Buh? Angry Tech? No way!

So I get this angry comment from some rabid tech:
So you don’t think techs deal with as much crap as pharmacists? Have you ever worked as a tech? Not only do we have to deal with customers but also pharmacists. Who has to retype entire scripts when they get sent back because the s was missing from teaspoons? Who has to apologize to the customers when they complain because they were sitting in the waiting room forever because the pharmacist forgot to page? Who has to deal with their bosses constantly over their shoulders dictating every task for 8+ long hours a day? Who has to deal with the brand new pharmacists who don’t even know what phenazopyridine is or how to figure out the package size for a box of albuterol nebs? Who always has to deal with the drive-thru?? Who has to run back and forth between filling and the register while the pharmacist pulls up the dreaded chair to verification? Most pharmacists–not all–but most would rather just stay at verification and let technicians work their butts off. All this for 1/5th of pharmacists pay. Finally, about all the complaints you have about insurance/medicare problems, I don’t know about your pharmacy but at mine the techs deal with all the insurance problems.
And I thought I was bitter.
Lets get a few things straight first:

• I love my techs. In fact there is no way that I could get as much work done as I can if it wasnt for them.
  • I dont work in the “McDonalds of Pharmacies” with drive-thru and a tech turnover rate like Ron Jeremy turns over the porn bitches.
    • I dont let my tech’s do the insurance handling because I want to be the one to blame if shit goes wrong.
      • This isnt going to be a “I hate tech” rant, but honestly the cold hard truth.
        Dear Angry Tech,
        Who’s licence is on the line when you fuck up? A licence that took 7+ years of college and a ball-buster test to obtain. Your existance depends on a pharmacist, like it or leave it. Yes, I have worked as a tech; Yes, I realize that you do the shit that pharamacists dont want to do, but thats your job. Now gimme 100 soma before you taste the back end of a vicodin bottle. 🙂
        Love Always,
        The Angry Pharmacist
        <3

Comments #

Comment by Art Vandelay on 2006-05-09 01:43:18 -0700 #

What is the deal with Ron Jeremy anyway? That boy is U-G-L-Y ugly! So he gets the job every heterosexual male literally dreams of….and keeps it for some 30 years?? WTF!!!!! It has to be some sort of mob connection….it has to be….
Color me green with envy, I am….
The drugnazi
PS- My techs think I’m the bomb.

Comment by Karen on 2006-05-11 22:24:30 -0700 #

Man, you think techs hate you. First months of interning, I thought I would be lynched. They went out of their way every second to point out any of my mistakes and to make me mess up. They wanted to burn into my brain that I made more than them but knew less. Well, 9 months later, I know more than them and still get paid more—-haha.

Comment by Me on 2006-05-19 20:33:32 -0700 #

Yeah, yeah it’s you’re license on the line. It doesn’t change the fact that techs have to put up with more crap.

Comment by c.t. you know who this is on 2006-05-23 14:13:23 -0700 #

To the tech; Take your break, go to lunch, talk to your boyfriend on the phone, put some vicodin in your pocket when I’m not looking, break all the boards rules that you don’t know and don’t care about and stop blaming me beacause you got pregnant in high school or couldn’t get into college for whatever reason. I am so sick of techs who think they are more than they are. I’ve worked with exactly one good tech in the past 15 years and she is worth her weight in gold. The rest seem to have some underlying reason for being in the pharmacy like a family member who can’t afford medicine, a boyfriend with an oxy addiction or a “complaint” against a pharmacist. Why do companies continue to hire techs like you? Because if you could demand $15-20 an hour you wouldn’t be a tech! You could type more than 15 words per minute and be a receptionist, or you could answer the phone when you are supposed to and work at a call center or you could have some basic math skills and teach elementary school somewhere. You would have gone to college. You are a tech, go back to fucking work.

Comment by BigTex on 2006-06-02 18:00:19 -0700 #

Ok, My turn. I’ve been a Tech for going on 26 years. Not because I’m so stupid I can’t find another job but because I’m good at what I do. I’ve trained more techs & new pharmacists in LTC (that long term care for all the retail folks)than I can remember. For the most part everyone has done alright. There have been a few pricks and bitches that should have never been let in the door but given time they screw themselves out of the job. Nobody is perfect and if they think they are, run like hell, because their a lawsuit waiting to happen.
BigTex

Comment by anon., CPhT. on 2006-06-19 16:18:28 -0700 #

Interesting dialogue we’ve got here. And a few good examples of why I want so badly to get into pharm school. (I’m on the waitlist…*sigh*…)

Comment by Nic on 2006-11-13 17:10:47 -0800 #

I remember being a tech before I was a pharmacist. Yes, you get the register and stuff, but the pharmacist almost always has more important and license-required stuff to do than ring up peoples’ toilet paper and bottled water. One of my techs always bitches when I send a script back down. After several weeks of it I finally told her, “If you don’t want to have to do the script over, do it correctly the first time. Pay attention to detail.” It seriously bothers me when techs think they know more than I do because I’m a new pharmacist. Well, I’ve been working in pharmacy for 8 years now, I have a slight clue what’s going on.

Comment by Randy Pharm Intern on 2007-08-15 16:04:28 -0700 #

Okay let me in on this little rant!!!
I of course started out like most pharmicist or intern’s as a tech, at WalMart pharmacy (dont laugh). Now Im a third year intern and let me tell yah ppl are asses. And Know-it-All techs piss me off to the extream. One in perticular that thinks because she has worked in a MD’s office she is the foremost authority in pharmacology… yeah well, let me tell yeah ya… no. Until you take the PCAT and get accepted to a school of pharmacy and pass your Pharmacy theraputics class don’t talk to me like you know anything. And yeah techs deal with shitty, bitchy ppl all day… but your (and mine) License means dick! You wont loose your license if you make a mistake, If you don’t write Unwrap and insert, because you’re to lazy, on the suppository direction, and the dumbass tears his rectum to shit… you won’t be sued… no that would be the pharmacist. If you don’t want to do the “Bitch” work, GO TO PHARMACY SCHOOL!!!

Comment by Sheramie on 2007-10-20 16:52:51 -0700 #

…”before you taste the back end of a Vicodin bottle.” bwahahaha classic!
Well, if that tech doesn’t like their job, then they should just hang up their tech permit and pay another $10k to a rip off community “college” and get a certificate to be a glorified secretary/filer/bitch (medical assistant)-Might be a nice change of pace OR stop bitching and get into $60K plus dollars in debt by going to some shitty ass pharmacy school that constantly screws its students over, then become a “sue-able” pharmacist. THen they can sit at the “dreaded chair to verification” and wonder if they just hurt/killed someone or fucked themselves lubleless in the ass with the prescription they just sent out…

Comment by sorchagriannon on 2008-03-22 23:10:19 -0700 #

I’m a tech, and frankly, you’d be a hoot to work with in my opinion. Everything that you state you do falls on my shoulders at my job…the pharmacist only fills, takes new rx’s, and counsels. I’ve been doing this 8 years and it’s funny how many “tech” I have been forced to train who, after a month of actual pharmacy work think that they should be paid what I make because they “know as much” as I do and “do the same job”. Yeah. Right. They can’t tell their asses from a hole in the ground, not to mention figuring out a simple insurance problem, but they think they are god’s gift to the pharmacy. My pharmacist isn’t much help since he doesn’t have anything to do with the computers. It’s these techs that give us a bad name. I, and the “pharmacy mafia” at my work get them fired in no time, but I wasted my time on them, and it pisses me off.

Comment by Josh on 2009-08-29 10:57:14 -0700 #

“They can’t tell their asses from a hole in the ground, not to mention figuring out a simple insurance problem, but they think they are god’s gift to the pharmacy.”

Sooo true, amen man!

Comment by FML0.1% on 2010-07-13 22:13:39 -0700 #

It’s been a harsh reality for me. I know the pay is not even close to comparable but if you as a tach don’t want to work with me to make my day easier, then don’t come in at all. If you step foot into a pharmacy you better have more than half a brain. When I was an intern I worked with some “super techs” who ran the place. They knew everything about insurance and ordering and explaining things to patients. I was brought up by the best.

Now as a pharmacist, I work with a crew who come in an average of 20 minutes late. The pharmacy manager is “so laid back” she doesn’t care. It’s not like I need the help but I show up 45 minutes early sometimes to get some work done and make things easier for me. If you are scheduled, come in. Then after you come in, print some refills and type some prescriptions. Less talky, more typey. It’s called work. Also, don’t take a half hour to coordinate with the rest of the store where the lunch order is coming from. Maybe you could help me put things away. Maybe if you weren’t so busy ordering lunch, or returning from your 20 minute paid shit-break, you could see that the new e-rx is something that can just go on file and you can process the refills on the the old rx.

Hey other tech, mother of 3 who begs for all of these hours so you can get childcare for your 3 children just so you can ask to leave early to hang out with your new boyfriend: It gets to a point where I don’t care how well you work. And new girl, if you are counting an rx and there is not enough to fill, there is NO NEED to run around saying “oh no oh no!” like you just gave someone the wrong med. Just pass it back to input and tell them what the deal is.

Since I used to be spoiled having “grown up” around super techs, I’m starting to lose my cool. So now on top of checking 300 rx’s, checking in the order, calling docs, calling for copies, walking patients to products, correcting insurance billing, answering all sorts of questions I have to deal with ALL of this extra shit from you like: dealing with the tardiness, answering the same questions ever and over again about how many drops are in an ml and what lipitor is used for.

I work in a 90% medicaid store and I’ve only been in this location for 4 months, and some days I’d rather have some of my crackheads back here helping me. Maybe I wouln’t have to ask them to help me hang bags because the bare minimum of the tech job is too much.

Comment by FML0.1% on 2010-07-13 22:16:53 -0700 #

PS…I know it’s hard to believe, but I really love my job.

Comment by blastoise89 on 2010-09-11 20:56:10 -0700 #

I’m a tech going on 1 year here, and I don’t even know if I could say pharmacists or techs have to deal with more shit. (that being said, I know it’s different at all pharmacies) I know I don’t know that much in the field. I know to turn to the pharmacist with any questions the dumbass patients have like “What’s the best thing for mumblemumblegrr?”

I don’t plan on being a tech much longer. I do work with one long-term tech who has “promised” to leave and get her teaching degree (LOL) and constantly gets in arguments (with less frequency as of late) with our boss (a Vietnam Vet and former LTCOL in the US Air Force, formerly in charge of one of their pharmacies) over things she obviously knows nothing about.

I am an engineering student, which causes many people to ask “Why the fuck are you working here then!?” 1) I’m insane. I admit it and am ok with it. 2) Pay is fairly good for a part-timer and 3) My boss is great about time off for studying for Statics and Calculus exams.

Comment by lotty on 2010-11-19 04:58:32 -0800 #

i am training to be a tech after a few years working as an assistant (or clerk as ppl from the US refer to them i believe) and i LOVE my job and i am proud of it. i don’t think of it as bitch work. my job is to do MY job and not prance around like i am a pharmacist with the degree or the freaking mananger. at the end of the day it is the pharmacist that is accountable for any fuck ups along the line from when the dope-headed humanoid-producers leave their rx to be filled to when the collect it, take it home and swig it down with that cheap vodka-o and od because they never thought to check with the 5th doctor they have seen in the last six months when given said rx that they were on a different rx from doctor number 2 that they have a stockpile of at home IF they haven’t managed to diminish (hah! likely if they are benzos or amphetamines) is severely contraindicated with the new rx. it is the pharmacist that has the call made on them if they had both filled with us and compliance was not checked because the dispensing tech did not alert the pharmacist to the auto-warnings because they were too busy bitching to an assistant about their hangover. i assume most ppl are from the US on this so the dispensing systems may differ, but whatever.

i love my pharmacists, most days. techs are there because it is their job and that is to assist the pharmacists. i hate the ones who dont take their role seriously, or take themselves too seriously. i am very inexperienced so far but even when i am maxed out on all i can know as a tech (i plan to work as one for a long time yet) it will still ALWAYS be the pharmacist i turn too, no matter how much i THINK i know.

end of rant

PS. i have read through alot of your blogs tonight after a shitty day with shitty customers and i have pissed myself laughing. wish there were a few more pharmacists that were bold enough to say shit like it is (=