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Thursday, September 30, 2010

I can't contain my joy over flu shots.

I had a busy summer, gearing up to the big announcement that now our pharmacists were going to give flu shots. The hype was crazy. Except, not at all, because people come in confused that we're offering them every day. I understand our big advertising push hasn't started yet, but our Muzak announces it every 5 minutes and all of our signage says something like "for the love of god, let us stick you!" Not to mention the big ugly button all of the pharmacy staff has to wear declaring "ask me about flu shots!" None of this is unusual, but let's just say I'm having issues with some of my coworkers. Most of them are really opposed to getting one and have no problem letting our customers know that. Me being me, I told one of our techs outright that she couldn't tell patients "I never get them, they will give you the flu and I was really sick the last time!" She's also an idiot so I didn't feel that guilty. Another tech is opposed to all non mandatory shots, but she's also not slow and doesn't broadcast that.
The one I came to talk about, though, is the one we lovingly call "the boy." He's our only tech of the male persuasion and the youngest on staff, so he gets more than his fair share of teasing. He was so violently opposed to a flu shot that I bribed him to get his done with a soda. (Hey, I'm a tech and cheap.) My pharmacist took one for the team and in her words, he cried. Cried! I still laugh over that. This was two weeks ago and he's still complaining about how his arm hurts and now he's gonna end up with SARS. No wonder he's single.

5 comments:

gentryart said...

How horribly irresponsible of your staff to dispense that kind of idiotic advice. What if an elderly person or pregnant lady decided not to get the shot because of her stupidity? Tell her it's a dead virus and if she got the flu after the shot, she was probably already exposed.

Anonymous said...

Dear Abby (yeah, I read her column...) had a public service announcement earlier this week to get the flu vaccine. Since I read Dear Abby via Yahoo! News, I get to read all the comments posted there. Very scarey how many people think the way your techs do.

Anonymous said...

HE CRIED? Are you effin' serious?

My arm for sore for the evening after my shot, but that didn't stop me from helping my father move a loveseat...

Big 'N Tasty RPH said...

Antivaccine activists should be given polio, mumps, measles, etc so they can be examples for the populace to see what we have been protecting them from since scientific pioneers like Jonas Salk took the initiative to prevent plague-borne death on an epic scale.

Anonymous said...

tell the techs that it's not the dead virus that's bad for you but EVERYTHING ELSE that's in the vaccine :)