It's been a long time, but I wouldn't mind burying myself deep in a lab.
I'm hoping my Memorial Day weekend camping trip will help ease this, but I'm thinking the only thing I'll get is some bug bites and lots of dirty laundry. :p
Who wants to send my happy optician vibes?
Optilady:
Once upon a time I went on an Opticians fishing trip with 300 opticians from the Houston area aboard. I will spare you some of the more interesting details. But Out of the 300 on board only four of us left the boat sober. On the way home my employer (one of the four sober people) told me that was the reason he went to Houston, he saw the quality of individual in the optical business there and figured that not being like that, he could do well.
This is why so many opticians drink excessively. For the most part the only opportunity is to be over worked, underpaid with little chance for signifcant advancement. And one will always have someone higher on the totem pole with near dictatorial power.
Keep a bottle in the desk for after closing time.
Chip
years ago, I wondered why people in the optical busines drink so much.....25+years later, I now know! But...wouldn't trade it for anything else! (That's not to say that I don't start salivating when vacation time is getting close) :)
It's the reason I left the business.
I get weary unto death of the donkey work; checking out jobs, dealing with insurance, inventory, etc. But it is still fulfilling fun to deal with people (with the usual exceptions). Taking their uncertainty/anxiety, their expectations, their needs, applying a bit of knowledge and experience, and turning it all into a perfectly fitted pair of specs: that's as good as it gets. It's not work, it's sport. Maybe the ego-feed has gotten cheaper as industry standards have eroded, but it's still ego-feed. Too bad about the actual work that has to be done, and the occasional creep.
You can always call me and we can cheer each other up!!
I am pretty much done with the industry right now. After everything that has happened, I do not want to be a part of it. More due to a personal thing than the industry itself.
Once I have either sold or shut down my father's business, I will look into getting laser eye surgery. May also delete OB from my favourites, so I do not come back.
For an industry I loved, it is just bringing in too many bad memories and thoughts.
I'm done. Have not made a pair of glasses in over three years. I do not plan to make another. I have started a process that will allow me to stay out of the optical biz forever!
I know what you mean, honey. I'm there now. Probably once or twice a year, I just wonder what am I doing, still doing the same thing after so many years. I eventually get over it.
I am near total burn out right about now, though. My last vacation was in February of last year. Yeah, I've had a day off here or there, but it was because our son was sick, or we didn't have a sitter (there's only so many back-ups!). One day at a time does not count as "time off." We are going out of town this coming weekend, and I need this so badly. I'll be glad I'm an Optician when I come back, and I'll get back into the swing of it. If I didn't love what I do, I'd have gone to do something else a LONG time ago. I know you feel the same way. Burnout comes and goes; I think our cycles have synced!! Ha! X^D
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
All I can say is.. OMG I'm soo jealous! where are you going camping? I've not been in about a year and it's driving me nuts!
Bart Smith, continuing to be awesome since 1982 so that you don't have to.
Love is a duet, each voice complementing each other and making them sound better than they would alone, each voice at times stepping back and letting the other shine. We've got a pretty good duet going Tina.
On April 28th, I'll be marrying my best friend. I can't wait!
I hate to disappoint, but being burried in a lab does not cure burnout (although if you'd like to relocate, give me a call).
(Totally unrelated, but I brought in two bottles of Mt. Dew this morning, but somehow there are three on my desk, two of them openned, none left from yesterday, none belonging to anyone else......)
Back on topic, my days usually consist of: Being system admin for our LMS software, monitoring all of the lens inventory for 800+ job/day wholesale lab, answering any questions CS doesn't know the answer to for wholesale accounts (usually technical lens questions), double checking all glass jobs (about 150), double checking jobs for "special" wholesale accounts, assisting with frame tracing, lens picking, and edging of "difficult" jobs, solving any data entry issues, being primary contact for all of our lens vendors, and anything else my boss needs done on a given day, incuding, but not limited to, creating/updating/maintaining our wholesale price list, keeping up with all new lenses, creating specific spreadsheets, and, most recently, assisting with creating the new layout for our lab redesign.
On the plus side, I really do like my job. But yes, I hit burnout every 2~3 months. I hope your camping trip helps. While I'm sure there will be bug bites, there is a lot of beautiful land up in New England, so make sure you take a camera, and just think about the positive things.
There are rules. Knowing those are easy. There are exceptions to the rules. Knowing those are easy. Knowing when to use them is slightly less easy. There are exceptions to the exceptions. Knowing those is a little more tricky, and know when to use those is even more so. Our industry is FULL of all of the above.
Yeah, I guess I was a bit of a gloomy gus yesterday. I know that I'm lucky I have a job, my kids are healthy (although according to them they should be in traction with all their 'aches and pains'), we aren't in foreclosure, and my husband is home and only has another 14 days of underway time coming up before I get to keep him for 3 years at home.
I don't know if other women feel this way, but I feel like I either have to be an absolute witch or I get walked all over by my patients. Or even worse, I have to not be myself, because then many feel like I'm their buddy so I'm gonna give away the store. It's not true for all, and I do love the hordes of adoptive grandparents I feel like I've accrued sincing coming to work for an ophthalmology practice, but some are very trying.
Ok, so you've all made me feel better, so thanks for that. I'm going camping in Voluntown, CT, a hole-in-the wall town about 25 minutes from where I live. I'm a little scared of camping for the first time with two girls who could shatter glass when they encounter spiders, but I'm betting it will be fun. Add in a dog and a husband, and I'm sure it will be nothing if not interesting. Plus we're throwing in my daughter's seventh birthday party into the mix, so by day balloons, by night, beer and s'mores?
everything looks and feels better after some time off from the crazies and the daily routine..hope you have a wonderful time
I grew up on camping in the summer and hockey in the winter. Since my mom passed away a year and 1/2 ago, there has been no camping. My dad sold their camper, which was pretty hard to clean it out for him, so I can only hope we can get back into it when we have kids some day. To me, going camping was my time to get away from everything. I didn't worry about work, friends, nothing at all. I would wake up, go outside to drink some coffee and look at a lake and that in itself is the most relaxing thing ever.
I'm hoping that we can go camping with my husband's mom and dad coming up soon. I am REALLY REALLY hoping for that! It's not the patients here that I stress out about..it's the office as a whole, how it's ran and how much drama happens in one day. It makes me want to the bar to drink and eat fried pickles!
oh boy....fried pickles...yum
when I go "home" to the midwest in the summer for 2 weeks(yes, it takes that long to decompress), I do nothing but hang out with family, read books, sleep late, eat good food...lots of nothingness which tides me over to the next time off
I retract what I said previously about not being hungry for dinner...now I really do want beer and fried pickles! :p
When we go camping, it's to a nearby state park in Kentucky. The primitive area is pretty nice and it's easy to spot the n00bs. Every night for as long as I can remember, about 10 PM the skunks come out to canvass the campsites. Now, these are pretty tame as far as a wild skunk can be. What you do is just sit still and watch them go through your camp. If there's nothing for them to scavenge (as it should be) they will just move on to the next campsite. These skunks will take food from your hand and I've seen them chased all over the place by kids without being sprayed, so it really takes a lot for them to get upset.
What's funny is to watch them leave your camp, move on to the next camp, then a mighty ruckus ensues when the n00bs see the skunks and try to chase them off or run away themselves, but it causes quite an uproar. When it dies down, you can still hear the old-timers chuckling from all around.
DragonlensmanWV N.A.O.L.
"There is nothing patriotic about hating your government or pretending you can hate your government but love your country."
So we survived our first camping trip, and it was Super Duper Fun!!!! My poor Abby, my seven year old, seems to be actually allergic to bug bites, because they swelled up so bad, but other than that it was a blast. It was only three days, but I definitely helped my "I want to kill all my patients" attitude I was sporting. Even my dog had a good time. Maybe a few more trips this summer and my burnout will go away.
I am taking the train (yes, the TRAIN) to Chicago to spend a week with my grandson! Just me and Jackson hanging out in the yard and at the park! I can't think of a better way to decompress. The train takes longer than a plane, but that's part of its charm.
"time out" always makes us appreciate what we have
How bout that burnout? Im getting it. I swear I think it makes me work that much harder in class. I like the labwork and the troubleshooting but I think its the public thats giving me the burnout.
Wesley S. Scott, MBA, MIS, ABOM, NCLE-AC, LDO - SC & GA
“As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.” -Albert Einstein
Just remember what Sam Clemens said:
FUN
...a good and wholesome thing is a little harmless fun in this world; it tones a body up and keeps him human and prevents him from souring.
DragonlensmanWV N.A.O.L.
"There is nothing patriotic about hating your government or pretending you can hate your government but love your country."
Originally Posted by DragonLensmanWV
Funny you bring that up; our vacation two weeks ago was to Hannibal, MO, the hometown of Samuel Clemens!! It's just a little touristy place, and we had some good relaxing fun!!
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggggggg gghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Ok, I'm better now. Today has been a perfect example of why I wish I'd never gone back to work.
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