We arrive in San Fransisco to discover that Elysha has left her medication at home. She calls her doctor and arranges for her prescription to be refilled at a local CVS Pharmacy down the road from our Airbnb.
I arrive at the pharmacy the next day to pick up the medication. The CVS employee has difficulty finding Elysha’s name in the system, so after about 15 minutes of hunting and pecking, she turns the screen and keyboard around so I can see. Together, we troubleshoot the problem and finally find her information.
A little odd to involve a customer in the computer search, but I appreciate out-of-the-box thinking.
While this is happening, a drug-seeking customer cuts in front of me, pushing me back to make room, and asks for help from the pharmacist. I don’t realize initially that he is drug-seeking, but I can tell he is not well. He can’t stop pacing and talks incessantly.
Eventually, the man leaves, and we return our attention to the screen.
The prescription, of course, is not yet filled. It also cannot be filled because Elysha’s doctor failed to check a box allowing for the early refill.
“No problem,” the employee says. “The pharmacist can override this.”
She turns to the pharmacist, who tells her, rather unkindly, that he’s on the phone and will be busy for at least 15 minutes.
So I wait. I sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair and ponder why CVS chose metallic gray for the color of their store’s carpeting. It looks old, industrial, and awful. It graces the floor of every CVS I’ve ever entered. I once scraped my chin on this carpeting after tripping and falling in a CVS in Hartford.
I hate this carpet so much.
I also slowly begin to die inside, counting the precious minutes of vacation I am spending inside a CVS.
Finally, the pharmacist is available. He motions me to the counter and informs me that he can’t refill the prescription because the doctor hasn’t checked the box allowing for an early refill. “Call the doctor and have him correct this,” he says.
But I can’t allow this to happen. This will undoubtedly result in a 24-hour wait for a medication that Elysha needs.
Even worse, it would require me to return to this CVS again.
I also know that the pharmacist can override this problem if he wants. His colleague has told me.
So I steel myself for verbal combat and begin:
“Listen,” I say. “You have a choice here. You can believe that I am a drug-seeking addict trying to get his hands on his wife’s medication, or you can look at my address in your system, recognize that I am on vacation from 3,000 miles away, and help me out so that my wife can feel well and we can enjoy our time in California. It’s your decision. You can make a family happy or ruin another day for us.”
“I can’t just override the system,” he says.
“Sure you can,” I say. “All it takes is doing the right thing.”
I use this strategy often. Make the person in charge abundantly clear of the effects of their decision. Make it difficult for them to sleep at night knowing they could’ve made a real difference in the lives of others, but instead, they chose the easy path, the selfish path, or the path of unnecessary rule-following bureaucracy.
It’s a good strategy. It’s worked many times. My principal once accused me of using it to intimidate a school administrator, but when the welfare of children is at stake, perhaps a little intimidation isn’t a bad thing.
The pharmacist was silent momentarily, then his colleague made this sound. It was sort of a “Humph.” It was tiny but perceptible. In that minuscule bit of sound, I think she managed to say, “He’s right. You know you can override the system. He’s obviously a decent guy. Why not help this man?”
I think that tiny sound made the difference. I think that little “Humph” was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“Fine,” the pharmacist said, turning away in a huff, not allowing me the opportunity to thank him.
Less than five minutes later, I had the medication in my hand.
This morning I wrote a thank you card to the pharmacist and his colleague. I’ll drop it in the mail later today.
The keys to my success:
- Don’t take no for an answer. Everyone, regardless of their position or power, is just a person like me.
- Make the stakes abundantly clear to the person in charge.
- Help the person in charge to make the right decision by describing both outcomes with great clarity.
- Use direct, pointed, specific, but noninflammatory language.
- Treat people well. By partnering with the pharmacist’s colleague early on and remaining patient with her as she struggled with her computer system, she was on my side when I needed her most.
Also, it didn’t hurt that I was in California at the time. Everyone seems a lot kinder in this state.
It’s a little unsettling.
