Common Sense and the MBA

Ha, fooled you.  There is no common sense when the modern MBA (Masters in Business Administration (also known as a license to destroy a business)) gets involved.

Case in point.

It probably doesn't surprise anyone here that I go to the local pharmacy at least twice a month to pick up meds, especially since Mrs. Andrew and I are over 6 decades old each. 

It probably doesn't surprise anyone here that pharmacies generally work really hard to make sure that Patient X gets all the meds for Patient X and only Patient X.

Thus, off the top of one's head, there are multiple methods for cataloguing and storin,g prescriptions to-be-filled and prescriptions filled.

Thus, off the top of the head, everyone immediately thinks, "Last Name, First Name, DOB, Address, Drug Name."  Right?  Especially since Patient LNX, FNY, DOB1-1-0001, Address 1234 Whosatthefrontdoor St may have more than one prescription to be picked up.

Following me?

Oh, sure, there's other methods that certain peoples with the letters MBA after their names might think works better, like sorting each filled prescription by the first 3-4 numbers in the prescription number.  Fast and efficient, right... as long as one is picking up one prescription and the main computer tells the pharmacy tech or pharmacist what bin said prescription is in.  Not so fast and efficient if said patient has, oh, say, eight (that would be '8' for juvat) prescriptions to be picked up at once, as the pharmtech suddenly looks like a methed up old-school switchboard operator from some silent movie comedy.

Sigh.  You, dear readers, may see where this is going.  For juvats out there, I'll explain...

Have you noticed that I hate MBAs with a passion?  That I consider MBAs almost or as dangerous to a company as modern unions?  Are you following me, juvat?

So... After a long night of not much sleep because third world donkey games erupted in the parking lot right outside my door all night long with no adult or police supervision at all, I was a little lacking in sleep this afternoon when I went to the local pharmacy to pick up two, count them, two (2) prescriptions, one that was ready yesterday and one that was filled today.  Two friggin prescriptions.

Get my shopping done, as the pharmacy is also part of the local grocery store, of which I won't name because normally the place has it's stuff together but, well, MBA... and I go to the pharmacy to pick up said two (2) medications.  

And (and I am sure some of you, like Tuna or JB or maybe even, nah, juvat, have seen coming) the pharmacy system for the whole chain is down.

Happy Smily Face Pharmacy Tech, who knows me by sight, has today's prescription ready.  But informs me the computer system is down and they can't find the other prescription.

Said other prescription has to be picked up today because it's a necessary prescription and, no, I can't wait till tomorrow thanks to the Federal Government's intrusion on patients' rights due to some jackwagons overprescribing or illegally using some prescriptions.  So said FedGov says "Patient must suck up, minimum window to fill before running out" and since FedGov also looks over the prescribers' info and says "Oh, you gave that person a prescription that can legally be filled two days before previous prescription runs out and you've done that 5 times and that means the patient now has 10 days of drugs that, of course, they won't responsibly manage and will go and sell on the open market or take extra for fun because patient who has been taking the same damn prescription for 15 years can't be trusted to take the prescription responsibly."

I hate the FedGovDeepBureaucraticState.  With a passion.  Burn it down.  The Chaos of Doge was one of the few bright and shining moments in recent governmental history.

Back to the story.  I had to pick up drugs filled yesterday and pharmacy tech can't find them easily because computer system is down and the individually filled prescriptions are stored by their first 3 or 4 digits of their specific prescription number (after the pharmacy location number, that is.)  Yes, that's right, prescriptions aren't stored by Last Name, First Name, DOB and Address so that all the prescriptions for Patient X are in a bin system sorted by last name.  So, well, Beans, if a last name, would be in the bin(s) for people whose last name starts with 'B.'

Nope.  Each individual prescription, when filled, is stored in a drawer and there is no connection between the patient and the filled prescription other than the label on the container or shone on the computer screen for PharmTech to read.

So, yes, system-wide computer failure.

No drugs for you.  Fortunately the PharmTech knows me and, since he had nothing else to do, because the system was down, managed to search each bin until he found said meds.  And then had to laborously write down all the identifying information on each prescription onto a form on a standard letter-sized page, which meant he had to write about font-size 2 to make everything fit in said form.

Why was this asinine system put in place?  Well, Senior VP in Charge of Pharmacy managed to, under the old system of "Last Name, First Name, DOB, Address," (and you can see this coming from a mile away, can't you?) give someone the wrong prescription, which nearly killed them.

Said Senior VP, flexing his mighty MBA credentials, instituted the 'Store each filled prescription under it's own individual prescription number in numbered bins' bullscat.  Which, truth to tell, worked.  Not as well or as quickly as the old system, where the PharmTech would see me coming and grab a big bag of filled prescriptions and plonk them on the counter because big bag was stored in the bin for whatever my last name is (I know it, you may or may not, doesn't matter, starts with 'W'.)

Pharmacist and PharmTech were unhappily informing people after me that it would take like forever to find things and they could only find things that the patient (or patient's representative) knew about.

Masters in Being Analsphincters.  I hate them.  Burn them, burn them all.

A perfect example of MBAism is the movie "Office Space."  Gary Cole, the actor, is the best personification of said MBAism ever shown on film, down to suspenders and his 50mph hair (hair that has enough product to hold it all in place in winds up to 50mph on the golf course.)

Yeah, that's an MBA for you.  

Yes, I am aware that some people with MBAs are actually good people and good managers and executives.  Some.  They are also the ones that don't tell you within 15 milliseconds of meeting them that they have MBAs.

Puns, All I got is Puns

 

 Ok, Ok, Officially...I got nuttin'

So a repost from about 5 years ago.  I think it's funny! But that's just simple old me, in action.  Hope you enjoy!

For the Mathematicians out there.

For those tight fisted ones out there.

For those of you "Well Dressed" guys out there.

 

Something for those of you "older" guys to consider doing the next time you visit "That!" doctor. I'm going to.

Speaking of Telemarketers.

For those of you High School Football stars out there.

For the Plumbers out there. (And those of you who wish you were plumbers so you could get one too.)

My septic guy doesn't have one...yet.  It may be my Christmas present to him this year.

For the Star Trek Fans out there. (A three-fer)

If you don't get it, you're not a Star Trek Fan. Skip to the next section.

Now that was FUNNY, I don't care who you are!

For the Computer Geeks out there.  (You know who I'm talking about, doncha?)

For the younger readers out there.

For the "Chefs" in the group.

For the Californian's out there.

For the Texan's out there (You know this is true, doncha')  Read ALL of it.

This probably won't apply to ANYONE reading this blog, but there are some "Out" there and it fits them to a "T".

 For those of you in the North East, beware.

Thanksgiving is coming soon.  Think I'm going to try this Turkey Recipe.

Yes, Beans, I'll make sure Mrs. J doesn't have the carving knife in her hands when I bring it to the table.

Speaking of wives.  Important Safety Tip.

Finally, a "Thinking" man's coffee cup.

Not really a Pun or a play on words, rather....WORD!

There...I feel much better now.

ARGH!!!

Long night last night.  Natives restless.  Drums loud, all night long.  Parking lot funsies all night long.  Po-Po refused to do anything all night long.

Catch you all later.

Things I learned past 50

Yes, I'm still learning things.  And I'm past 50.  So here's a few things I've learned.

1.  Want spagetti without as much fuss or mess?  Use elbow macaroni.  Bonus it can be served out of a bowl and you can use a spoon rather than a fork.  Less mess.  I know, earth shattering, but it works.

2.  I've learned to make pudding.  I already talked about not being able to use commercial puddings because of carrageenan, but, seriously, on the back of Knick-Knick gluten free Vanilla Wafers is a recipe for vanilla pudding.  It only takes 20 minutes longer than the cook-the-powder stuff and tastes a whole lot better.  Almost makes banana pudding (vanilla pudding poured into a casserole dish full of vanilla wafers and banana slices) taste great.  The things I do for Mrs. Andrew.

3.  Keep a web browser open when watching movies or tv shows, along with a notes page in whatever word processor or notes program.  Why?  When a question about something comes up, pause said video and look it up.  When a piece of music comes across that sounds nice, you can look it up under (name of show, episode, soundtrack.)  And when reading a book, same thing.  You can look up what words mean or how they're pronounced and look up data on whatever is going on or get a clarification on a character or the author.

4.  Fine china is great, but Corelle Ware is much more shaky hands safe.  But when it breaks, it breaks into horrible sharp shards (after all, it's basically a sturdy glass.)

5.  For home use, instead of tissues or handkerchiefs, cut squares out of old t-shirts.  You can wash them and the soft fabric is much less abrasive on one's nose.

6.  Dab a little bit of petroleum jelly on a new scar as it will help the skin heal.

7.  Be very glad Monday's coming around so juvat can do a post.

8.  It's okay to be a misanthrope.  Especially in this day and age.  But you still need to get out to buy good vegetables, fresh breads and meats.  Once a week should suffice.

The Greatest Generation

No, not what you think.  Though the men and women who served in the military and on the farms and in the factories and whatnot during WWII were a good guess of what the greatest generation was.  Then again, it's easy (in a very convoluted and complex way) to win a war when you have the national gumption that supports said war and the military's only real rule was win at all costs (for the most part.)  See, easy but complex and convoluted.

Every war since then has had our military fighting pretty much with one hand tied behind their backs.

But that's not what I was talking about.

I'm talking about another greatest generation.  I'm talking about... the music of our fathers and mothers and of some of our older people.  Maybe not OAFS, as I think Hildegard of Bingen (born 1098, died 1179, did the first real codification of European music, something that wasn't really fixed until Johann Sebastian Bach basically did the final definition of scales and such) might just be about his generation...  No, not really.

Why do I say that - the greatest music generation thingy?  Well, Mrs. Andrew and I were watching the fantastic "Joe vs the Volcano" starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (and a host of top shelf actors and actresses to include Abe Vigoda) and the music selection for the movie was, to say the least, top shelf.

Not saying the cinematography wasn't perfect, which it about was, with odes to "Metropolis" and "Brazil" and variously continued themes, not to mention the most awesome set of luggage ever.  But the music was just perfect.  

Like this little ditty...

Mas Que Nada - by Sergio Mendes

A rather excellent and catchy tune.  Sure, foreign language, no idea what it's saying but it's just good. 

Like "Girl from Ipanema," the good song, not the muzac version, though even the muzac version isn't bad.

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.  Doc Severenson.  The great crooners from the 40's and 50's.  Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.  Elvis.  All the great movie and play music.

Stuff today is great, sure, but what happy little ditty from the 40s to 60s runs through your mind when given half a chance?

Boxing Day

No, this isn't in reference to that day after British Christmas.  It's more an ode to boxes.  Something about people of my generation or earlier, not the more spoiled newer generations, that, well, shall I say venerates a good box?

Think of it.  All the times you've moved or received packages and you say to yourself, "This is a good box, I best keep it."

Both my wife and I are box hoarders.  We keep 'good' boxes past the time we really need to toss boxes.  Like, well, I still have boxes I broke down after moving from the old house to the apartment. Because you never know when you'll need a good box, right

I use boxes for other reasons than boxes, too.  Like a Lowes' Small Box (yes, you can buy boxes at Lowes, whodathunk,) flattened and split along one side makes a handy cover from the top of the stove to the bottom of the fume hood, which effectively boxes in the area and makes for an excellent 'proofing' or rising area for yeast breads. 

And I was despairing of finding drawer organizers for my silverware because the most logical drawers were narrow.  And then I noticed that the cardboard flats from buying 12 cans of beans at Walmart were the right length and all I had to do was cut out the not needed middle section and then I could take 4 side pieces and put them together and now I have organization in my silverware drawer.

The great flood of 2024, thanks to the jackass neighbor we now affectionately call 'Poo-Man' (and who is no longer at this apartment complex, thank God, as when the landlady went into PM's flooded apartment to find out what was going on, well, there were things only usually seen in a turd-world country and that's all we're going to talk about this time,) destroyed a good portion of my carefully collected (some would say, possibly correctly, 'hoarded,') collection of good boxes.

It's a struggle.  Because, well, you always need good boxes.  And as soon as you get rid of good boxes then you discover the need for the now discarded boxes.  AmIright?

Fortunately we now live in a world where getting boxes delivered to your doorstep occurs significantly more than it did 40 or 30 years ago, so even if one gets rid of the rapidly accumulating stack of cardboard, more gets delivered seemingly every day, or only on Saturdays if you have that option with Amazon or whatever delivery service you use to deliver boxes of stuff to your doorstep.

Back at the house, I'd collect boxes and flatten them and lay them out in the unseen back yard to kill off weeds.  The boxes would deprive said weeds of sunlight, worms and bugs would eat the boxes, boxes would turn into rich soil and make the area better for grass.  Which I hated mowing.  Now I'm wondering why I did that.  Take 'wilderness' and make it into grasslands.  Oh, that's right, because grass was much better than various vines and weeds and other things that I was and am pert near deadly allergic to.  I'm only somewhat allergic to grass.

And now I'm accumulating small boxes that fit DVDs perfectly if they stand up.  All for the great labeling and storing of our ever-increasing library of DVDs.  Yes, I know, I can stream or something, but I live in Florida and sometimes internet is spotty which makes streaming difficult sometimes.  And I like having the actual DVD so I can choose widescreen and all the other options necessary for proper home video enjoyment.  Currently we have a list of almost a thousand dvds of various genres, from Christmas and Easter videos (Easter has things like "Ben Hur" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told" and such) and Faith-Based (like "God's Not Dead" and stuff like that) to Sci-Fi, and Action and Comedy and Music(al).  The goal is to use the label-maker and do like a library does and label the spine with a 3-4 letter abbreviation and store all of the dvds in genres, alphabetically by title, with a section all by itself for favorite movies we like to watch more than once a year.

I have... plans.  Future plans... Organized DVDs... I even have a Libre-Office version of an Excel spreadsheet with all the info needed to sort said dvds.  And sheets of watch orders for series (like the "X-Files" which has both tv episodes and movies and if you don't watch them in correct order it messes up the flow...)

So, well, boxes.  

Do kids (under 50yoa) these days still hoard and lovingly sort boxes like we do?  Or am I just weird?  Or both?

Now that the world is slowing down somewhat, well, my world as the outside world has Mexico and a certain secular Jew from Hungary funding the destruction of Los(t) Angeles and other cities while Israel is kicking Iran in the face and the whole Ukraine-Russia thing keeps going while Rocket-Man Kim just had his flagship sink on him.  See?  After all of that nonsense thinking of boxes is relaxing... Boxes... Glorious boxes...

Well, Poop.

Hello.  It's been a very long time.  Been dealing with Real Life coming at me and Mrs. Andrew at beyond light speed.

As to the title, there's this food additive called Carrageenan.  Made from red seaweed.  Which is a vegan replacement for good old animal-based gelatin.  That's used as an emulsifying agent and a thickener.  That's found in lots and lots of stuff.  Including the gluten-free version of Ensure, called Gluteeno.  

And has been known, since 1968, to cause irritable bowel syndrome and increased risks of colon cancer.

Coincidentally, we have been dealing with Not-Me having, well, IBS for five friggin years, requiring lots of Imodium daily.  

Docs, lots of docs, all confused.

We figured it out.  Finally.  Recovery in order.  

I have been dealing with a poop-storm, literally.

Life slowly returning to normal.

Yay.

Sometimes this modern world sucks donkey testicles.

And other things have happened, like the continued fallout of the next-door apartment having a leaking water heater for years and tenant didn't do anything about it.  We found about it when said apartment leaks leaked into our apartment.  Horror story ensued. 

Yay.

Did I say sometimes this modern world sucks equine testes?

Will try to write better longer with pictures for juvat.