Annoying things at work!

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
B

BustyPharmD

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2009
Messages
53
Reaction score
0
Members don't see this ad.
Since our coworkers determine our work environment, what are things that our coworkers do intentionally or unintentionally that is annoying? So we can learn what to do and what not to do.
 
BustyPharmD said:
Since our coworkers determine our work environment, what are things that our coworkers do intentionally or unintentionally that is annoying? So we can learn what to do and what not to do.
Click to expand...

I'm gunna go with agreement errors.
 
As a prank, I once hid all the script pads in the c2 safe knowing that no one would look in there early in the morning when they needed them. I dont think that is what youre talking about though.
 
People on the clock, not working. It annoys the crap out of me. We've got this one tech who probably sits and does nothing for half her shift in 15 minute intervals. She's always answering her cell phone, which I swear has the most annoying ring tone. And she keeps stealing my pens. Sure, they were free swag at some pharmacy conference, but darn it, I'm gonna run out at this pace. She's been there longer than the DOP though and apparently they ain't getting rid of her, so, oh well. 2 more years to graduation.
 
BustyPharmD said:
Since our coworkers determine our work environment, what are things that our coworkers do intentionally or unintentionally that is annoying? So we can learn what to do and what not to do.
Click to expand...

You mean like when the pharmacist and other techs crack open a 12-pack of Labatt Blue but don't offer me one? Bastards.

The worst I've ever found amongst co-workers would just be little idiosyncrasies that vary from person to person (For the sake of argument, we'll call them Palinisms). Not much that can be done about that, really, other than learning to deal with it.
 
One way to get through slow days is putting together a 500 piece puzzle. Unfortunately, one of the techs steals one of the puzzle pieces and hides it in miscellaneous places (cash register, one of the med bins, etc...). Of course we always find it after we take the puzzle apart 😡
 
I'm a pretty chill person, and I hate when coworkers needlessly freak out over little things and try to drag you along for the ride. Sorry, I don't have manic episodes on a daily basis.
 
My boss always complains about the music that CVS plays, but he doesn't let me plug in my iPod into this docking stereo.

Newer techs...I hate it when they ASK the patient when the patient wants to pick up the medication instead of TELLING the patient when to pick it up.
 
Basically, you try not to be a jerk. Specifically, some annoying things:

- bringing smelly food to work (or making smelly foods - the smell of microwave popcorn permeates the entire place and especially turns my stomach worse than a pungent curry);

- stealing pens;

- laziness in all its forms;

- what I call aggressive stupidity; that is, if someone doesn't give you absolutely clear directions on something, you get to do the stupidest possible interpretation of what they asked you to do, thus punishing them for not being explicit;

- getting into screaming fights with family members/boy-girl/friends on the phone during shift (worked with a tech who fought with her mother several times a shift);

- not putting things back in the proper places;

- disappearing mysteriously several times a shift;

- and memorably, one pharmacist I worked with: having sex with the store manager in the basement during the dinnertime rush. (Funny in retrospect, but the last thing you need when you're busy and stressed out is some huge, completely unnecessary melodrama playing out in the store).
 
I hate when someone does not like what you are doing and instead of confronting you about it they just let you keep doing it. The person in question acts like an ass until you are forced to ask them "What the **** is wrong with you?"

It is usually some small problem that you could have changed 6 months ago, but now your co-worker wants to quit because you have not be logging Cl- concentrations correctly.
 
It's comforting (yet frightening) to know that other people experience the same things I do on a daily basis.

Probably the biggest thing that bugs me is LAZINESS.

The two techs that work during the day are slower than any human being on the planet. One of them is handicapped and both of them are well over 300 lbs. A third person who was strictly a cashier just retired like a month ago...she was 85 (and "worked" 40 hours a week). They complain about EVERYTHING and leave script baskets all over the place for me to finish. The first hour of my shift is dedicated to cleaning up after them. I've learned to deal with it, but it's still annoying as hell. Whew...okay I'm done 🙂
 
It annoys me when you try to help out other shifts by making add-a-vials for them only to find that they have in turn left you with nothing. Or leaving over 20 discountinued or expired IVs in the sink, leaving credits for the next shift (me) to do and then complaining that the weekend shift (me) never does anything. 😡

Pretty much I hate it when you are thoughtful enough to help out others to make their shift easier and you never get a simple thank you in return, only a handful of complaints are given to you.
 
FarmDea said:
The two techs that work during the day are slower than any human being on the planet. One of them is handicapped and both of them are well over 300 lbs.
Click to expand...

I feel bad for you. 🙁

I used to work with some severely overweight people and I feel your pain.
 
browneyes021 said:
It annoys me when you try to help out other shifts by making add-a-vials for them only to find that they have in turn left you with nothing. Or leaving over 20 discountinued or expired IVs in the sink, leaving credits for the next shift (me) to do and then complaining that the weekend shift (me) never does anything. 😡
Click to expand...

That is the single most annoying thing I can think of. I end up having to stay late half the time because our techs do absolutely nothing and spend half the time talking to different environmental service people.

It gets to the point where I'll make have to make over 200 different ADDvantage bags to make up for the 20 they made the day before.
 
Praziquantel86 said:
That is the single most annoying thing I can think of. I end up having to stay late half the time because our techs do absolutely nothing and spend half the time talking to different environmental service people.

It gets to the point where I'll make have to make over 200 different ADDvantage bags to make up for the 20 they made the day before.
Click to expand...

I was expecting you to say lazy nurses.


so I will say it instead. Nothing is more annoying to have them complain that the medication was not sent up to the floor and then you hike up there to find it sitting behind them in the nurses station in the pneumatic tube. Either that or its on the cart or I've even seen it hung on the patient. dammit.
 
Quiksilver said:
I was expecting you to say lazy nurses.


so I will say it instead. Nothing is more annoying to have them complain that the medication was not sent up to the floor and then you hike up there to find it sitting behind them in the nurses station in the pneumatic tube. Either that or its on the cart or I've even seen it hung on the patient. dammit.
Click to expand...

You could just tell them to **** off and look for it themselves. When I volunteered at a hospital, the nurses always got into fights with the food service people.
 
Nothing annoys me, I'M the annoying one! 😀

Jk. I despise laziness and I get annoyed when co-workers go on break or leave without briefing me on the problems they couldn't fix so I'm left with random trial coupons and no clue which patient to bill it for.
 
Quiksilver said:
I was expecting you to say lazy nurses.


so I will say it instead. Nothing is more annoying to have them complain that the medication was not sent up to the floor and then you hike up there to find it sitting behind them in the nurses station in the pneumatic tube. Either that or its on the cart or I've even seen it hung on the patient. dammit.
Click to expand...

I thought that type of laziness was just at our hospital. I just don't understand how we can send them IVs or meds through the tube system and magically they are either lost or 'never received'. I also saw this past weekend a nurse had the nerve to call us about an ancef that she was too lazy to actually reconstitute. She saw the pyxis machine had 1 add-a-vial of ancef and asked the pharmacist to change the order so she could get that one instead of her having to do it herself. B**ch. 😡
 
Sparda29 said:
You could just tell them to **** off and look for it themselves. When I volunteered at a hospital, the nurses always got into fights with the food service people.
Click to expand...

unfortunately the patient suffers if we play who has the bigger balls. I don't want that issue on my plate.
 
Quiksilver said:
I was expecting you to say lazy nurses.


so I will say it instead. Nothing is more annoying to have them complain that the medication was not sent up to the floor and then you hike up there to find it sitting behind them in the nurses station in the pneumatic tube. Either that or its on the cart or I've even seen it hung on the patient. dammit.
Click to expand...

Well...I didn't want to turn this into a nurse-bashing thread. Figured we'd just stick to our own kind for a while.

But since we're on the topic of other healthcare providers, I'll get it on it. Two examples from today: nurse calls and says the bag of Flolan we made "burst" when she squeezed it. 50mLs in a 50mL Evac bag? More like she spiked through the side of the thing.

Orthopedic attending starts a patient on cefepime for a pseudomonal spine infection (microbiology reported rare P. aeruginosa in the drainage, so who knows if that's the source anyways), but refuses to d/c the prophylactic cefazolin without an infectious disease consult. Both the ID research fellow (who doesn't have privileges yet) and ID pharmacist told him it was pointless, but he wouldn't budge.

There are many, many things that annoy me about other people in the hospital but it's not my place to start bashing everyone.
 
I guess I'll switch it up a bit.

I work in a research laboratory with about 8 other people. 7 of those 8 people are Indian and love to carry on conversations in their native language while I'm standing there.


For all I know, they could be cussing me out.
 
DrWrong said:
I guess I'll switch it up a bit.

I work in a research laboratory with about 8 other people. 7 of those 8 people are Indian and love to carry on conversations in their native language while I'm standing there.


For all I know, they could be cussing me out.
Click to expand...

I hope when I'm speaking Farsi with a co-worker, people don't think I'm cussing them out.

That's awfully paranoid and self-conscious don't you think?
 
"I work in a research laboratory with about 8 other people. 7 of those 8 people are Indian and love to carry on conversations in their native language while I'm standing there."


I think that's plain rude. Just speaking out of experience.
 
Passion4Sci said:
I hope when I'm speaking Farsi with a co-worker, people don't think I'm cussing them out.

That's awfully paranoid and self-conscious don't you think?
Click to expand...

It's more annoying if you chronically drop eaves. I could care less if they cuss me out. I just want to know what they're saying. I've got the Persians behind me and the Armenians in front of me, so I rarely understand what people around me are saying in class. Go ethnic diversity.🙄
 
DrWrong said:
I guess I'll switch it up a bit.

I work in a research laboratory with about 8 other people. 7 of those 8 people are Indian and love to carry on conversations in their native language while I'm standing there.


For all I know, they could be cussing me out.
Click to expand...

Be careful. This is rude but legally protected. It's not respectful to speak a language not everyone can understand but to ask someone not to speak in their native tongue to other native speakers is totally discrimination on the basis of race.
 
Passion4Sci said:
I hope when I'm speaking Farsi with a co-worker, people don't think I'm cussing them out.

That's awfully paranoid and self-conscious don't you think?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call that paranoid or self-conscious at all. If someone is speaking in another language around you, despite knowing that you are part of their working environment and knowing the main language where you live (and that the other two people speak) it's not a giant leap to assume there's a REASON they aren't speaking English...Regardless, it's incredibly rude when you don't speak a language everyone understands.

I'm sure they have discussed him before, regardless of whether that is their main topic of conversation.
 
Farmercyst said:
It's more annoying if you chronically drop eaves. I could care less if they cuss me out. I just want to know what they're saying. I've got the Persians behind me and the Armenians in front of me, so I rarely understand what people around me are saying in class. Go ethnic diversity.🙄
Click to expand...



Me too! LoL, and I have the Indians in front of me, South Indians to the side of me, Asians vertically to me, and Egyptians behind me :laugh:

I hope when I'm speaking Farsi with a co-worker, people don't think I'm cussing them out.

That's awfully paranoid and self-conscious don't you think?
Click to expand...


Not at all. I just find it rude that they just stand there talking to me or something and then all of a sudden decide to start talking to a co-worker in Punjabi or something.


I'm sure they have discussed him before, regardless of whether that is their main topic of conversation.
Click to expand...

I'm sure they have, too.
 
I used to be the only white person working in a store owned by a Sikh family, and when the boss starting speaking in Punjabi, I knew he wasn't hassling ME.

Can I rant? Couple of weeks ago, the guards brought an inmate to healthcare who was mildly psychotic and basically looking poorly. Nurse took his blood sugar, wrote in the guy's chart that it was 24.6 (do you people do metric? That's 442 mg%). The inmate complained of being thirsty (duh) so the nurse brought him 2 cups of fruit juice, and a handful of grapes from the kitchen. Anyway, we ended up sending him out to hospital with DKA. I found out about the fruit juice when he came back from hospital and I was reading his chart.
 
Pharmavixen said:
I used to be the only white person working in a store owned by a Sikh family, and when the boss starting speaking in Punjabi, I knew he wasn't hassling ME.

Can I rant? Couple of weeks ago, the guards brought an inmate to healthcare who was mildly psychotic and basically looking poorly. Nurse took his blood sugar, wrote in the guy's chart that it was 24.6 (do you people do metric? That's 442 mg%). The inmate complained of being thirsty (duh) so the nurse brought him 2 cups of fruit juice, and a handful of grapes from the kitchen. Anyway, we ended up sending him out to hospital with DKA. I found out about the fruit juice when he came back from hospital and I was reading his chart.
Click to expand...


Was he already diagnosed with Diabetes?


And yes, we use mg/dL.
 
Sparda29 said:
I don't know about others, but I've seen some people get really pissed when someone talks to them while they are counting.
Click to expand...



I can't stand that. I also can't stand when I'm doing something in the lab and the Post-Doc asks me to do something else. This usually happens when I'm filling the chromatography cells....and have to start all over!
 
DrWrong said:
Was he already diagnosed with Diabetes?


And yes, we use mg/dL.
Click to expand...
Yes; he was a new admit with florid psychosis (somebody who belongs in a psych hospital rather than a jail) and type 1 DM. To be fair to the nurse who fed him all that juice, the inmate's DKA was secondary to non-compliance with his insulin over several days (in turn 2ndary to his non-compliance with his olanzapine).
 
metrarx said:
There was an intern in my school who worked with an Indian pharmacist. He would always call his friends/spouse and talk in his native language. Couple of times she caught him looking at her and kind of laughing while talking to the other party. So she got a little paranoid, brought a recorder with her, and recorded him. She then had her Indian classmates translate the conversation. Apparently, he was saying some nasty things about her (e.g. calling her a ***** for no reason whatsoever, and other nasty things). The pharmacist was terminated shortly after that.

Just saying, it does seem a bit paranoid but these situations do come up.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I understand when people are more comfortable speaking there native language but I think its rude and generally understood that it makes the other person uncomfortable.

On a side note it was a bad day for me to stumble on this thread. I work with this tech who I cannot stand. Shes and old hag who refuses to grab the register, pick up a ringing phone, or do anything besides fill (slowly). Even our pharmacists can't stand her. The main thing that pisses me off is that she leaves her entire mornings worth of drugs on the counter and expects me to clean up her mess everyday... She even makes it a point to leave them there even if we are slow and has more than enough time to put them away. Worthless!

Otherwise laziness in the hospital I work at is pretty much the norm.
 
Honestly, my coworkers never really annoy me.

Procedures...inefficient and ******ed procedures...that's what annoys me. And the mysterious black hole, natch.
 
I have worked with a tech that made my blood boil. I don't know why pharmacists don't write him up or do anything about it either.

1) Always late (beginning of shift, coming back from breaks and lunch)
2) Makes/answers personal phone calls beyond what is reasonable
3) Very judgmental to both staff and customers
- Asked me why an unmarried female going overseas needed so much birth
control
- "That lady is crazy! She's on *insert anti-psychotic medication here*"
- Told a customer that she looked tired and sad. Customer says she
just had a baby and is a single mother. Tech says, "Why are you sad,
you just had a baby!" Tech inquires to the whereabouts of the father
then proceeds to tell her she should get back together with him. And
FYI judging on the rx she was picking up she was likely suffering from
post partum depression.
- Kept on asking me why I am not married and why I do not still live with
my parents since I am not married
4) Pulled up a #$%^&(!@#%^&* CHAIR and sat down for part of his shift
5) Gave me attitude because I wanted him to help me fill prescriptions. There
is only one tech and one pharmacist per shift. District was trying to push
us to enroll people in our Prescription Club, but WTH that does not give
you a free pass out of FILLING prescriptions!
 
I work from home so I don't have much to complain about except for phone solicitors. I need a good prank to play on them...something original.
 
StaviZFingerZ said:
I work from home so I don't have much to complain about except for phone solicitors. I need a good prank to play on them...something original.
Click to expand...


My boss was home sick one day and was being pestered by phone solicitors. He would answer the phone saying "I have been vomiting all morning and I have explosive diarrhea. No I do not want to take a survey/make a donation/buy your product".

Seemed to work for him. :laugh:
 
FunnyHunny said:
My boss was home sick one day and was being pestered by phone solicitors. He would answer the phone saying "I have been vomiting all morning and I have explosive diarrhea. No I do not want to take a survey/make a donation/buy your product".

Seemed to work for him. :laugh:
Click to expand...


That risks the solicitor offering to call back when I get better...

Because that's exactly what I'd do if I was the solicitor...
 
StaviZFingerZ said:
I work from home so I don't have much to complain about except for phone solicitors. I need a good prank to play on them...something original.
Click to expand...


You could always answer the phone and then tell them you're VERY interested in doing whatever they would like you to do. Then, tell them that you have to put them on hold for a second while you take care of something. Come back after 15 minutes of them being on hold and tell them you're almost done.

Keep doing it and see how long you can get them to stay on the phone. Then tell us how it worked.
 
DrWrong said:
You could always answer the phone and then tell them you're VERY interested in doing whatever they would like you to do. Then, tell them that you have to put them on hold for a second while you take care of something. Come back after 15 minutes of them being on hold and tell them you're almost done.

Keep doing it and see how long you can get them to stay on the phone. Then tell us how it worked.
Click to expand...


Not bad...I like that.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
Actually - and this shocked me - I've been told that I'm the nicest pharmacist to work with.

Which makes me wonder wtf is up with the other ones...
Click to expand...
Awww you're so patient and kind at work..... cus you've taken out all your anger out on SDN. hehehe.
 
StaviZFingerZ said:
I work from home so I don't have much to complain about except for phone solicitors. I need a good prank to play on them...something original.
Click to expand...

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv3UCvxUh8E#watch-main-area[/YOUTUBE]

This should do the trick
 
How about we play this at work...It will release all the stress and nobody will fight over little things anymore..At least for that shift.

hehehe
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

CetiAlphaFive
Weaponized Flirting at work
Replies
13
Views
3K
sunnyandseventytwo
sunnyandseventytwo
Lexington2012
USAtoday exposes sweatshop-style working conditions at CVS
Replies
10
Views
2K
Gombrich12
G
Wickett
Anyone ever work for Covetrus?
Replies
0
Views
1K
Wickett
Wickett
R
Physician, Pharmacist or Grocery Store at fault?
Replies
6
Views
2K
Pronounce Doxazosin
P
P
Expanded Role of Team Members. Who are they hiring to do these things? Nurses or Pharmacist or Other? Everyone fighting to show VALUE to get paid.
Replies
0
Views
713
PrincessSnow
P
Top