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Thread: Pre- Employment Exam

  1. #1
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    Pre- Employment Exam

    So I am creating an exam of sorts to give to persons that apply for the optician position in our office.

    I have a few questions written down, but what type of knowledge would you require before hiring an employee?

  2. #2
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    It depends on the scope of your practice and what skills you need your Optician to have. I'm amazed at what people do and don't know, and yet are very effective in their jobs because they were placed appropriately within their practice.

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    I look for common sense. ..

    I ask... if I was traveling at the speed of light and I turned on my headlights ... would they do anything?

    I interviewed people with 10 years experience and knowledge but you'd think they only been optical 2 months. One had used office mate most of the 10 years but didn't even know what the rx orders screen is. Others can't work with people that work there. They are competitive and self centered. Combative. ..

    If I hire anyone else I'm going to come up with a way to avoid this. I'd rather train some one from scratch but could get along with Co workers.

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    We had that problem in our office, most of the time its insecurity we just made them realize everyone has their place here and everyone is better at one thing then the other and that is what makes us a team.

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    ABOM Wes's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Slim View Post
    I look for common sense. ..

    I ask... if I was traveling at the speed of light and I turned on my headlights ... would they do anything?
    Since you have mass, you can't travel at the speed of light, only close to it. So let's say you're actually traveling at 99.999999999% the speed of light, you would perceive the beam traveling away from you at the speed of light due to space compression/time dilation.
    Last edited by Wes; 07-23-2014 at 10:47 AM.
    Wesley S. Scott, MBA, MIS, ABOM, NCLE-AC, LDO - SC & GA

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    OptiWizard
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    Hmm. I would have just answered... Yes. The lights would turn on. Now what you perceive to happen is a whole different question. Actually, I'm thinking the real answer is "yes"

    Quote Originally Posted by Slim View Post
    I look for common sense. ..

    I ask... if I was traveling at the speed of light and I turned on my headlights ... would they do anything?

    I interviewed people with 10 years experience and knowledge but you'd think they only been optical 2 months. One had used office mate most of the 10 years but didn't even know what the rx orders screen is. Others can't work with people that work there. They are competitive and self centered. Combative. ..

    If I hire anyone else I'm going to come up with a way to avoid this. I'd rather train some one from scratch but could get along with Co workers.
    Last edited by tntborden; 07-23-2014 at 01:51 PM.
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    OptiBoard Professional Robert Wagner's Avatar
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    Question

    If you're in a car traveling at the speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen?

    Asked by: Nicole

    Answer

    Your question contradicts Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity which states that no object with mass CAN travel at, or above, the speed of light (c). As your car approaches c, its resistance to acceleration (mass) increases so that it would take an impossibly infinite force to actually reach c. Your question, then, is based on an impossible premise. It's like asking 'What would happen if I reached the North Pole and kept going north?'

    As you approach the speed of light with your headlights on, however, you would still measure the light beam racing away from your car at 186,000 miles per second (c). A 'stationary' observer watching this happen, though, would not then measure the beam's speed at almost twice c. Relativity says that all observers always get the same measurement for c.

    While that may not sound logical or plausible, it happens because what we normally think of as fixed concepts--length and time--are both variable at high speeds. If you observed a car travelling past you at close to c, its length in the direction of travel would appear shortened and the passage of time on board would appear slowed down.

    Although these ideas sound strange to all of us not used to moving at relativistic speeds, they have all been confirmed experimentally.

    Answered by: Paul Walorski, B.A. Physics, Part-time Physics Instructor



    First of all, you need to realize that when you say you are traveling at the speed of light, that has to be with respect to, or relative to, something else. It is an underlying fundamental assumption of Einstein's special theory of relativity that uniform, non-accelerated motion has no meaning of and by itself. That is, there is, by assumption, no meaning to the idea of moving uniformly at the speed of light in an empty universe. That state is completely equivalent to being at rest in an empty universe..

    I preface my answer with this comment because it leads immediately to the answer to the question. Imagine that you are in your car 'traveling at the speed of light' and that you turn on your headlights. That state of motion is utterly equivalent to being at rest in an empty universe. Since, when at rest, the light from your headlights would be launched forward from your car at the speed of light, relative to you, with a certain color spectrum, that is exactly what would happen if somehow you could be moving instead at the speed of light.

    In other words, the presence or absence of other objects or matter in the universe relative to which, if present, you could make a determination that you were moving at the speed of light makes absolutely no difference to your own experiences and experiments. The light that you launch behaves in exactly the same way whether the other referential matter exists or not.

    This leads into another interesting question, however. And that is whether the rest of the matter (mass) in the universe in some way affects your own local observations. So far this question has come up in relation to theories of gravity. If effect, the question is how does the universal gravitational constant, G, which determines how strongly gravitating masses attract each other, know what value to assume if there is no other mass in the universe. Mach proposed, essentially on philosophical grounds, that G must be determined by the sum total of all of the mass in the universe. Einstein assumed in his General Theory of Relativity that G is simply a universal constant, independent of the specific mass distribution of the universe. On the other hand, Brans and Dicke later proposed a so-called scalar-tensor theory of gravity in which the local value of G depends upon the rest of the mass in the universe through an additional scalar field that does not appear in Einstein's theory.

    Answered by: Warren Davis, Ph.D., President, Davis Associates, Inc., Newton, MA USA
    There are many things in life that catch your eye... but very few things will catch your heart.... Pursue those!

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    Lmao Robert. You're hired.

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    OptiWizard OptiBoard Bronze Supporter pezfaerie's Avatar
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    Bravo Robert!
    Pez:D

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    Master OptiBoarder TLG's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jstanfast View Post
    So I am creating an exam of sorts to give to persons that apply for the optician position in our office.

    I have a few questions written down, but what type of knowledge would you require before hiring an employee?
    I had an interview recently at an optometrist's office that entertained me with a "Personality Test" (their term). I didn't get the position but have wondered since if it's because I'm not 25, female and willing to work for peanuts or....I simply have a bad personality.

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    Master OptiBoarder OptiBoard Gold Supporter Judy Canty's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TLG View Post
    I had an interview recently at an optometrist's office that entertained me with a "Personality Test" (their term). I didn't get the position but have wondered since if it's because I'm not 25, female and willing to work for peanuts or....I simply have a bad personality.
    +1

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    Master OptiBoarder rbaker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TLG View Post
    I had an interview recently at an optometrist's office that entertained me with a "Personality Test" (their term). I didn't get the position but have wondered since if it's because I'm not 25, female and willing to work for peanuts or....I simply have a bad personality.
    If you are ever asked on a job interview "if you could be an animal what animal would you be?" run, don't walk away.

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    OptiBoard Professional nicksims's Avatar
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    Slim,

    What have been some of the answers given to you? Anything worth telling here?

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    Master OptiBoarder TLG's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rbaker View Post
    If you are ever asked on a job interview "if you could be an animal what animal would you be?" run, don't walk away.
    OK, you've piqued my curiousity; what animal did you say you would like to be? And what position did you not get?

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    Only did it once to be honest... lol. I didn't make them answer it. So sorry no funny stories .

    I always say no they won't project any light provided you could travel at exactly the speed . Also... just saw it on how the universe works show the other day and said the same thing. I'm addicted to those shows .

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    Master OptiBoarder opty4062's Avatar
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    Back to the OP, we have had potential employees come in for a working interview where we get to see them in action with patients and current employees. Sometimes that can show you more than anything they can say in person or on paper.

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    I worked in an office where The doctor asked me if I knew when Cristopher Columbus discovered America. He asked me how old the earth was. He also wanted to know what -3 + 2 was. It then became a rant about how awful his current lab guy was and evolved into a discussion about audio electronics. It was a weird interview and probably my favorite job in the whole world. I think he was looking for general knowledge and the ability to carry on a conversation. You may want to craft some questions about basic math skills, general optics (nothing to technical), the ability to identify a lined bifocal or progressive lens, frame anatomy, lensometry, frame selection for different face shapes, how to make change? I dunno, sounds pretty solid

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    Doh! braheem24's Avatar
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    I ask them how much they want, Ask them to come in and work for a day.

    At the end of the day, I pay them their asking price for the 8 hours.

    No BS questions, No beating around the bush, No surprises.

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    Compulsive Truthteller OptiBoard Gold Supporter Uncle Fester's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jstanfast View Post
    So I am creating an exam of sorts to give to persons that apply for the optician position in our office.

    I have a few questions written down, but what type of knowledge would you require before hiring an employee?
    How often does this position turn over?

  20. #20
    Master OptiBoarder rbaker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by braheem24 View Post
    I ask them how much they want, Ask them to come in and work for a day.

    At the end of the day, I pay them their asking price for the 8 hours.

    No BS questions, No beating around the bush, No surprises.
    Here here! We used to do it for a week and occasionally they just lasted the first day. Going to lunch or stopping in at your local gin mill will probably tell you all about the prospective employee that you will need to know.

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    I applied for an optician position once, and the office manager ran up a complete astrological chart on me. She called me in for an interview and basically informed me they didn't hire Scorpios. Probably the weirdest interview I'd evern been to.

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    Master OptiBoarder NCspecs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soobie View Post
    I applied for an optician position once, and the office manager ran up a complete astrological chart on me. She called me in for an interview and basically informed me they didn't hire Scorpios. Probably the weirdest interview I'd evern been to.
    Oh my, I'm dying....

    My brother was interviewing for a Business Intelligence Analyst position that would have transfered him to live in St. Thomas (Tough gig, huh?). One of the questions he was asked was "Have you ever burned bacon?"

    The premise was that EVERYONE has burned bacon and if you say no then you are lying, putting your integrity in question.
    "Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened beings; only enlightened activity." -Shunryu Suzuki

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