Primal Scream Therapy (Updated)

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AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhh*rk!!!!

I HATE THE FUCKING BUREAUCRACY!!!!!!

Which, given that I work for one, is really a bummer for me.*

Ubu has not been having a very good day.

*This message brought to you by the Society for the Prevention of Handicapped Parking Placard Disbursement, a.k.a. the Harris County Tax Assessor’s office, officious jackwads that should just go somewhere (if I suggest that somewhere might be “to fuck off and die” that might be taken as a terrorist threat, so I won’t do that), right along with the assholes who abuse the placards so much that the county does everything they can to not hand them out. The should be joined by the Harris County Health Department that has the most inept and snippy pharmacy crew I’ve ever run into. Hint: You don’t fuck someone’s order up and then tell them they’ll have to come back after its run out to get it fixed, then blame the customer for a series of mishaps and screw-ups caused by your own staff being inattentive and your own laziness in not wanting to fix it. At least they did fix it after I pressed the issue.

Update: Dr. Heinous is right. Too many parallels with where I work. See, we started it off by being too smart for our own good. Nii-san went to see the doctor, while I went to pick up the prescriptions that had already been called in. Both the clinic and pharmacy are in the same building, as it’s the county health department. (My brother does not have insurance). More efficient, for us, right? But they cut one of his prescriptions by 2/3 in error, and I didn’t notice. Someone unqualified coded it into the computer and didn’t understand why it was a 3-month supply, so they cut it to 30 days. I didn’t catch that — “2.67 refills.” Hilarious. I had no idea how many it was supposed to be, so cheerfully accepted the medicine and thought “all right, this is going to be a quick trip after all.” Oh, yes, I tempted fate; I did, I did.

Then the doctor added two more prescriptions (one of which they eventually lost and we said to hell with), and my brother pointed out the mistake. So I went back, and got a new number, intending to get the one fixed, and pick up the other two. This is when it really started spinning out of control. Apparently they have a whole different queue if you have more than two prescriptions. I had already picked up two, so since I was coming back for two more, so apparently I was supposed to be shunted to the slow lane because this was my third and fourth of the day. (I did tell the receptionist I was a repeat customer, but she wasn’t really listening). Effectively, I’d sneaked into the fast lane by splitting up the trips. Note there is nothing that explains how their system works anywhere; it’s a peculiar alpha-numeric system that I now see keeps people from realizing they’re being prioritized, instead of being handled first-in, first-out.

Bureaucracy does not like it when you outsmart them, even if it’s completely by accident.

So I get my fast trip back to the pharmacist’s window (the number is just to drop off the prescription, except when it’s phoned in as the first two were), whereupon I was informed that they couldn’t fix the prescription, he’d have to use it up and then come back. Then they blamed it on me for not checking it, and wanted to know “why didn’t you get it fixed the day you picked it up?” Excuse me? Same day? Try a half-hour ago???? So then the question changed to “why didn’t I check it before I left the window?” Move those goalposts, baby! Um, maybe because I’ve been picking up prescriptions for 35 years and this is the first time anyone ever CHANGED an order without clearing it with the patient or the prescribing physician first? (Other than substituting generic, that is.) Well, sorry, it can’t be fixed, Just have to use it up and come back for more. I pointed out that trying to fix the “2.67 refills” problem was going to be even harder in thirty days, when someone was likely to ask “why didn’t you get it fixed the day you picked it up?” Heh. Sorry, we can’t do it except by voiding your original purchase and re cashiering you out. Ok, I’m game for that. Nope, can’t do that, the transaction is final. Oh, okaaaaay, so what you’re saying is, if you had prescribed the wrong medicine, there’s no way you could have fixed that?

Bureaucracy does not like it when you outsmart them. They really don’t like it when you out-argue them. The second pharmacist (one I was then with) called over the first pharmacist (from the prior trip) and after some fussing, they pinned the blame on a third employee and started ranting about her doing something not her job. So they finally gave in…and then I asked about the other two prescriptions again — and that started the whole “you’re in the wrong queue!” argument. I was told I had to go BACK, and get another number (my third of the day) and come back for the other two prescriptions. Which they claimed to have only one (the other having been lost somewhere between the doctor’s office and the pharmacy.

We went another couple of rounds over that, and she finally decided I was not going to take a number, so they finally got on the stick and fixed almost everything; it took about ten more minutes. The fourth prescription was still AWOL, but it wasn’t critical; just a diuretic, so we blew it off and retreated with our victory.

Then we went to the Tax Assessor’s office and I’m not even going to discuss that one much, because 1) we didn’t win that argument, 2) they are rat bastards about handicapped parking at that office, and 3) I was so angry afterwards, I had to kick the truck a few times to keep from exploding, and calm down enough to drive home. THIRTY minutes in line, and they threw out the application because the doctor accidentally checked the wrong box!

“Look here, she fixed her error, initialed it, the notary initialed it, this is valid.”
“No, it’s not, if both boxes are checked we can’t accept it, because we have no way of knowing it was actually the doctor….This could have been added later.”

i.e.: she just accused me of falsifying a government document and lying about it.

Here’s the kicker: I was lying about it, but I didn’t falsify the document. See, you’re supposed to have the doctor sign the document in front of the notary, right? But how many doctors have a notary in their office? Especially a county health district doctor? And what notary is going to let you drag her to a doctor’s office or anywhere else, just to put their seal on the document? So the state made a series of conditions that individually make some sense (have the doctor sign it, have the document notarized), but in the aggregate are impossible to follow. (clarification: so the doctor signed it, then we had it notarized later. And yes, if you’ve got a friendly notary, they’ll do it for you even though they’re not supposed to.) And you wonder why I detest governmental power. Governmental power = abuse and illogic. Not leads to, equals. It will always result.