opticians today vs opticians in the past

[Opticianjw]

Recently I had a conversation about optician skills, knowledge and overall skill level comparison from opticians 30 years ago. The optician 30 years ago had to be more conscience of the frame fit because the lenses and frames were much heavier. Ordering the proper bridge size, bridge style and temple length was more crucial to making a patient comfortable. Aphakic lenses and facet eyewear is a thing of the past which needed a highly knowledgeable Optician to fit and dispense. Repairs, like hidden hinges soldering and custom work was an art that very few opticians do or know about today. Lab work was much more time consuming and difficult, making sure lenses fit properly and was accurate was an art and showed a disparity between different levels of skill, which was clear in the final product. Making patterns, calculating measurements, custom tinting made making a pair of eye glasses take more time and skill then using the automized lab equipment that we generally use today. Tinting and UV coating lenses that was done 30 years ago has primarily been replace with transition and polarized lenses. Dispensing was also a speciality that patients recognized someone that could properly fit and adjusted a pair of eyeglasses. Today, because the styles are generally small and the material are very light are not as uncomfortable, even if not fit properly. Fitting for progressive lenses and digital technology is continually changing, staying updated is much more important for todays opticians. Fitting today, regardless if you are using a digital centration system or not is more important to be accurate than when selling flat tops, kryptoc and executive bifocals. Added measurements such as face form, vertex distance and panto angle are needed today when selling the most advanced personalized lenses, which were not needed before.

[MakeOptics]

Recently I had a conversation about optician skills, knowledge and overall skill level comparison from opticians 30 years ago. The optician 30 years ago had to be more conscience of the frame fit because the lenses and frames were much heavier. Ordering the proper bridge size, bridge style and temple length was more crucial to making a patient comfortable. Aphakic lenses and facet eyewear is a thing of the past which needed a highly knowledgeable Optician to fit and dispense. Repairs, like hidden hinges soldering and custom work was an art that very few opticians do or know about today. Lab work was much more time consuming and difficult, making sure lenses fit properly and was accurate was an art and showed a disparity between different levels of skill, which was clear in the final product. Making patterns, calculating measurements, custom tinting made making a pair of eye glasses take more time and skill then using the automized lab equipment that we generally use today. Tinting and UV coating lenses that was done 30 years ago has primarily been replace with transition and polarized lenses. Dispensing was also a speciality that patients recognized someone that could properly fit and adjusted a pair of eyeglasses. Today, because the styles are generally small and the material are very light are not as uncomfortable, even if not fit properly. Fitting for progressive lenses and digital technology is continually changing, staying updated is much more important for todays opticians. Fitting today, regardless if you are using a digital centration system or not is more important to be accurate than when selling flat tops, kryptoc and executive bifocals. Added measurements such as face form, vertex distance and panto angle are needed today when selling the most advanced personalized lenses, which were not needed before.

30 years ago they were just starting to offer a variety of materials and options, AR sucked, contacts were yearly replacement and an optician had time to focus on the simple things in life like spending 8 hours making one pair of glasses. We don't polish lenses by hand anymore at a buffing wheel we press a button on the machine. We don't spend our time on being labor we spend our time being professionals and discussing the plethora of options with the patient.

I think we keep trying to create these super opticians today lie it existed int he past but I have not really meet these highly skilled opticians everyone speaks about. Most the time they are good opticians and if they were stuck in there ways and never decided to learn they are mediocre opticians with good optical history.

It's like asking who would win in a fight a dinosaur or a marine with a m-16, you may want to say the dinosaur but they're extinct so they lost before the question was asked.

[uncut]

Well, snap my wooden PD ruler, kiddies!

Yup, all innovations that are currently are available to you, Phitrace, and optician jw, are new, yup, and your old, decrepit opticians like me, and Chip couldn't hold a candle, errr, halogen bulb, next to all them smart young whippersnappers, yup, yup!

[Barry Santini]

The mass market brands today can't be fitted to the highest levels of the art. Period. Inquiries regarding Institutional memory about proper design and fit at frame companies returns a "huh?"

Computerized edgers let skilled opticians do a far far better job today that they ever could in the past, regardless of degree of hand skill. Facets and drilling? No contest - I could never go back to the old ways. Tinting in the era of coated lenses is a joke. Maybe there'll soon be a Crizal "tint" that'll be more than my cable bill.

Yeah, soldering and hinge repairs come in handy once in a while. Far more often, a disc'd frame and a quick recut is a far better option today.

Today, persuading a whole new group of young, online saavy customers that you and your business has value is high art, as far as I'm concerned.

B

[RIMLESS]

Today, persuading a whoe new group of young, online saavy customers that you and your business has value is high art, as far as I'm concerned.B

Very very true. That will be a key survival tool for everyone. I think right now we are all in a phase where we are going to witness the internet totally redefine the rules of business across the board. IMHO I predict that the www will eventually have to force retail rents to be lowered to allow Brick & Mortar entities to remain profitable and competitive with the cloud.

Down the road the good old days for us will probably include remembering the pre-internet days, while the new generations of the three O's won't even know what they missed.

[uncut]

Oy..................

30 years ago they were just starting to offer a variety of materials and options, AR sucked, contacts were yearly replacement and an optician had time to focus on the simple things in life like spending 8 hours making one pair of glasses. Wrong, and a very false statement. We don't polish lenses by hand anymore at a buffing wheel we press a button on the machine. Yes, punching a button is......very....skillful, until you need to do a partial polish, then what?. We don't spend our time on being labor we spend our time being professionals and discussing the plethora of options with the patient. Hate to burst your bubble, but you have less of a plethora, and more of a narrow choice of options than 30 years ago!

I think we keep trying to create these super opticians today lie it existed int he past but I have not really meet these highly skilled opticians everyone speaks about. Most the time they are good opticians and if they were stuck in there ways and never decided to learn they are mediocre opticians with good optical history.

It's like asking who would win in a fight a dinosaur or a marine with a m-16, you may want to say the dinosaur but they're extinct so they lost before the question was asked.

ARs didn't suck..................the good ones lasted for years, and just weren't as scratch resistant, or easy to clean. Contacts were available in a bi-weekly mode, and made in at least 2 or 3 base curves, usually 2 diameters, if not more, and you could actually fit a human with them.

[uncut]

Recently I had a conversation about optician skills, knowledge and overall skill level comparison from opticians 30 years ago. The optician 30 years ago had to be more conscience of the frame fit because the lenses and frames were much heavier.
The opticians then were just more consciencious, and had the availablity of many lens sizes, bridge sizes, and temple lengths, and at least 4 to 6 colors to choose from in each frame. A frame made in one size only was a rarity, and considered substandard.
Ordering the proper bridge size, bridge style and temple length was more crucial to making a patient comfortable.
No....they were actually just fitting, not selling.
Aphakic lenses and facet eyewear is a thing of the past which needed a highly knowledgeable Optician to fit and dispense.
Aphakic fit took skill, but facets were for fun.
Repairs, like hidden hinges soldering and custom work was an art that very few opticians do or know about today. I agree.
Lab work was much more time consuming and difficult, making sure lenses fit properly and was accurate was an art and showed a disparity between different levels of skill, which was clear in the final product.
Still is.....it's easy to spot a bad trace, even today.
Making patterns, calculating measurements, custom tinting made making a pair of eye glasses take more time and skill then using the automized lab equipment that we generally use today.
I find that some patternless edgers take longer to set up the lenses, and cut than before!
Tinting and UV coating lenses that was done 30 years ago has primarily been replace with transition and polarized lenses.
Say what! Not new stuff, especially polarized.
Dispensing was also a speciality that patients recognized someone that could properly fit and adjusted a pair of eyeglasses.
They still search for this, but honestly, eventually give up.
Today, because the styles are generally small and the material are very light are not as uncomfortable, even if not fit properly.
Yes excuses and I have seen some real rocks on people's faces.
Fitting for progressive lenses and digital technology is continually changing, staying updated is much more important for todays opticians.
If you can get any technical information from your company/maker, or even have a choice in what you use.
Fitting today, regardless if you are using a digital centration system or not is more important to be accurate than when selling flat tops, kryptoc and executive bifocals.
I call BS.
Added measurements such as face form, vertex distance and panto angle are needed today when selling the most advanced personalized lenses, which were not needed before.

More BS in your last bit of verbal diarrhea, and probably the funniest statement of this whole ramble. Faceform, vertex, panto, are very old concepts, but of course, everybody young thinks they have.....................

invented the wheel.

[cocoisland58]

I wouldn't trade the training I got 30 years ago and my "old school" skills come in handy all the time but I don't miss those days. Technology has made my work day easier and at my age that's not a bad thing.

[Johns]

IMHO I predict that the www will eventually have to force retail rents to be lowered to allow Brick & Mortar entities to remain profitable and competitive with the cloud.
.

Like they lowered the rents for drug stores, video stores, and travel agents to compete? I don't think so...

[RIMLESS]

Still way too early. Not enough pain and suffering yet.

[hcjilson]

ARs didn't suck..................the good ones lasted for years, and just weren't as scratch resistant, or easy to clean. Contacts were available in a bi-weekly mode, and made in at least 2 or 3 base curves, usually 2 diameters, if not more, and you could actually fit a human with them.

Someone ought to tell phi trace that in Europe and Japan, 30 years ago, the 85% of the spectacle wearing public was wearing AR lenses.They were as you describe. No one from the 2 largest lens producing areas in the world could figure out why. Actually, they're still trying to figure out why even though our usage has increased. I watched George Stefanopolis this AM and was surprised to see George Will and whomever his counterpart was on the show NOT in AR lenses. All you could see was the reflection of the studio lighting. Very distracting! We haven't learned much in 30 years....except some of us older opticians had that knowledge 30 years ago. I wouldn't be as fast as phi trace or opticianjw to put something down they know so little about.I qualify that statement with the following: I started running errands in my dad's shop at age 13 in 1953. My apprenticeship date was August 1959 . Licensure followed in Dec of 1964, Like my Friend Chip, and Uncut, I've been around a while.

PS I am finally retired....except for family and friends.(Kicking and screaming however, a man needs a place to GO on Monday mornings!

PPS Did someone mention Krypie's? That ought to send the whippersnappers back to the Optician's Job Coach! (whatever the heck that was) I vaguely recall it but my memory is about shot!

[Chris Ryser]

Repairs, like hidden hinges soldering and custom work was an art that very few opticians do or know about today.

TThe optician 30 years ago had to be more conscience of the frame fit because the lenses and frames were much heavier.

.............................. Aphakic lenses and facet eyewear is a thing of the past which needed a highly knowledgeable Optician to fit and dispense.

inting and UV coating lenses that was done 30 years ago has primarily been replace with transition and polarized lenses.

Dispensing was also a speciality that patients recognized someone that could properly fit and adjusted a pair of eyeglasses.

..............................regardless if you are using a digital centration system or not is more important to be accurate than when selling flat tops, kryptoc and executive bifocals. Added measurements such as face form, vertex distance and panto angle are needed today when selling the most advanced personalized lenses, which were not needed before.

What a sad comment or better said comments, a whole load of them......................................
What an excuse for not having the knowdlege needed do be able to do just anout everything. The statements above I hope is are not a general consensus.

It reflexes the opinions that you only sell the expensive items that have been made in somebody else's lab where you purchase it made and finished by some body else and then resell it at your usual margin, as if it was your product, which has triggered the birth of on line opticals and their ever mounting advance.

The sale of AR made on Rs's is in the 30-40% range these days. In the old days we used to see better fitting glasses tha we do today, because opticians had to have proof of education and some expirience before they were allowed to serve consumers. Your fanciest equipment for measuring or finishing is just as good as the knowdledge of being able to do without them.

In earlier days these products used to be made by people with expirence that knew their trade inside out and were justified to charge a good selling price for their know how................not any more so.

[Jacqui]

PPS Did someone mention Krypie's? That ought to send the whippersnappers back to the Optician's Job Coach! (whatever the heck that was) I vaguely recall it but my memory is about shot!

I remember Krypies surfaced about 9 gazillion pairs of them. Some were from semi-finished blanks and some we made in-house either by gluing a button on the plus side or by fusing a segment on. Just used my copy of the Job Coach this morning

P.S. Been at this 43+ years

[finefocus]

I remember Krypies surfaced about 9 gazillion pairs of them. Some were from semi-finished blanks and some we made in-house either by gluing a button on the plus side or by fusing a segment on. Just used my copy of the Job Coach this morning

P.S. Been at this 43+ years

Yes, but Kryptoks were old technology even then; centex curves, for goodness sakes! No, the hot setup was the shiny new Tillyer "D". Not a flattop, as a D-seg is now, but a round seg on corrected curves.

How old do you have to be to post in this thread?

[Barry Santini]

Yes, but Kryptoks were old technology even then; centex curves, for goodness sakes! No, the hot setup was the shiny new Tillyer "D". Not a flattop, as a D-seg is now, but a round seg on corrected curves.

How old do you have to be to post in this thread?

Interesting. Back then, corrected curve was considered important...independant of Rx power. Today, who gives a ****?
And people make fun of my pushin' of FFSV....

Go figure.

B