Hannaford Pharmacy Fail

The lovely yet talented Mrs618 and I have been getting our prescriptions filled at our local Hannaford Pharmacy for the past five years. Hannaford is a grocery chain with stores located in New England and New York, and is part of global grocery giant Delhaize.

About a year ago, Hannaford installed new pharmacy software that was supposed to streamline the system. Well, it didn't. Hannaford started losing prescriptions left and right, blaming it on "the doctor's offices." After losing so many of the lovely yet talented Mrs618's scripts -- meds that she needs to stay alive -- we started asking the doctor to confirm the pharmacy had in fact received the scripts. Turned out our doctor had been doing that for a while.

Now, the lovely yet talented Mrs618 hyphenates her last name, because she is proud of her own heritage. And we know that some folks have a hard time dealing with complicated names like Smith-Jones, so we always spell "Smith" for them. If the techs can't find it under "Smith-hyphen-Jones," we ask them to try "Smith," then "Jones."

This last go-round, Hannaford lost the script because:

(a) the doctor didn't send it. We had the doctor re-send it (for the FOURTH time); and
(b) the folks at the central data center sent it to the wrong store (not according to the confirmation our doctor received).

It didn't help that the pharmacy staff -- all relatively new -- were arrogant, condescending, and just generally snotty.

I spoke to the store manager, who said he would look into it.

Half-hour later, we get a phone call, the script is ready to go.

It had been there the whole goddamned time.

Turns out they couldn't locate it because my wife hyphenates her last name. This is after we asked them to check "Smith-Jones," "Smith," and "Jones."  How was it filed? Under "Jones."

It was my wife's fault that these MORONS couldn't find it filed under "Jones," even after we ASKED them to check under "Jones"?!?

And the pharmacist had the balls to tell us the lovely yet talented Mrs618 shouldn't hyphenate because "it's too much trouble for us."

We saved them the trouble and switched pharmacies. And supermarkets.

If you do business with Hannaford or any of the other Delhaize America companies (Food Lion, Harvey's, Sweetbay, and Bottom Dollar Food), maybe you should do the same.

Why make them go to all the trouble of doing the jobs they were hired to do?

Another One Gone From the Blogroll

Hydrant Girl, a Canadian paramedic (married to a firefighter), has changed her blog access to invitation only. Too bad, as I really enjoyed reading it, and learning how our Canadian brethren do things.

As an aside, she and her husband were at one of the races in Daytona when a car crashed into the stands. Not surprisingly, they both jumped in and started treating the injured.

Anyway, best of luck to Dorie and Jamie.

Special Guest Blogger: Emily

Hi, furless ones, this is Emily. I'm Mr618's celebrated Labrador whom you may have read about, back when Mom and Dad thought about things like pet blogging, instead of all that political crap.

A couple of days ago, dad was reading Michael Morse's blog, Rescuing Providence. Captain Morse had a piece about my cousin, Mr. Wilson. Cousin Wilson allegedly asked, "What's a dog?"

It appears Cousin Wilson forgot what the Head Beagle told us as pups, which is that we give the humans a reason to live. Humans, of course, are significantly inferior to canines, but they do serve a useful purpose in that their opposable thumbs allow them to open cans and bags more efficiently than we can with our teeth.

Captain Morse, God (which is, after all, dog spelled backwards) created dogs so firemen could have heroes too.

Despite what the beer companies (and Ben Franklin) say, dogs are the REAL proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

Oh, and here's a picture of Cousin Wilson:

I guess his hair got so white worrying about his dad. Not easy trying to take care of a fire captain in a big city like Providence, I guess. (Hey, Cousin Wilson, when my dad comes down with lobsters for your dad, I'll send down a nice fresh Maine bone for ya, 'kay?)