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161 Comments
- rft3rd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+41I am sorry but defamation of character and libel have been brought before the court thousands upon thousands of times. Would you want your fathers meds for alzheimers to read "senile old goat"??? I think not. Good for the the people standing up to Walgreens.
- rft3rd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+40You think anxiety makes some succepitble to being called a crazy bitch? You have no clue what anxiety is then. My wife has a social anxiety disorder that makes her feel uncomfortable in large groups of people in small places. Thats not crazy buddy. what IS crazy is people ike you who generalize anyone with an form of unbalance as crazy.
Pathetic - szelij, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27Well the main problem is professionalism and tact. You do not hand someone medicine and attached to it insulting notes on their behaviour. That's just plain wrong. They should sue the pants off Walgreens for that.
But that ain't mean she's no bitch either. It could be true. :P - Scik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25Some people, who have mental illness, this can completely destroy their life. If they were paranoid before and had worked for, maybe even years to control it, just to find out this is what people think of them? Its devastating. No company should ever allow employees to bash customers. That's common sense. All businesses should have standards set much higher than what Walgreen's is allowing to occur in their stores. Its horrible.
People with illness or handicaps have just as much rights as anyone else to not be labeled by a business. It may roll off some people easily but others it does not. Mental illness is not their fault. - andreo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21I agree with Szelij.
When I started in IT my first job was over the phone tech support for a computer company. The one thing that we could not do was put in our own personal opinions about the customers that we were helping. And trust me, there were some characters!
For example, I was talking with a person that complained that she just received her computer but it didn't work. After going over the very basic troubleshooting steps it turns out that computer wasn't plugged into an electric outlet. Even then I had to describe what an electric outlet was by having her follow the cord from the back of her TV to the wall. I could have made notes that would have cracked up the rest of the support team. However I kept it professional and just stated what the problem was and the steps that I went through to solve it.
On another call I had to have a lady re-seat a card in the computer. She did not know what a screwdriver was. And I honestly believe that she didn't know. While I ended up having to have that computer sent back so we could look at it, since she didn't own a screwdriver, I again could have made some pretty funny notes.
There's a certain way that you should deal with the public. Especially when members of the public are your customers. And even more so when they are at some type of a disadvantage. You would be surprised just how friendly an upset person can become when you show support and understanding, or at the very least not make them feel more uncomfortable then they may already be. You would also be surprised at just how bad a situation can become when you try to get a cheap laugh at the expense of others. - rft3rd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15so someone with anxiety issues "obvious has an attitute problem" and is "a difficult customer".. do you know these people? were you there? You haven't a clue buddy. let someone write something about a fmaily member of yours or even you for example and lets see how you take it.
I agree int he press release but in order to impact any business for libel and defamation, yo uhave to go to the courts... Press releases bring attention to thesubject yes, but they don;t get results. - Iriel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13@turgor
I, also, don't think that it's morally 'right' to sue a company for being that unprofessional about something directly related to their job, but I also agree that the sad truth of the matter is that American companies don't care unless they're losing a few million dollars in the process. Only by settling out of court will Walgreens be exposed to public as having f***ed up on the job. Otherwise, nobody pays attention.
Here's another point to meditate on: Have you stopped to consider that this alleged "crazy b----" is taking this medication to help them with an anxiety disorder that is a large cause of their erratic social behavior? - longofest, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15naw... more people are suing. I didn't include the word "more" in the description because I only found one submission for this topic that was 13 days old and never made it to front page, so I just wrote the description to describe the basis of the story, not the fact that 2 more people are joining the lawsuits.
I definitely feel this is worth making it to front page. Its freakin' hillarious... I guess it wouldn't be if I was on the recieving end of those notes, but then again, I wasn't. - rft3rd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12having any sort of anxiety disorder or depression and being called out like that, does NOTHING to help that person. MAybe the employees get a snicker but people in a pharmacy should realize they are in a service industry that caters to sick people all the time. Normally exclusivley to sick people so they should have more of an understanding when it comes to tough customers.
- rft3rd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11its not advertising idiot, its defemation and libel.
- SbooX, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12For those of you who still live in your parents basement (rent free!) and never had to work retail before, sometimes the customers really are crazy bitches or psychos.
That said, shame on the Walgreens employees who actually did this. Obviously not appropriate/professional/whatever. Proper retail etiquette says that you sarcastically help the customer, then once they leave call them a crazy bitch or psycho.
Then the Salsa Shark shows up. - supergwiz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9The walgreens workers should also be careful because they can be jailed for breaking federal guidelines.
HIPAA is a set of laws that was created to protect patient's privacy. You might have noticed that, within 2 years or so, they put the meds in unlabeled bags when they hand it to you. This is one example of how tight it is. HIPAA has a whole set of laws that deal with disclosing personal info. Posting "crazy" on a nation-wide system would be a violation. - chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11I used to work in the pharmacy at Walgreens, and this sort of thing does get put in the database. But it IS valuable if you have a patient that is constantly seeking C-II's or acts erratically. At least if I know she's a psycho bitch before she comes in, I know what to expect when she flies off the handle. Believe me, it happens in the chart at your doctor's office too!
- Machismo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8The "Watch Controls Seems Shady" is an entirely appropriate comment for the patient comments field, BUT it shouldn't be printed out with the DUR. Those comments are confidential to the distributing company to protect patients from becoming addicts, easeing insurance woes, and more. The use of the negative comments was entirely wrong though.
- psxman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8My ugly? What about it?
- dcmiltown, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Medicate your problems, and sue if you those don't work. The American Way.
Sidenote: Every customer service company using a CRM has a notes field. Many use this to make notes on the customer, because there are always crazy people out there, and it's nice to warn the next person who takes a call/deals with a customer what may happen. However, most responsible companies warn employees that any information regarding the customer is within access by law to the customer, and may be eventually seen by the customer. Walgreens should have probably made their employees more aware, and obviously shouldn't have printed it off. - SmeRndmGy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8You can sue someone for calling you names? I hope they throw this case out of court. Also, sueing someone for calling you a "crazy bitch" is a pretty damn good way to prove that you are in fact a crazy bitch. These people are spending thousands of dollars on court costs because someone called them a name. Let it slide, people.
- Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10First off, this is what happens when you hire 26 year olds who didn't finish high school to distribute medication to people.
Secondly, all of you people who are saying "She was a crazy bitch because she took medication" are really really stupid and inconsiderate. You guys probably don't know what it's like to have a mental illness or know somebody who does.
Three people very close to me take medication for various mental illnesses, but it doesn't make them crazy and it doesn't give the right for some idiot to write insulting messages on their prescriptions.
The people at Walgreens who wrote these messages should be sued for libel, because the messages they wrote were insulting and do constitute as defamation of character, because these records were available for thousands of people to look at, which I'm sure this changing the DUR thing is a little inside joke between Walgreen's employees - sqrlproductions, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10helloooo! it was typed into a computer system ... computer == technology?! sheesh!!?! some people :)
- cogent_bob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Me neither. Until I need a decongestant or a rubber at 1 in the morning. But only then.
- Schmitty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Dealing with the public before, I can sympathize with the note-makers, but still, it would be better to talk to co-workers or friends rather than blatantly calling the woman crazy like that. What did he think would happen? Sheesh.
- Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Right. It sometimes is useful for employees to leave comments about certain customers because they may have behaviors that are potentially damaging to themself or your place of business, but these comments should never be something like "this woman is a bitch" or "this lady is ***** crazy", and they should never be seen by the customers
I used to work at Blockbuster and we would write comments on customer's accounts all the time for security purposes, but the customers never saw them (unless a person was really stupid and printed them off) - FatD, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6lol, That troll works on about everyone everywhere else.
last week it was
I took a unix class
So I am really getting a kick out of most of these replies.
Some of you guys are very good at making it sound like you know what you are talking about.
But trust me.... You don't.
I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you dont know what you are talking about.
This is how bad info gets passed around.
If you dont know about the topic....Dont make yourself sound like you do.
Cuz some diggers believe anything they hear - fani, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6FTA "I started crying and I ran to the drawer to get a pill to calm down," she said.
... And on this pill it was written - "Losers pill" and on seeing this she started crying and hiccupping and she ran to another drawer to get another pill for the second pill to be taken for the first pill.
And on this pill it was written - "psycho" and on seeing this she ran to another drawer...... - n3tfury, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"If workers at Walgreens continue to treat patrons with such defamations of characterisations then maybe can institute a boycots of they're storage!"
LOL that's quote material - rimco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6OK, it'd be wrong to put stuff like that on anything the customer sees, and I agree they could be more tasteful, but I used to work at a casino where we accessed patron's accounts and could leave internal messages about those patrons, and sometimes you have to leave a negative note about them so that other employees can be aware of any possible situation that may come up. If a customer was unusually crass or did something suspicious or wrong, we'd note it so that other employees knew to be on guard. As long as it stays internal and tasteful, I see no problem with it.
- brentdanley, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Awesome! Thank you for putting up the ***** flag. Niceness isn't requisite for the rights afforded by the First Amendment. If a patron isn't satisfied with services rendered they can confront the individual, report to a manager, or use another pharmacy. I think some people are looking for justifications for being offended.
- CiXeL, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Have you SEEN south florida customer service? If you've stayed down here at all with the exception of miami beach you'd know that people here don't make the slightest effort to fake being nice and friendly.
- dcmiltown, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5While there are plenty of people with legitimate mental illnesses, there are plenty that are falsly medicated just because they have a few bad days. Unfortunately it is this willy nilly distribution of medication that a lot of society takes mental illness less and less seriously. And the people it is most unfortunate for, are those with actual illnesses.
- spxiii, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6"...defamation of character and libel have been brought before the court thousands upon thousands of times."
This is not libel. Prescription receipts are not published to the local newspapers, and since this information is not available to the public at all it is simply unethical, appalling business practice. The best thing to do is spread the word and get people to stop spending at walgreens.
This is just another case of people feeling the world owes them something. Well, I'm off to Arby's to drop a scalding hot roast beef sandwich down my pants... - icewolf, on 10/12/2007, -16/+20I think this is a little over blown none the less. I used to work at CVS/Pharmacy, and I knew one pharmacist that would put, 'inventive', comments next to some customers... My favorite was "this person might contain the arrogant gene", to be honest, that person was a pain.
FTA when it said: "WATCH CONTROLS SHE SEEMS SHADY." is perfectly normal and okay. 65 year old grandmother or not, there is still a fairly good chance she takes the drugs she gets and sells them. I know of some people in the grandfather/mother age bracket that we kept a very close eye on because they would try to frequent various drug store chains with different RX's to get more than they needed so they could either sell them or give them away. I'm not defending everything the Pharmacists did, but some of this that they are getting sued over is bunk.
Why exactly the Walgreens personal notes file is being attached to RX bags is beyond me, something would have had to change in their system to start doing this recently. - spectre, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Seems to me that Walgreens didn't have anybody thinking very hard when they built the database.
This smacks of bad software and database development. They should have built a database that included the ability to create notes for an account, but those notes should never have been visible to the patients. Unprofessional comments on what is people assume are internal documents is normal. Developers need to expect this type of commenting to occur. So instead of allowing users comments to ever be shown to a patient, all comments made should be internal only ( and difficult to print where a patient could see it). In order to make sure system users could flag potential abusers quickly, there could be a coded flag system that the users understood. A coded system that users understand could be even printed on the delivery write up, and replace the open comments they are placing on the bag now. No patient would be the wiser.
I think that this whole situation would have been neatly avoided if the doctors and other users were more professional. However, if the architects of the system were using their heads, the opportunity would never have been presented. - Rxbrent, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5CVS does it too friend, though they probably won't make the mistake of putting the note on someone's bag. I work in a pharmacy (not Walgreen's) and this is common and confidential info. Their only mistake was allowing it to get out. That is a violation I believe. Believe it or not Walgreen's is the pharmacy everyone wants to work at. Best management, best service, best benefits. Sounds like a software update that allows the notes to be printed on the customers receipts and there are toooo many comments already on file to catch them all. Oops!
- slackbuster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I can see why this happens, ever been into a Walgreens? It looks like a friggin prison- The walls are high and at the top they have the 2 way glass tilted down. For some reason they put them in all the bad parts of town here as well. I was reading through some of the comments, and I'm sure other people will agree with me that you can sense the maturity gap of some of the posters here, it is their generation that is most likely the ones that work at places like Walgreens.
- MedHead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4That would make a hilarious Saturday Night Live skit.
- Nik420, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3No, libel only applies if the information is publicly available. Thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of individuals working for Walgreens is not the public just because this select few have access to the information. A private company database is not publicly available, hence no libel.
- mistshadow2k4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I agree with Jubabju. A simple note like "troublesome" or "abusive" would suffice quite well, not ***** like "crazy bitch" or "psycho". That alone is enough to tell you that the person who made the note is the one with the problem, namely being the bitch he or she says the other person is.
- 5blocksfree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I will state that I think what Walgreens did was wrong, but in reading the story, and in particular, the section that you posted, I also think this exmplifies what I see as a growing problem with American culture - it has become so "pill-oriented" that this seems to be the solution to almost everything. Got a problem? Take a pill.
Of course, there are legitimate cases where medication is a necessity, but I really wonder sometimes when I hear about the number of prescriptions being written for conditions (real or simply diagnosed as such) like ADHD. It seems (at least in some cases) like Big Pharma is becoming the supplier of whatever form of crack we think we need to deal with whatever problems we think we have. - LoungeActx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3this isn't new, many companies have these note fields in their database. i know for a fact that insurance companies do this when you call to file a claim. if you are abusive, or disrespectful that goes in the notes field, and it goes into the companies claims database, so whoever is helping you can see that you were an ***** in the past and to be careful. So knowing that as a fact it's reasonable to think that any customer service line like tech support for your computer does it also.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3That's true that it would be useful, but you don't have to call the person a bitch outright. You could say it in more polite terms so that in case this does come up, it wouldn't be as devastating. It's appalling that people would actually sluff off at work so much that they lose all sense of customer relations, tact, and respect for people with genuine issues.
- mac0Fd00m, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3maybe some people were crazy bitches and psychos. working in the service industry sucks ballz
- randf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3that guy called me a name....get me a pill, then call my lawyer. typical. modern. day. americana. pathetic.
it's nice to know that so many know the details of defamation and slander...waiting on your lawsuit to drop into your laps?
if it is unprofessional behavior and bothersome, then do what consumers do best...vote with your feet. another "hot coffee" lawsuit is just dumb. - shaun944, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@iriel,
what do you think defamation and slander are? I'm so sick of people whining about how American's sue too much every time there is a lawsuit. Are their frivilous lawsuits? Sure, like when someone spills coffee on themselves and then sues. But this is not someone suing a company because of their own clumsiness or incompetence, this is people trusted with providing medication to sick people posting slanderous comments about those people to a national database. Don't you think that if Customer A has been labelled SHADY or CRAZY that if they were to go into a random Walgreens, they would be treated differently, or with suspicion by a pharmacist reading those comments on their file? That's discrimination my friend, and that's what this lawsuit is about.
Many of these seem to be people who already have established personality or social disorders, which is of course the reason their taking the medications in the first place - and based on the comments added to their file, you can probably assume their being discriminated against from start by the pharmacist making the comments in the first place. - oliverc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3On what basis should they be sued? Yes, it was unprofessional, stupid, and insulting, but none of those things are illegal.
- longofest, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8I totally agree. I mean, you have a mental illness, and you get those kind of messages... it hurts REALLY bad.
That being said, I still think it is funny as hell. Of course the only reason I am able to say that is because I didn't receive those notes - cryptocom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I was a senior pharmacy tech about 8 years ago, and I can tell you from experience that this is simply the result of either poor training on the RX software, or intentional mischief. The software they use to submit insurance information, check for drug interactions, and create labels has two fields for notes....one shows up on the label, and one is system only for pharmacists and techs. There were all sorts of comments like this way back then, so it's no surprise. It's actually a good thing, as long as they aren't placed in the label field. Alot of pharmacists work on a rotating store schedule, where they switch pharmacies from one week to the next. Sometimes they have to cover for another pharmacist in a completely new pharmacy. These notes can help prepare a fill-in pharmacist for encounters with possibly unstable individuals, as well as alert them to possible prescription forgeries and drug abuses. I remember several cases where these notes were able to keep abusers from continuing their schemes, and I remember one in particular where the DEA was involved, and the comments were submitted as corroborating evidence. Yes, alot of times these notes are 'colorful', but when you have to deal with some of those customers on a regular basis, a good sense of humor definitely comes in handy at the end of the day...and it's even better when it's left by someone who dealt with that person before....kind of confirms that you're not alone in wondering if this person has a brain doused in controlled substances.
- Nik420, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I always thought libel and defamation of character had to with publicly exclaiming falsehoods about people. This is a private database. I fail to see how this is libel or defamation in that sense. It is not like they were printing them in the newspaper or in a blog for the whole world to see.
I worked in tech support, and we made comments about how the clients treated us and such. I wouldn't have wanted clients to read what some people had written, but the information was very valuable to the next agent that had to deal with that client.
Obviously, this informations should NEVER have been printed on the customer's prescription - and was a major ***** on Walgreen's part - PrayerNeeder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2excellent comment. No person should ever have to read this kind of slur about themselves from a professional. Should a psychiatrist diagnose Jane Doe with psychosis, dissociative disorder, social affective disorder, paranoia, et al, that 's one thing. Should a psychiatrist request that a pharmacy dispense medicine in order to help poor Jane deal with these problems, or make professional remarks in court-related testimony, that's well within the bounds of professional conduct. But if the psychologist, the pharmacist, or any pharmacy technician tell anyone that Jane is a crazy, paranoid, psychotic, two-faced bitch, then they would be stepping far beyond those bounds, and committing character defamation.
- Mr.X, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I work in retail and I would love nothing more then to have an early warning system about crazy, rude, smelly, and/or stupid customers. I get more abuse at work by the customers then I have in my entire life, and I was a fat kid in grade school! In my view the world can burn in hell! This system is a good system but should NOT have been made public and viewable by the customer.
- oliverc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2There are far too many lawyers taking dumb cases and hoping to settle out of court for big cash
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