Passive aggressive – No thanks!
A couple of days ago I needed to have a prescription filled at a pharmacy. As I was out walking I came across a pharmacy in a quiet area and there were no customers inside. "Good!" I thought. "I'll be able to get my prescription filled with no waiting."
I took my prescription out of my pocket, held it in my hand and walked up to the prescription desk inside the pharmacy. No one greeted me. I waited. Eventually I looked over and saw a pharmacy assistant behind a desk writing on a sheet of paper. She said without getting up: "Can I help you?" I smiled and held up the prescription.
She did a bit more writing and finally got up and walked over while still holding her pen and paper. She stood in front of me and wrote some more things then finally put down the pen and took the prescription from me.
"It will be 15 minutes." she said. I was bemused. There were no other customers. I said: "I can't wait. I'll come back later."
She said: "Will you leave the prescription?" I said: "No. I'll take it with me." Finally she got the message and said: "I'll see if the pharmacist can do it now for you."
The pharmacist came out straight away when called and I had my prescription filled in about 90 seconds.
Why did I have to go through this annoying passive aggressive dance with the lady? Why didn't she acknowledge me when I walked in? Surely she could realise a customer standing at the prescription desk with a prescription in their hand wants it filled. What was so important on that paper that meant I had to wait while she wrote on it?
Do you have any passive aggressive staff in your office?
You'll recognise them by the way they constantly make patients wait. By the way they don't look up immediately and smile when patients come in. By the way when you ask them to do a task they always have seven other things they need to do before they can possibly even consider completing your task. By the way they put on a veneer of politeness while frustrating every one around them.
If you have passive aggressive staff they can harm your practice hugely. I'm sure the pharmacist is wondering why business is so bad.
I didn't tell him.