The old man, who was hard of hearing, walked into the pharmacy with his prescription to be filled.
He greeted his pharmacist cordially, exchanged some pleasantries about the weather and gave his prescription to the trusted pharmacist who smiled and said: “We’ll take care of you right away, sir.”
The pharmacist gave the prescription to his pharmacist technician-in-training and said “Take care of this for the old fellow up front”.
Pharmacist assistant-in-training filled the prescription, brought the bag of medicine to the old man at the counter and said: “Here you are sir. That’ll be 88 dollars and 25 cents.”
The old fellow, who was hard of hearing, only heard the last part of the sentence: the “25 cents” and as he was rummaging in his pocket for a quarter, the young pharmacist’s assistant-in-training became impatient and distracted. Finally, the old fellow found the quarter which he pulled it out of his pocket, put it on the counter before taking his medication and walking out the door.
By the time young pharmacist assistant saw the sole quarter on the counter and realized what happened, the old man was gone!
Now the young pharmacist’s assistant-in-training felt in terrible distress and the old pharmacist, seeing this anguish, came over to ask his assistant-in-trainingwhat the problem was.
“There’s been a horrible mistake!” cried the pharmacist’s assistant-in-training! Then he explained the whole story about how he had clearly told the old patient that the drug cost $88.25 – he assured the pharmacist that he had said that – but to his dismay, the old man had only heard the last part of the cost: the 25 cents, and that a quarter was all that was left to pay for the entire month’s supply of medication!
Tears were forming in the assistant-in-training’s eyes when the wise old pharmacist, slapped him on the back, pocketed the quarter with a smile and extorted his young colleague as follows: “Buck up, young fellow. Remember the first rule of business for any pharmacist is that 100% profit is better than nothing!”