several hours later, I said I would make sure it definitely for sure get up there this time. I printed out the label. Nearly an hour later I realized I hadn't yet checked that to go out so I printed it again, pulled the label off the printer myself, took it to a tech and asked, "Why aren't we filling this? Is this floor stock?" I was told by the tech and a nearby pharmacist that yes, indeed, D5NS20K is floor stock, if the nurse is out of it they should call distribution. So I called the floor, spoke with the ward clerk and told her to tell the nurse that D5NS20K is floor stock. I few minutes later the nurse called back completely irate raging that she is not a fucking idiot nor is she fucking blind and she wouldn't have spent the last 7 fucking hours trying to get this fucking fluid from the pharmacy if it was fucking floor stock. So after mutual slamming down of phone receivers I found a bag of the fluid, slapped the label on, and got a tech to deliver it right then. I have no idea what happened to all the labels I had printed out before that one or why I was told that was floor stock, but it pisses me off that I made such a mess of it. I don't blame the nurse for being upset. She shouldn't have had to call at all and definitely no more than once. But I shouldn't have had to get up and fill that myself. I was about to say that no, I didn't think the she was an idiot when I told her it was floor stock, but the fact is that yes, I thought she was an idiot. Nurses are idiots. And they will tell you anything to get you to give them what they want. For example, "Oh yes, pharmacy sends up vials of ketamine all the time!" So I send up a whole vial of ketamine and then get chewed out for it by other pharmacists. Ergh.

You know it's funny. This week I talked to both DeenPo and Feathers. DeenPo has two jobs. She works for a hospital and she works for Walgreens. Feathers works four days a week. When I talked to DeenPo we echoed each other's sentiments about hating pharmacy and having no time for anything. When I talked to Feathers she told me how much she loves pharmacy and how she has so much spare time. In fact she's taking piano lessons. The moral of this lesson? Either a) we should all work four days a week or b) Feathers is full of crap because she likes to make people feel bad. I shouldn't say that. She likes to make people feel envious while acting completely innocent about it. Or c) both of the above. What am I going to do with myself?

Aunt Flo came to visit today. There's something that'll put me in a bad mood every time. But today is the winter solstice. We should all be out partying, trying to help Marduk tame the monsters of chaos for one more year. Hopefully Marduk will be able to handle it without me this year. But tomorrow is Christmas Eve eve, and more importantly, tomorrow, by the time I get home, my brother will be here! Which will rock. Because it does.

What's up with my parents trying to tell me when to go to bed? Don't they know that the more they tell me that the less likely I am to actually go to bed? Yeah, that's me. Rebellious. Islefr the Snide.