"Are you sorry?"

I am not good at ass-kissing, never have been. The facts and just the facts ought to be enough. Recently a particular customer seems to desire that I grovel to her on my knees, even for things that are not my fault. Ingratiating myself to overly demanding, whining, or plain rude customers is a talent I've never mastered, nor wish to. These are the sorts of customers I am always happy to transfer to a competitor.

Now don't get me wrong, I go out of my way, as do all my staff, to communicate any and all delays in the refilling of their prescriptions. It is not acceptable to fail to call a patient and tell them their requested refill cannot be completed in full, because there is not enough medication in stock. I always give them the option of waiting for the full amount or making 2 trips if necessary. I always apologize for the inconvenience over the phone ahead of time.

Rude lady got the usual treatment from me as described above. She then went on to tell me how disappointed she was, since she would have to make 2 trips, because she only had 1 pill left! I then apologized again and offered to put her on automatic refills. She agreed. She grilled me about whether or not this would happen again, "not if you're on automatic refills," I said.

Then she decides, as an afterthought, that she wants to know why her label doesn't say how many refills she has left. I tell her it should! At the bottom of the label. She says the print is "missing" from her label, like it just "came off". I tell her, I'm not sure what could have happened, but I can look at it.

She shows up the next day at the drop off window with her bottle with the "missing" refills. I notice right away that some sort of liquid or oil has gotten on the label making the black print disappear in some places. I point that out to her.

She says, "When I got it home it was this way! Its as if the print was never on the label in the first place."

I say, "Obviously, something got onto the label took the print off. I can see the print very lightly. You can see where the liquid left a mark on the label. Right here it says I dispensed this prescription and I can assure you I would never dispense a label that looked that way. Its unacceptable."

She says, "Well I guess its your word against mine! I keep all my bottles in one place, nothing got onto this label! I guess I'll go pick up my pills"

She starts to walk away, then turns and says, "Are you sorry?"

"Excuse me?" I say.

"Are. You. Sorry? Sorry, that I had to make 2 trips for my pills?"

"Yes, I believe I told you that on the phone yesterday", I say.

The best part? She decides later to call the store manager, like he really cares, and tell him how rude I was. Strangely, during the course of the 25 minute bitch session, she tells the manager that she did get petroleum jelly on her label. Tells him I was rude, but realized it and did apologize in the end. He cared so much about what she said that he never even told me... I had to hear it from the assistant manager, who laughed.

People are nuts!