My latest run in with inefficiency continues the saga of the prescription written for me at my doctors appointment on Thursday.  If you read my last article, you know that I dropped that prescription off on Friday and tried to pick it up on Saturday.  I was told that this particular medication required a preauthorization by my insurance company.  Well, now completely out of the samples my doctor had given me at my first appointment, I stopped by the pharmacy again today only to be told the same thing.  Only today I was told that it could take up to a week to get this preauthorization because it had to go in front of some "board".  Now I am not an insurance person nor an efficiency expert, but that it just crazy.  The doctor written prescription is not authorization enough for my insurane company, who incidentally, I have never even spoken to a representative on the phone.  Now, I don't know where this board went to medcal school, but they are obviously smarter than my doctor.  At any rate, I was so mad when the pharmacist was explaining all of this to me (I was not angry at him, but the insurance company), I was biting my lip.  The first run in with inefficiency of the day.

On my way home, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things.  I also thought I would pick up some flowers for my wife.  Once I had the six or seven items I needed, I jumped into the express (ten items or less) lane where I had to wait for a couple to pay for seventeen items.  Yes, I counted.  This "express lane", built for efficiency, was anything but.  Probably because a couple was too lazy to get into the normal check out lines.  As if all of this wasn't enough, when I was being checked out, the flowers I had picked up scanned at twice the marked price.  When I brought it to the clerk's attention, it took at least five minutes to fix the situation.  At one point, I told the clerk that I didn't need the flowers but she still had to wait for the customer service manager to come clear the register. 

Needless to say, tonight's errand running did not turn out like I had envisioned.  I did, however, survive.  Amazingly enough, other people's inefficiency didn't do me in today.  The only question left in my mind is, will it the next time?  I will probably find that out tomorrow.