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Dearest Costco,

As you know from my exorbitant spending in your stores, I am a huge fan. In fact, any trip which results in leaving less than $200 behind is considered a victory.

Your prices on organic beef? Phenomenal. Your organic strawberry jam for when my home made stash runs out? Perfect.

Your bakery is the cake maker of choice for my daughter’s birthday parties. Your photo department produces my Christmas Cards beautifully year after year. And before my vision insurance limited its approved vendors to “Acme Budget Eyecare” and “We R Glasses”, I enjoyed great service from your opthamologist every time.

But your Pharmacy…

Oh my. We need some work there, don’t we? You utilize modern technology in every aspect of your operations, yet you shut your pharmacy down in the middle of the day for ‘lunch’. You even have a cute little paper “Will Return About Half An Hour Later Than You Though You Were Going To Have To Stick Around So Go Buy A Churro Or Something” sign in the window.

Oh Costco… sweet Costco… this is 2011. Almost 2012. At the very least you need to tell people that when you say a prescription will be ready in 20 minutes, what you really mean is:

It will take us 20 minutes to turn around, grab a bottle off the shelf, and put it in a little basket. Then, we will shut down for lunch, and come back half an hour after that. So your prescription will be ready in like, an hour.

An hour is fine, really. It is. Even pharmacists and the other four people that work with them need to eat.  All at the same time, apparently. 

It’s not about how long it takes. It’s about telling your customers that your Inside a Box Store Where People Pay Good Money To Have The Privilege Of Shopping There Pharmacy inexplicably pretends it is 1950 for thirty minutes every day, and the entire staff – all five of them – need to shut down the whole pharmacy and leave.  Together.

For lunch.

Love the samples, love the snacks, but for prescriptions? I’m sticking with CVS.

XOXO,

Jen