Offended / Offending

I had to deal with a complaint about our pharmacy staff today. That department is nothing to do with me, but I’m on the ‘complaints roster’ and happened to be the only manager on the shop floor when the unhappy person came in.  It was hilarious, really. So hilarious that I couldn’t stop smiling while I took down the details, which prompted her to add a little complaint about me as a postscript.
I’ve heard both sides of the story this afternoon, and this is what appears to have happened (any factual errors are my own): Apparently, last week, she called in and asked for hay fever advice on behalf of her 15-year-old daughter. Our staff showed her the range of antihistamines we have, but advised her that as her daughter is still ‘a child’ she should probably see her GP first before buying anything.  The lady said something like “We can’t wait three weeks for a doctors appointment, is there anything we can try in the meantime?” One of our pharmacy girls called Ruth (a tasty little number who suffers from hay fever herself) told her that some people smear Vaseline inside their nostrils before they go out, which catches the pollen when you breathe in and stops it reaching the nasal membranes. So the lady went away and tried it on her daughter… and it turned out she was allergic to Vaseline! She ended up in A+E with a swollen face and blistered nose and finding it hard to breathe.
The lady - who thinking about it now bore a remarkable resemblance to Herman Munster - seems to think this was all deliberate and that we should be made to pay.
She called the store a ‘hotbed of Capitalist vipers’ and called me ‘a childish insufferable turd’ and then stormed off threatening legal action. We have a disclaimer up about our staff being unqualified and not fully trained specialists, so I don’t think it’ll go very far. No-one died, after all, and I really think people need to take some responsibility for themselves and accept that accidents sometimes happen and stop trying to find someone to blame all the time and stop trying to sue someone for money every time the world isn’t exactly how they want it. Don’t you?
There - I feel better now. 


RC 9-7-12