44 Comments
User's avatar
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Mar 21
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Josh Slocum's avatar

Not poorly trained. Bad personality, bad manner. This is not a training issue. It's not that she "didn't know."

What has this to do with "training"? We don't have to train normal people not be abusive like this.

Expand full comment
Harald Gormsson's avatar

😲 What the Actual F$ck is Wrong with Her?😲

We all can, and should, do better - if we want a functioning civilization anyway.

Expand full comment
Holly MathNerd's avatar

I talked to Samantha, the young woman who scrubbed the bathtub, for a while. We agreed that the pharmacist honestly felt like I was yelling at her. She's that fragile and hypersensitive, and for me to call someone fragile or hypersensitive really takes a lot, because on my bad days I am both.

Expand full comment
Harald Gormsson's avatar

It is a wonderment that she can function at all then. Certain sure I would not want her touching my medications, ever.

Expand full comment
keruru's avatar

Look at the selection criteria for Pharmacy School, particularly the diversity statements. The new generation ofpharmacistts have had the competent screened out. (Same thing applies in all the other medical professions, teaching and law).

Which is why this happens and why you cannot coach these people so they change their behavior.

Expand full comment
Nathalie Martinek PhD's avatar

That pharmacist was something else. I'm going to assume she was having a shit day or she's suffering from Cluster B vapours...or both.

Either way, love your timing that you had a witness to this 'professional's' female aggression to ensure that you knew you were sane and composed. Accountability would be a great look for this woman so she's reminded of the compassionate-based model of care she's supposed to deliver.

Expand full comment
Holly MathNerd's avatar

I am half laughing and half cringing at myself because I know what would've happened if I didn't have a witness. Poor Josh would've spent our next three dinners telling me over and over that no, I'm not too loud, I'm not yelling when I don't mean to yell, etc. 😬

Expand full comment
Nathalie Martinek PhD's avatar

Lucky for both of you! Might be good to voice record every phone call for aggression analysis in the future by trained LLM or Josh-o-meter.

Expand full comment
Curtis McGirt's avatar

I have experienced exactly this, with both women and men. Men are easier for me to deal with as I'm not bashful about telling them to take the attitude and stick it where the sun don't shine. Women are a little different matter.

I am not an intimidating man. I'm 5'4" and 75 years old. Not threatening, but still treated as such. When I get this treatment I just look at them, smile and say, "impersonating my wife isn't gonna work today." Since many of them likely had her in a math class, they quickly understand what I mean.

It seems that everyone has become emboldened with the anonymity of online communication. Just like the telephone, people will say shit online that they wouldn't dare say to your face for fear of reprisal.

When this inevitably happens to me, I remind myself that God indeed has a sense of humor because why else would He make more horses' asses than horses.

Expand full comment
Holly MathNerd's avatar

😂😂😂

Expand full comment
Clarke's avatar

As a follow-up, and right in the category of male ‘destroy the individual’, I’d be writing a note to corporate for the pharmacy - about their pharmacist - and call out the bad behavior. Likely nothing would change, but I’d feel better and god knows, maybe something might change for the better. I wonder if that pharmacy records their calls…

Expand full comment
Holly MathNerd's avatar

The possibility of a recording hadn't occurred to me. Hmmm. I did consider writing a letter explaining in detail what WASA is and why the customer cannot affect it at all, but at this point she'd probably interpret it as a death threat, LOL.

Expand full comment
Bob's avatar

Could it have been a training issue?

Management can’t fix it if they don’t know about it.

I don’t get physical when I am angry. I become formally polite.

Expand full comment
Josh Slocum's avatar

"Training?" Please think about that again.

This woman was abusive. It's not a matter of "training." It's not that she "didn't know how to be not abusive."

I despair that people can't recognize (or more nearly, refuse to because it makest them uncomfortable) plain abuse.

Expand full comment
Bob's avatar
Mar 21Edited

It doesn’t sound as though the woman knew what WASA was, herself. Which might account for her defensiveness.

Descriptions are not endorsements.

Expand full comment
Pete McCutchen's avatar

I am assuming the pharmacy isn’t a sole proprietorship. I’d write letters — paper letters — explaining the course of the conversation. You don’t need to go into detail about WASA, just explain that you had approval, sought help, and the pharmacist blamed WASA, accused you of yelling, and hung up. If they have your name and the date of the call, they can pull the recording

One hint: if you refer to possible legal action in a polite manner, at many corporations they will have to have someone from legal look at your complaint. They might tell you to buzz off, but it’s possible that this will get your gripe in the hands of someone inclined to act. You might want to mention your hearing impairment, and ask if this is the way they like to treat disabled customers, or if doing so is consistent with the ADA.

I will add that if you do manage to escalate this to someone with authority and willingness to act, there is a strong chance the pharmacist will simply be terminated. If that bothers you, don’t escalate. I would, but I am a bad person.

Expand full comment
Bob's avatar

I’d prefer to see her retrained, both on the system and on what to do in these situations. It’s cold comfort to Holly, but it might make the world a little bit better.

If the training doesn’t take, _then_ let her find another job.

Expand full comment
Pete McCutchen's avatar

Well, when you escalate, you don’t get to decide the consequences.

Expand full comment
Katy in Texas's avatar

One of the best things about being a lawyer, especially working in criminal law, is that we all have a high tolerance for directness and adversarial conversations. No defense attorney mistakes questions, saying no, or making counteroffers as “rude” when they’ve been yelled at by clients with astoundingly unrealistic expectations waiving Google AI “law” in their face.

Expand full comment
Bob Hannaford's avatar

Maybe my coffee has started to kick in because while reading this story I put myself in your place and became extremely angry as if I were suffering this ordeal.

So in some sense, I can honestly say I feel your pain.

Expand full comment
Esme Fae's avatar

My daughter and I recently had a situation while skiing; we stopped at the upper mountain ski bar, then skied down to the main lodge after the lift had stopped at 4 pm. Now, in the past, the lower lodge stayed open well past the lift closing - there was a restaurant and a pro shop that were in the same building and were open in the evenings, so the lodge remained open for access to those. We didn't realize that both the restaurant and the pro shop were now closed due to "staffing shortages," and that the building was now locked and empty at 4:15 pm.

Anyway, our stuff was now stranded inside the locked lodge, and we couldn't get in to get it. After a series of phone calls, the ski resort hotel sent over someone to let us in. However, he only had a cardkey - and all the lodge doors have physical locks. So he had to radio back and forth to the hotel staff a few times before they found someone who had a physical key. The whole process had taken about an hour at this point.

When the guy with a key finally came over and let us in, we discovered that there had been a housekeeper cleaning the lodge the whole time. She had seen us trying every door, and walking around the building peering in the windows; and she had found our ski bags (which she moved to the front desk). She also was an employee of the resort hotel, and was wearing a radio on which she would have heard the numerous calls back and forth about the skiers who needed to get into the lodge to retrieve their belongings. But, when the hotel employee questioned why she hadn't simply let us in, she claimed it was because she "feared for her safety." Because two 5'2" women in ski clothes, who are clearly trying to get in to get their ski bags that you just moved, are an obvious threat to your safety.

I should add that this is a small ski resort, located in a tiny town. It is not a large, bustling resort with thousands and thousands of skiers and tourists - it's the kind of place where if there are 20 people in the lift line, it's a busy day. I am fairly confident there has never been an incident of violent skiers assaulting housekeeping staff in the history of the resort. It was just...bizarre.

Expand full comment
kbi's avatar

It was a "power" move. She was enjoying controlling the "rich" people's inability to gain access - or some other made-up story she told herself about how you "deserved" to be put in your place by little ole, not-so-powerless-now, me...She was laughing at you the entire time. Getting even for all the imagined slights she has been subjected to over her time working there.

Expand full comment
Esme Fae's avatar

Honestly, I don’t think it was. She was young, like in her 20’s, and she didn’t seem very bright. I think she’s just bombarded with messages about danger and being assaulted and violence on TikTok or whatever, and lacked the cognitive ability to think “hey, this is probably not applicable to me at my part-time job on an itty bitty ski mountain in a remote corner of New England; and those two petite women in ski gear are probably not hardened criminals or serial rapists.”

Expand full comment
Josh Slocum's avatar

I love this for several reasons.

1. Someone other than me is pointing out the now-commonplace abuse of customers by staff. Even the non-woke among us (yes, random reader, I'm talking about you) have internalized the Marxist idea that abuse works in only one direction: From Oppressor (customer) to Victim (disempowered staff). We no longer have the mental category "abusive employee who mistreats customer." We think of store staff like we think of single mothers: heroes, pure, blameless, downtrodden, and can't possibly ever be held responsible for their bad behavior.

2. Holly is a woman writing this. Unless you're going to accuse her of "internalized misogyny," no one can write this off as some "misogynist male" who "hates women".

3. This is absolutely female-typical abuse, and it's been socially normalized. The woman featured in this story was acting out classic Cluster B personality disorder behaviors. Reversal, unprovoked aggression, gaslighting, and feigned victimhood while she was the abusive aggressor.

I can also confirm that Holly is telling the truth about herself, her manner, and how she behaves in real life. As her real life friend, I've spent lots of time with her at home, and in public (we're having ALL THE TACOS later tonight).

She *does not yell*. She does not raise her voice. She is unfailingly polite in a way everyone but southerners has forgotten how to be. Yes, she is often too deferential and not assertive enough, but that just underlines the truth of what she says.

Expand full comment
Holly MathNerd's avatar

One of the first things I thought of after Samantha left and I was staring at my clean bathtub and still shaking my head was of the recent situation where you, Dan, and Gator all told me a million times in a million ways to stand up for myself. And now I'm getting hung up on because I'm what? Such an angry, assertive person who stands up for herself *to the detriment of others*? 🤣🤣🤣

Expand full comment
Josh Slocum's avatar

Yes, it's some funny irony. But remember, you're getting hung up on *not because of qualities of Holly the person*, and not because you stood up for yourself. The main ingredient here is the unreasonable person (probably Cluster B) who won't ever be able to relate to people normally.

This bitch is going to "hang up" on anyone and everyone. It's entirely, 100 percent her, and zero percent you. Don't peg your evaluation of how well tactics worked by measuring the behavior of disordered people.

Expand full comment
Holly MathNerd's avatar

❤️❤️❤️

Expand full comment
Scott Miller's avatar

I will elucidate soon, but just went through a similar rabbit-hole with a future ex-wife w/lupus (decades) switching from one BCBS-TX plan to another on retirement.

Absolutely everything that required prior auth or step-therapy was denied on the change.

Similar to your situation, these are not cheap drugs when the insurance fails.

Expand full comment
Courtney's avatar

Two paragraphs stood out so strongly:

This wasn’t a misunderstanding—it was a mischaracterization, a strategic recasting of clarity

as aggression. And it was female-typical bad behavior: using guilt, shame, and social penalty

to shut down another woman’s entirely reasonable attempt to advocate for herself.

And maybe that’s the deeper cost of this kind of behavior. Not just the wasted time, the

stress, or the money—but the way it teaches all of us, especially women, that the price of

asking for what we need is to be labeled difficult, emotional, or unhinged. That the safest

thing is silence. Deference. A swallowed voice.

I have a few similar stories that date back to pregnancy during COVID. In my circumstances it also wasted time, caused tremendous stress and anxiety, probably cost money, etc. Sticking up for myself was worth it and everything worked out in the end, but I still get so angry when I read stories like yours and think back on mine.

In my particular case, only one of my female friends ever took my side when I related the incidences. I think because the framework was COVID no one who advocated for themselves (whether calmly or aggressively) could ever be in the right. Including supposedly best friends. It really made me feel like I was in the Twilight Zone a lot of the time.

I think a lot of women took COVID as an opportunity to act out their female aggression knowing they would not receive any social pushback or condemnation. Now they don't seem to be capable of re-setting themselves. I think this level of aggression has always been present but now they have all kinds of confirmation that, not only will people (especially other women) perpetually excuse it, but larger society (largely steered by women) is adapting itself to facilitate and encourage it. Even though we are no longer in a "pandemic", the ability and willingness to always find a larger, external excuse for rotten, abusive behavior is now the norm.

Expand full comment
Fiestynca's avatar

In the past I almost always tried to look at behaviors with an eye to trying to understand the “why”. Perhaps it because I am older with less time to expend on this exercise, but no, it is because we, our society, has enabled bad behaviors. The online culture has exacerbated this trend. Josh frequently points out that the female of the species is especially prone to heinous behavior and as much as I would like to take umbrage with this characterization, I must agree. I am beginning to believe that the decline in birth rates is because men are rightfully repulsed by these women. Men want to become women now because they can get away with shitty behavior. There are times I despair for all of us.

Expand full comment
HUMDEEDEE's avatar

I had a very mild experience with this kind of behavior this week at the dentist's office. I personally think x-rays are used too extensively and frequently, and when the dental assistant said she would be taking an x-ray, I asked if the periodontist who performed the root canal, for which my dentist was going to do the crown, shared the 3 x-rays he did. I was told no, but no reason why. The periodontist was recommended by my dentist so it made some sense to me that his x-rays would have sufficed. I re-iterated what I've said before about x-rays, that I prefer not having them unless absolutely necessary. The assistant's tone of voice registered exasperation and repeated that the x-rays were necessary, with no indication that I deserved to at least be informed as to the degree of necessity. In the end, 3 x-rays were taken! I'm changing dentists, but I don't know how to persuade any dentist not to bombard me with x-rays!!

Expand full comment
Anne Emerson Hall's avatar

I had x-rays of a tooth that had decayed under its crown at the periodontist where I my feet cleaned. When I went to the dentist who had placed the crown, they had to take their own x-rays to diagnose the extent of the decay and whether the tooth was salvageable. They helpfully showed me that the x-rays sent to them by the periodontist office did not retain enough data in the transmission to be useful. (And they saved the tooth, too.)

Expand full comment
Between Chairs's avatar

Oh Holly. This type of brainwashing is insane. I once was in a similar position with the title of my house. Someone from the title company forgot to file with the registry and the house was officially not owned by me according to records. I had to register my kid for school with the deed of my house. They would not accept any other form of verification that I lived in the school district. The title company had lost access to their data because of a ransomware attack and could not resend the title. I was running out of time for the new school year and every female contact person from the school office to the title company acted like an asshole and pretended there was nothing they could do for me. They basically told me I had to work with the seller of the house again to get a new title reissued. It was bad.

What you experienced is a classical female control move. I have only ever witnessed women doing this. Typically in governmental position. Women who pretend you are at fault, that act victimized for you being assertive, that refuse to help and then hang up.

Thanks for sharing your experience. We need to expose toxic feminity.

Expand full comment
Holly MathNerd's avatar

There is a male substitute pharmacist who works at that pharmacy sporadically who thinks he’s in charge of everyone’s medical care — he refused to fill a prescription once until I answered his questions to his satisfaction (it wasn’t Ivermectin, it was something pretty normal). So I’ve definitely seen men pull this kind of control bullshit, but never with the implication that I or anyone else was out of line with regard to anger at all, much less at them.

Expand full comment
Between Chairs's avatar

I primarily meant the “playing victim” part. The woman from the school office held her hands up as if I was going to hit her… and if you ever see me, I am short and clearly do not have a threatening attitude. It threw me off and made me question what I did to make her this scared… only slowly can I see that it was an act to paint me in a bad light and avoid doing work on her part.

I it is multiple people in the office, there is indeed an office culture going on that seems to breed the seeking of control.

Expand full comment
Holly MathNerd's avatar

Yeah, I see what you mean.

Expand full comment
Sara Samson's avatar

As another woman, I’m going to give you the apology you should have gotten:

‘Ma’am, WASA is <definition> and it’s showing me something completely different from your account, so I’m going to have to ask you to repeat your details so I may document them in order to follow up. My apologies for this inconvenience. I or someone will get back to you once we can resolve this. Thank you.’

Expand full comment
Anne Emerson Hall's avatar

Thank you! This helps me frame what happened yesterday afternoon in the grocery store parking lot. Traffic was stopped in every direction—forward, back, right and, unfortunately, to the left where I thought I was headed. We were all stopped in part because of what looked to be a bunch of bad decisions, such as one car angling to get into the exit lane across three parking spaces, and so on and so forth. I got out of my car to ask a car in the exit lane to pull up, so I could make my left turn, and he kindly explained he was trying to let another car in.

Exit row traffic started to move, but I couldn’t turn because the little Nissan Sentra behind him immediately moved forward the five feet that opened up—and then the traffic stopped again.

I got out of my car again to explain I needed to make the left turn, and the driver rolled down her window and as I spoke, started shouting her reply.

“Leave me alone! I’m only 17!”

Immediately I responded, “So you can still learn.”

She rolled up her window and went back to scrolling on her phone.

I couldn’t process it! Was it because I am a grandmother? Was I threatening? Was it wrong of me to even say anything? This seems to happen more and more in daily life—suffering through simple tasks like shopping in the produce department, the art supply store, standing in line to mail a package while someone loudly shares the details and conflicts of their life over their phone being a prime example.

A car joined the lane two cars back behind me and honked. I got back in my car stunned. Luckily the car behind the Sentra left a space, I could turn at last and pick up what I needed for dinner.

Only 17, but throughly rude and entitled.

Expand full comment
Josh Slocum's avatar

My God. The cheek! When I was 17, I would have been terrified to say something like that to a grown-up lady. It wouldn't even have occurred to me.

We have raised shitty people these past few generations.

Expand full comment