Any job that involves facing the public is bound to have days where those customers are just a bit too much.
When your customer is someone who tries to bully you into doing what they want, well…things can get tense.
OP is a pharmacist tech and verifies that doctors are usually the worst patients.
Years ago I used to work as a pharmacy tech for a major retail pharmacy.
Occasionally, we’d have to deal with patients that also happen to be doctors who believe they deserve VIP status.
These are the kind of people that think that going to school for a long time means the should be held at a higher regard compared to others.
One day, a doctor/patient did not like the price of his meds.
This one particular doctor (we’ll call him Dr. Smith) came in one day and while ringing him up he balked at the price of the prescription.
Typically prescription copays were even dollar amounts but this was not.
Given that this was early in the year and the price was what it was I posited that he was seeing his insurance deductible being added into the copay price.
This was a typical issue we would see at the start of every year because many people don’t know how their insurance plans work.
He insisted that it was not his deductible and the insurance must have not been billed.
I showed him the confirmation of insurance billing/approval and the price breakdown. He wasn’t having it. Cue the following dialog:
He insisted OP call him “doctor” when addressing him, but OP stood his ground.
“I’m sorry Mr. Smith. If you want to call your insurance company to get more information you can but I can assure you the billing was performed correctly.”
“That’s DOCTOR Smith!”
“You’re not my doctor…”
A silence fell in the general vicinity. Pills stopped being counted, bags stopped being packed. I didn’t break eye contact, his wavered.
I don’t know how many times in his life he tried to pull that card on people in situations where being a doctor was completely irrelevant in order to assert some misguided sense of dominance, but he found out that day that it was all an illusion.
He pulled out his credit card, paid, mumbled something unintelligible, and left visibly embarrassed.
I bet Reddit is going to want to high-five him for this one!
This would have been a great response, too.
But you know, not all doctors.
Then again, some definitely are.
This is a pretty cringe story.
Everyone needs knocked down a peg or two here and there.
I’m so glad this guy wasn’t having it that day.
Good for him. He stood up for all of us.
If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.