Rain rain, go awa- Orrrr not.

It's been pouring buckets ever since I came home from Germany. Not fair. It's June. I'm supposed to be tanning after work, not finding more sweaters because I'm freezing. Plus, no one wants to walk around the Park with it's dirt (now mud) roads and wooden (read FUCKING DANGEROUS) boardwalks. It's just not fun. Especially for the women who for some reason decide that they are going to wear their nice dress and heels to walk around in all day. I will never understand that. I've seen them many times, and they're usually complaining about how their feet hurt. No shit Sherlock, you decided to wear heels to walk around some called Heritage PARK, which is not the same as a mall, ie NOT PAVED. I'm glad I wear ropers for work, although they cursed me today.
Note the above mention of our "fucking dangerous" boardwalks. I was walking back from my lunch break when out from under me go my feet. I landed hard on my right leg and couldn't get up for a minute or two. In pouring rain. While sitting on my ass on wet boardwalk. Not fun. Took almost the whole afternoon to get my skirt to dry out. Not that I was doing anything important. My shortbread cookies were done, and I had exactly two groups of 4 visit me in the 3 1/2 hours left in the day. I just sat around and played with my phone I MEAN read and knitted. Yeah.
I also worked at the Pharmacy this evening. Nothing of any terrible excitement happened, except that frontstore kept trying to send calls back to us after we'd closed. Apparently some guy yelled at one of the cashiers "I need my patches and you're supposed to be open until 10!!" Which is total bullshit, we've closed at 9 for the entire 2 years that I've been at the store. Too bad, so bad, we close at 9 and I don't pick up the phone after that. Once I explained that to frontstore, they stopped picking up the phone too. Lovely ladies tonight!
The same thing happened to me last week. A woman walked in at 5 minutes to 9, with a prescription for her son. He had a name that I knew meant trouble. His mother almost never actually comes into the pharmacy, she usually gets deliveries, which explains the next insanity. Anyways, she comes in with an Rx for an antibiotic and a medication that helps with bedwetting (called DDAVP)  for her son. Unfortunately, DDAVP is not a common one for us to fill, so we don't have any in stock, and I've already sent the order, so we'd have to FastPharm (urgent same-day delivery) it the next day. To a normal person, that would be acceptable, seeing as we're almost closed, but to this woman it's an utter outrage. How DARE we not have drugs in stock?! She's also apparently never heard of sending an order for medications (how they get to the pharmacy otherwise is beyond me) and can't believe that we close at 9. Clearly, she 
a) has not physically walked into the store in 2 years 
b) didn't read the big signs posted in 3 different places at the entrance noting that we close at 9 and
c) has never actually wondered where her prescriptions come from.
All of this culminated in me getting yelled at over something that was 80% her fault. She whined about having to move her prescription to another pharmacy, because apparently it HAD to be done that night. Look, your kid is 9. Yes it sucks that he still wets the bed, but at the same time, put up with it for one more night if you hate moving pharmacies so much. She also tried to argue with me about what time we closed. I pointed out that the phone is usually ringing off the hook, but is totally silent because it automatically gets rerouted to the answering system after 9pm. She argued that no one was calling at this hour.
And why would that be ma'am? "Because it's 9pm! Everyone's home and done their work and errands!" Ma'am, I'd like to be doing that right now too, seeing as we're closed.
She didn't liked that and stormed off to another pharmacy up the hill.
Was I a bit rude? Probably, but at the same time, she's preventing me from going home after having gotten up at 730am to help up around the house in the morning (my mom is recovering from surgery) then driven for half an hour across town to one job, worked for 7 hours, then driving back across town in rush hour traffic (took me over an hour to get to work that day) and then working on my feet for another three hours with bitchy customers, bitchy front store and a tired brain and body. So, goodbye, come back tomorrow, I don't feel like dealing with your shit anymore.

Back to the Grind

(Double post today because the other one was a saved draft that I needed to edit.)
Yesterday was my first day back at work at both jobs. At the Park it was School Patrol Day, where all the school patrollers in Calgary get to have a day celebrating them. (School Patrollers are grade 5/6s who guard crosswalks and make sure kids can get home safely.) That means 7000 kids in the Park during the day... It is a rather painful experience. I was in a site called The Rectory, which was the home of the rector or minister of the Anglican Church in a town. I stood in the kitchen because I could put a chain up and keep some distance if I needed to from the kids. Well, I had one girl who told me my clothes were ugly (I wear a mint green floor-length skirt and a flower patterned blouse - rather nice actually!) and was chased out by her friends who told her how rude she was. 
I had another girl, closer to 11 or 12, ask me about washing dishes in 1910. I explained that we would wash them by collecting water, heating it on the stove and washing in basins. She replied "yeah and I know I just came from Dominican and the ladies were washing clothes in the river so I understand why they had rivers in the old days now." (Internal monologue: Ummm... What. The. What?!) External voice: "Um, we didn't build the rivers... They were there before."   The girl: "Really? Ohhh..." I was tempted to go into an explanation about why most cities exist on rivers but I think it would have just flown over her head. The chaperone in the room (not her mother, but someone else's mother) didn't actually know how to react, so she just walked away.
It was also my first day back at the pharmacy, and was a rather nice night. Things were slow and I didn't have and difficult patients. I had one understanding regular when I called her 3 times after getting the cost of her order wrong... Then I got into a discussion with my PM about pharmacy history and the practice in other countries. As I told my dad when I got home, only I could go to work at my pharmacy and come home with a book on history. My PM gave me a book called "A History of Pharmacy in Alberta" because I enjoy history of my work. It's actually quite dry and a poor historical reference, but it's interesting that someone took the time to do the work and put everything together. 

Not dead

I know it's been a while, I've been caught up with school and Stage Managing a play for the university.
I'd thought I'd come back with a story about a woman I called yesterday from the pharmacy. She *apparently* didn't have any blister packs left (even though she should have had another week left) so I had to fill 4 weeks for her (which was another story of a missing narcotic because someone hadn't cleared an owe... UGH)
Anyways.
I call her to let her know that it's done and she can send her grandson to pick it up.
Me: "Hello, could I please speak to Crazy?"
Crazy: This is her.
Me: Hi there, it's ME from the pharmacy, just wanted to let you know that your blister pack is ready to be picked up. We didn't have enough of one drug to fill all four weeks, so we've just got one week right now.
Crazy: It's ready and what?
Me: (A bit louder) We only had enough to fill for one week right now.
Crazy: WHAT? I can't hear you!
(At this point I realize that I can hear loud noises in the background, so I start yelling)
Me: You're only getting one wee-
Crazy: WHAT??
Me: ONE WEE-
Crazy: I can't hear you, the TV's on too loud, I'll figure it out when I see it dear!
Me: *facepalm*


I can imagine her anger when her grandson came home with only one week of her blister pack... Had she turned down the effing TV she would know why! 

We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard Lombardi!

I am so happy at this moment. Why? Because my glorious team is going to the Super Bowl!! Yes ladies, but mostly gentlemen, I am a die hard Packers fan. (My boyfriend can attest...) When I visited Wisconsin a few years ago, I made my dad stop and buy me a Brett Favre jersey, which is a size L and practically a dress on me. It, in addition to my Packers belt buckle (which my bro' gave to me.) are my favourite things to wear during football season. What makes this even better is that my dad is a Chicago Bears fan. You read that right. My father is a Bears fan, as are my older brother and my little sister, and I, the proud rebel, am a Packers fan. I'm not usually allowed to watch games with my dad when we play each other. I was lucky that today was such a big game.
Speaking of the game, I'll give my little highlights.
Opening drive: Hell yea, Pack score. Rodgers, as usual, passes like a champ, Sparks on the ground can't be stopped, and Aaron has feet faster than office workers on Friday. 
The Field: I make endless comments on how crappy Soldier Field is. I mean really, it's shit. When Urlacher "supposedly" slipped on a tackle, I turned to my dad and said "wanna know why he slipped?" Dad just rolled his eyes. (I say supposedly because Aikman said he slipped, but on replay he clearly hadn't - it was just a fantastic deke!)
Bears D: What the hell happened? There is NO WAY we should have been able to walk all over them like that...
QBs: Oh Cutler... You spend more time on the ground than above it. Apparently he injured his knee early, which is why he didn't play the second half. Lord only knows why the Bears wanted Collins as their 2nd string - he was terrible!! Heinie (sp?) was the only Bears QB who did anything all game. And because he was inactive as the 3rd stringer, neither Cutler or Collins could have come back into the game. 
All in all, it was a good game. Not too close to be a nail biter, but not so far that I got bored. my dad's even agreed to take me to the bar for the Bowl, and commented that he'd wear my Favre jersey. I told him the only way he was wearing this jersey was if he bought me an Aaron Rodgers. Which I really really want, but don't have the money for.
Also, for those of you that don't know or didn't get it, the Super Bowl trophy is called the Vince Lombardi trophy. Lombardi was a Packer coach in the 1960s - he was so good that they named the Super Bowl trophy after him. Not bad eh?
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In other news, I've been reading a blog, Hooters According to Sauce. She's an employee of a Hooters in Montana, and I think it's pretty cool! I applaud women who feel confident enough in themselves to wear those shorts and tank tops and deal with creepers all day. I personally don't have that confidence - it's slowly building, but I'm not there yet. I also realized that I've never been to a Hooters, probably because my mom was a bit of a feminist. She always insisted that I pay for at least half the date, don't let a man control me, etc. I took a lot of those values she had, but I am a rebel. I would like to go to Hooters sometime (boyfriend, do not read that as an acceptable V-Day dinner) just to get the experience. I'm also bisexual, which means I do like to appreciate girls with my boys. (For all those against homosexuality and such, I'm sorry. It's just who I am, and if you don't like it, you are more than welcome to stop reading. Please no nasty comments.) I went to Virgin Music Festival with my ex one year (we were exes at the time, but we're still on good terms.) and we spent half the day girl watching. Of course, I wouldn't do anything callous at Hooters. I understand that the girls working there are doing just that - working. I very easily could have ended up in a similar situation as them, I'm just lucky that my tech program fell into my lap. (That's a story for another post.) Still, eventually I would like to go there. Part of me would even like to visit Sauce's Hooters, just for fun. Not for stalking. I'm not creepy. I think...
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Work was one of those days that you just get completely run off your feet and you just want to drop dead when you get home. I live really close, so I'm usually able to take a half hour to go home and each lunch, but not yesterday. My PM was working with me, and he's a really nice guy, although he kind of hates Saturdays too. it seemed like everyone who rented anything in the last couple weeks decided they needed to return it. It's a bit of a hassle, but we provide a service that many people greatly appreciate. 
One return in particular stands out to me. Not that it was a strange request or anything, but the cashier (who has worked at the store for at least 6 months, and knows how to do this) just had no flipping clue what was going on. And she was fucking training someone!! The way rentals work at my store are that you pay a deposit (because otherwise how do we know you'll bring it back?) then when you return it, we take the rental fee out of the deposit, and refund you the rest of the deposit. Fairly simple, right? I don't know what was up with Old Skinny Chick (new nickname) but she kept trying to charge him the deposit, then refund the charge. I had half a mind to walk behind the counter and do it for her because I've seen it so many damn times. Finally she gets it right, he leaves we move on. Until about 20 minutes later when she comes back and shows me the receipt, saying "We refunded a guy on a rental made in March??" Whoa whoa whoa. I KNOW it wasn't March, it was November. What had appeared on the receipt was the original date of rental and the cashier who was signed in: MAR 11/28/2010. What part of that looks like it was March? Yes MAR, but she's worked here long enough to know that our system prints numerical dates. Here she is, about to get me in trouble in front of my PM when I call her out on her utter stupidity. Normally I really like OSC, but I was MAD. I can do my job, she's the one not able to do hers. 
I also watched Mr and Mrs Smith last night. It was awesome. And I played Peter Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do?" on Guitar Hero and nearly cried I was so happy.

No ma'am. Apples are not like bread AT ALL.

People, when you want something from the pharmacy, please try not to assume you can use any word and it will mean the same thing to me.
For example, I was filling a delivery order for a client who is very demanding and irritating. This particular day she didn't want any of her medications, just front store items. A few things from the list:
2 boxes of Cracker Jacks, but if we didn't have Cracker Jacks she wants only one bag of Poppycock. 
40 rubber gloves.
3 packs of 10 stamps. 
And a few other items that I've forgotten. They weren't important anyways.
This client goes through stamps like she freaking eats them. I swear, she calls almost every week asking for 3 packs of 10 stamps. Who the hell is she writing that she uses 30 stamps every 10 or so days?? And they're not cent stamps - these are the permanent ones that you can use within Canada that don't need a price on them. 
As far as the Cracker Jacks go, she's not immobilized. Go buy your own damn Cracker Jacks, you lazy woman.
And thus, we come to the gloves. Oh the gloves. Here's the thing; when someone tells me they want rubber gloves, I assume they want rubber gloves. As in, dishwashing gloves. I've made this mistake with this woman before, and when I called her she told me that we "open a box of 100 and give her 40 of them." The only problem with that is we don't have rubber gloves in the store, let alone in boxes of 100! This time around however, I decided to call my Pharmacy Manager, who knows all the regular clients like this woman. He informs me that she doesn't want rubber gloves - she wants VINYL. Cause yeah, vinyl is EXACTLY like rubber. WTF, honestly. So, I have to open a box of 100 gloves in order to count out 40 for her. I am never ever ever forgetting that key point.
Fucking vinyl.
Anyways. This woman also has a charge account at our store. For loyal customers, we offer accounts similar to credit cards so that they can get things delivered, or pay if they don't have ready money. Most charge accounts are from 50-100$. This particular client's account is 50$. Imagine my surprise the first time I charged to her account - it was charged with nearly 1000$!! I couldn't understand why she had been allowed to go so high. The answer to that is that my PM is a total pushover - or used to be. He decided a while ago that she wasn't allowed to charge anything until she paid off at least MOST of her bill. Which she did, surprisingly. Most of it, in any case. When I finally got to charging her stuff the other day it ended up totalling her account to about 300$. She'd come in the day before and paid off a little more (which makes me wonder as to why she didn't just do her shopping when she was there, but then I'm just a lowly tech would doesn't understand the great minds of my clients.) which she has been periodically doing since the ultimatum was given. I figure she'll pay it all off one day, then call in the next to charge 200$ worth of stuff.
The moral of the story is, if you know what you want, ask for it specifically. If i don't have the exact product, I will give you something similar. If I have no fucking clue what you are asking for, or if you're asking for something I KNOW we don't carry, I'm either going to ignore the request or send you the random thing that might possibly be what you were asking for.

Welcome.

Well, hello. It seems you've stumbled onto a new section of the internet - my blog. I'm going by "Historically Crazy" as I am a history buff, and well, I'm a bit weird/crazy. It's likely that the first people to check this blog will be my friends, but for the total strangers out there, I'll attempt to change names, etc.
To start off, I'll explain why I am choosing to begin this blog. According to my boyfriend "lots of hot girls have blogs" and therefore I should have one too. How sweet. (For the record, we're that couple that makes single people want to puke we're so adorable. Sometimes I want to puke too.) In any case, I live in the middle of the Canadian prairies and the Canadian Rockies. Why is Rockies capitalized, you ask? I guess it's a noun? I dunno. As mentioned above, I'm a little crazy.
I'm currently studying for my Bachelor's in History with a concentration on Europe. I work two jobs in order to support my future career as an EI collector. I'm a pharmacy technician at a community pharmacy and an interpreter at Calgary's Heritage Park. The latter job description consists of me dressing up in costumes of the late 1800s-early 1900s and talking about buildings and life in Calgary in those times. That's seasonal though, so there will be more posts about the Park in spring/summer.
For the record, I am a natural blonde. No I'm not saying that when I'm actually brunette. No I don't dye at all. No I'm not an airhead. Although I do have "blonde moments" of forgetfulness, or sometimes I'll say something that makes me sound really dumb. I'm usually a very intelligent person... At least that's what my parents tell me.
Speaking of blonde moments, here's a good story from just the other day at the pharmacy. A woman had called in, asking to get her prescriptions refilled. Her last name isn't common, but most of her family gets their prescriptions at my pharmacy, so I knew the name, and even how to spell it. Let's say her first name was Kaitlyn. With a K. I, unknowingly, was searching for Caitlyn - with a C. Since I wasn't finding her file, I asked for her birthdate. This is common when we think we're misspelling a name, or we can't understand the client. She gives me her birth date and... nothing. Not a single person in the computer has that date of birth. (which is weird in and of itself) She lives close, so she says she'll come down and shop anyways, and I tell her I'll look around for her file. Finally, I decided to spell her last name in full, hoping I can find it. And voila - there is Kaitlyn, with a K. By this time, she had a arrived, and was really nice about the whole thing.
The stupid thing is, I noticed a note on her file from another tech saying that her PHN (Personal Health Number, the number everyone in Alberta has on their Health Card) has her birth date listed differently. This note is from May 2010. NO ONE of the 15 or so employees (techs and pharmacists alike) thought to actually ask her about this - we they have a bad habit of assuming. (I try not to assume, if a note hasn't been cleared, I tend to ask anyways.) Anyways, it turns out that the DOB we have listed is her pig's. WTF people. Why. Just... Why.
This will conclude the first post I think. If something comes to me later tonight, I might post another.