It is 2:21AM and I am taking refill orders over the phone. The manager on overnights tells me to get off the phone. I keep talking to the patient. He tells me to get off the phone NOW. I look over and see him with a masked gunman. "Oh, shit! I will have your prescriptions ready in the morning." Click.
I get the joy of laying on the office floor while the gunman waves a 9mm semi-automatic at me and the manager empties the safe. Then we get to go to the front of the store where said gunman has an accomplice with another employee on the floor along with a handfull of late-night shoppers.
Brain: "Son of a Bitch! I have a lot of work to do. Why the fuck did they have to come on my week! This floor is gross. I hope they didn't hurt anyone.... Maybe I should take the rest of the month off. Maybe I should look for a new job..."
Gunman 1: "Stay on the floor!"
Gunman 2: "Have a nice day! Haha!"
Brain: "I would love to kick you both in the nuts but instead I get to lay in the nasty floor."
The whole thing took about 5 minutes. We were lucky that neither gunman had an itchy trigger finger or maybe because instead of being my usual mouthy self I had a big dose of "shut the fuck up" or what some people call "shock."
The moral of this story is overnights are dangerous. Armed robbery, like shit, happens. Quiet + Compliant = Alive Too bad it wasn't ninjas. It would have made a better story. I got robbed by ninjas.....
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15 comments:
Yikes! That would be me, more worried about laying on a nasty drug store floor, than the 9mm in my back.
Glad you are still with us.
Though, I had a pharmacist friend, who worked in a New Jersey hospital that got held up there for narcotics
(7p-7am) shift. The fun never ends...
I was robbed twice at my retail pharmacy. It is the scariest thing ever to have a gunman yelling at you. I'm sorry you had to expierence that. i believe that at 24 hour stores they should get better security so things like this won't happen. I like your blog by the way! It is all so true
Didn't happen to me, but happened at my store...
How about being robbed of about $500 of merchandise from a man dressed as a woman? His downfall came when he was confronting a police officer with a knife, and his pantyhose got caught on some chicken wire.
... you can't make this stuff up.
Glad you kept your mouth shut...I've never been robbed at work, just mugged and I was pretty mouthy the whole time the guy was stealing my stuff...fortunately he was kinda drunk and only had a knife, not a gun!
I've never understood why 24 hours stores don't have security. I mean, most robberies happen on the night shift...when my store got robbed it was right before closing. At least put a panic button in the C-2 safe...you're probably going to have to go to the safe to get the good stuff anyway, most safes aren't in view of the register, and one tiny little button hidden next to the oxycontin could have the police waiting outside.
Three questions: If you get shot at work, do you get worker's comp? Do you get a couple of days off to decompress after a robbery? If you call in sick for a couple of days after a robbery, can they write you up?
You never know with those damn corpo-pharmacies!
We were robbed last month at 3:30 am. The cameras didn't work... and the store manager had known about it for 3 weeks prior. Go figure. I've turned my notice in. He, my friends, is an ass hat.
Actually, the corporate office always offers a counseling service and paid time off depending on how mental you become. I am already crazy. This has just made me more paranoid and I may end up like Sigourney Weaver in "Copycat"....
I am so sorry that this happened to you. I'm glad that you are still around. You can tell everyone that you were robbed by ninjas. We won't give away your secret.
MJ
Will the company spring for new underwear?
It's not just overnights. When I worked at McPharmacy I was held up at 9:10am. After I opened the gate at 9, I left my tech in the pharmacy while I went and got a bottled water out of the cooler about 20 feet away. In the minute it took me to get it and get back, large man with large arm around tech's neck with very large knife against said neck.
Dumbass thought it would be easier to grab some Oxycontin from the tech. Silly him, I'm the one with the safe combo and keys.
Anyway, I knew at that time that it was time to look for another job. The VERY first thought that went through my mind was "Cool. I'll get the rest of the day off."
What really ticked me off was:
1) This guy was walking the store for at least 1/2 hour before the pharmacy opened. The manager at the time said she lost interest in him when she realised he wasn't stealing Tylenol. Bitch.
2) I have harped and harped to upper management that our pharmacy neede cameras and a SECURE pharmacy door...not just a double swing door with NO latch. They were more interested in making sure my techs didn't leave a coat or handbag somewhere within a mile of the pharmacy. Asses. All of 'em.
Anyway, glad yours turned out OK...and don't worry the nightmares will stop....sometime.
We were robbed last month at 3:30 am. The cameras didn't work... and the store manager had known about it for 3 weeks prior. Go figure. I've turned my notice in. He, my friends, is an ass hat.
My only question is was he fired or promoted to director of loss prevention?
Sounds like you handled it as well as you could. Damn. Sooner or later, we will all be in that same spot. Glad you're alright.
OMG! Glad everyone's alright. Sigh, even the pharmaceutical industry is in danger.
wow, gives me a lot to look forward to.
i hope that you agree that imitation is the best form of flattery because your blog has inspired one of my own.
thanks for the shared experiences.
Well, at the Walgreens I work at we haven't been robbed yet...but it's an accident waiting to happen...the only cameras are over the vicodin section and the in-window, nowhere near either the registers or the C-II safe (which is, of course, in plain view of the patients)...
Did this guy rob the narcs, or just all the cash?
1. Mc Druggie's does not spring for new underwear. I wouldn't want the vacationer-forgot-their-undies special panties we sell anyway. I doubt any of you would want them either. They appear to lack any semblance of style, comfort, or sex appeal (the Valentine's Day his and her's thongs being the exception).
2. The smacktards we have hired in the past for security were about as intimidating as Barney Fife and significantly less competant. One store I worked at as a mcintern in the ghetto had to fire a guard because he was playing with his gun in the breakroom and shot a hole in the floor. Filet started out at that one too. College is fun!
An assistant manager currently at my store was telling me how a security guard was talking on the phone and the robbers came up behind him and tied him to the chair with the cord of the phone he was talking on. It is not worth wasting my retirement money on security. They are pretty much a straw man that fails miserably in the scare tactics and safety department.
3. Ah, McIntern, it is good that you start a blog now to avoid becoming the bitter alcoholic "hater" that my McDruggie's experience has molded me into. Slowly but surely, alcohol is taking the wayside to blogging. My liver has never been happier and my sanity slowly returns. Temper everything with humor and remember, in many cases you are the only defense people have between better health and accidentaly poisoning themselves or their families.
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