I see a lot of people on here who seem to think they are not paid enough. Any comments?
I see a lot of people on here who seem to think they are not paid enough. Any comments?
Great question Bill. The profession is ill-defined, and has little similarity from place to place. In Nc, where I am, there are strict requirements, but in, lets say, Maryland, anyone can and often does call themself an Optician. Now, that is not to say that there are not good Opticians in Maryland, or that all Opticians in NC are good. I am sure there is good and bad in both cases. But the point is that generally we don't know who or what we are across the borders. We must re-think the way we educate and train ourselves and have some common ground before we will ever gain the respect we deserve, and we also must seek to expand our scope of practice. A good Optician is worth his/her weight in gold. As an aside, for the education/training required, the average Optician in the country makes just shy of 40K....more than most states pay school teachers with degrees. We really have a pretty good salary level if you think of it in regards to the effort we expend. Now someone who is on the board will come back with "well I don't make that much", and to you I again say I am providing an average across the board, not your specific salary. Also, many on this board will find it interesting to note that statistically there is no significance in salary from licensed to unlicensed states.
wait till you find out how poor the salaries are in the UK.. we would consider a move to the US to see a decent rise in salary!
Has to do with precribers having a near monopoly on Rx's before they get to independents. Thereby allowing precribers to decide how much they will pay the help reguardless of the profits. Also has to do with giant corporations entering into the field and hiring cheap inexperienced help with advertizing budgets that stiffle competiton.
Oh, such is the American way I guess.
But then I have seldom met anyone who felt he was adequately compensated for his time and skills.
Opticians here do rather well with $40,000 up
Have you ever met anyone in any profession who was happy with their salary?
If it was that bad everyone would leave.
Dear all Optometrists on this forum.
In answer to salaries I challenge anyone to come to Spain. Currently the official salary for an optom in the Valencia province is 1480 € in the hand per month.
Can anybody undercut that? ( you are also expected to know to speak Spanish of course on top of completing Continuing Education. Not much left there to maintain your registration in the UK ect.................................
There are just too many Optoms around in this world.
Regards
Claus
You should hear the professors who complain to me that they are not making CEO type salaries. I guess 15 hours a week is too much for them.Originally Posted by RGC_man
We are underpaid because there are too many of us. Get rid of half of the optician population and you will see an increase in your value. Just how to get rid of half I'm not sure.
Chairtime, I LOVE the message!! just had to click to see what happened. The problem with optician pay is not that there are too many opticians, its that there are too many Mcticians. Not enough states have license and those that do seem to be doing their best to crank out more by dumbing down the requirements. We are also to blame. Too many of us will settle for substandard pay just to have a job. By doing this, the OD's, OMD's and chain stores, that most of us work for, laugh at us when we give our pay requirements. Then they hire little Susan for 7.00 an hour(as an apprentice of course) who knows squat but will help keep payroll down. This is starting to sound like a rant,:( sorry.
Paul:cheers:
Thanks, Ziggy. Cincinnati is a great city by the way. The Levee is a great place for dinner. Nice Lenscrafters and Pearle Vision in the mall.
I agree about Mcticians. They are really just frame stylists.
Im sure your satan must be the cause of that, or at least part of the soloution
Not nice, QDO.
Chairtime:
Really wish you'd change your icon
Why don't you get rid of your green, eyeless, thumbs-up, tongue wagger first?
throws in 2 pairs of boxing gloves
I don't think he likes happy avatars.
After reading the posts in this thread, you gotta wonder.
God only knows how this issue has been bounced around. Although I no longer practice as an optician, I've been fortunate to have been a trainer and executive . . . all tolled 39 years worth. What bugs me now, always has, and always will, is the reluctance for each "optician" to contribute as litttle as $1.00/head/yr to pay for marketing of the profession. Yet, without exception, every other single allied medical or health care profession and sub profession has organized with 2 goals: 1, improve education, and, 2, promote the profession. But, WE haven't gotten together on even the mission. WE are a hybrid in denial. Hybrid . . . from half breed . . . craftsperson and health care. In Europe, the optician is as proud of the craft as he is the service. They enjoy displaying quality optical products in addition to eyewear. Here, we still haven't given up on being wannabe optisomethings as close to doctorhood as possible without the schooling, or eyewear cosmetologists (if we let the pendulum swing the other way.). And, the very thought of high quality optical goods is just repulsive to those of us who can't seem to see anything but a white smock. So, we drag along saying "what are we?' and don't even come close to what orthotic technicians are now and did from the days when they were more primitive than we were . . . as recently as 5 years ago! Nice to see there are a lot of folks looking at optics closely, though, from the posts I've seen. Now, I think I'll recede into the shadows another couple years. Bye, sweet people......asw
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