Mirrors: friend or foe?

[optilady1]

How would you feel, as a recent purchaser of $500 worth of glasses, ready to see how fab you look, and maybe if you can see too. The function is important, but come on, it's new glasses and you want to check yourself out. You sit at a nice dispensing table, your new glasses are displayed tastefully on some shmancy tray, and you try them on. You look around, and....there are no mirrors. The polite dispenser asks you how they feel, adjusts the glasses and checks the fit, but you can't concentrate because you want to know how you look. You check your vision, and its fine, but darn it, where's the mirror. There are a bunch on the wall, but you are sitting at a table and they are about 20 feet away. Then your friendly neighborhood optician hands you a tablet with a camera function pulled up and you only get to look at yourself while seated with a tablet. It's impossible to actually look at yourself because of the awkward angle of the camera, and it's not high def so you actually look like crap in the florescent lighting. You ask if they have any mirrors at the table, and you are cheerfully told that they have no more, but you can take a selfie and send it to your friend.

What say you? Am I just being crabby because I still don't know where I'm moving to in 6 weeks, or is this the stupidest thing you've ever heard of?

[uncut]

Not crabby......just........excited with life's adventures. I agree that there is no match for a high quality, well lit mirror to reflect the impact of the "first view", privately.

[huskypaul]

I'd get onto the optical hot line and call one of my wonderful vendors and have them send me some hand held mirrors, stat.

[Chris Ryser]

When you customer chose the frame you had mirrors or he would have gone to your competition.
What did ou do with the mirrors since then ?

You should be ashamed to work for a place without them and your customers might as well go on-line for cheaper without mirrors.

[Johns]

You should be ashamed to work for a place without them and your customers might as well go on-line for cheaper without mirrors.

...because you KNOW that your only other competition is on-liners.

ZZZZZZZ.....ZZZZZZZ....ZZZZZ.............................

[opty4062]

I'd be annoyed to get home or to work and see how they really look.

You could just pop put to the local hobby lobby for a decorative desktop mirror for each dispensing table. We have several. They are attractive, do the job and inexpensive(less than $20)to replace when some inattentive parent lets a kiddo trash one.

[rbaker]

If you have both mirrors and smoke you have a perfect age old combination to pull the wool over any ones eyes. Combiner with:

A little song
a little dance
a little seltzer down their pants

and you will go far.

[Happylady]

Are you saying the place you work doesn't have mirrors on the tables?

[rbaker]

Are you saying the place you work doesn't have mirrors on the tables?

No mirrors. No table. I retired in 2000. How sweet it is!

In truth I left the retail end of the eye care vineyard in the late 1970's. I saw what was happening to a craft that I loved and decided move on to something else.

[chaoticneutral]

there are alternatives

[DanLiv]

Yes that's pretty dumb. Clearly an "upper management" attempt to appear high-tech and up on the modern selfie trend. Unfortunately this strategy overlooks that both 13-yo selfie-obsessed girls, rabid technology enthusiasts, and whatever other demographic management is trying to appeal to still use mirrors in their own homes to check their appearance, not their phones or tablets. Even if some people do think that's cool and would enjoy it, do they really need to remove the alternative?

[drk]

Right on, Dan-Liv.

[kcox]

How would you feel, as a recent purchaser of $500 worth of glasses, ready to see how fab you look, and maybe if you can see too. The function is important, but come on, it's new glasses and you want to check yourself out. You sit at a nice dispensing table, your new glasses are displayed tastefully on some shmancy tray, and you try them on. You look around, and....there are no mirrors. The polite dispenser asks you how they feel, adjusts the glasses and checks the fit, but you can't concentrate because you want to know how you look. You check your vision, and its fine, but darn it, where's the mirror. There are a bunch on the wall, but you are sitting at a table and they are about 20 feet away. Then your friendly neighborhood optician hands you a tablet with a camera function pulled up and you only get to look at yourself while seated with a tablet. It's impossible to actually look at yourself because of the awkward angle of the camera, and it's not high def so you actually look like crap in the florescent lighting. You ask if they have any mirrors at the table, and you are cheerfully told that they have no more, but you can take a selfie and send it to your friend.

What say you? Am I just being crabby because I still don't know where I'm moving to in 6 weeks, or is this the stupidest thing you've ever heard of?

I would get more mirrors. We have little mirrors and a few larger ones throughout our optical shop so that when people are looking, it doesn't take them longer than 10 seconds to see how they look.

[Judy Canty]

And don't forget a full-length mirror as well.

[TLG]

...and those magnifiying mirrors that are oh-so-popular with women of all ages

[Judy Canty]

...and those magnifiying mirrors that are oh-so-popular with women of all ages

and hyperopes of both genders...

[CCGREEN]

Personally I despise a mirror at the dispensing table but I know it is a necessary evil.
So when I dispense I take it away for a moment.......while I finish my job. Adjust the nose pads, move the temples up or down, move their hair to the side, look behind the ear, make the proper bend back there. Make sure they sit level. Match them to the unequal eyebrows later if that is what they want. I don't even let them have a reading card till I am finished adjusting.
I like to try and impress upon the patient I know what I am doing. I cant do my job if they want to look in the mirror and start critiquing what has not been addressed yet. And doing it that way also keeps table time down to a minimum.

[Johns]

Personally I despise a mirror at the dispensing table but I know it is a necessary evil.
So when I dispense I take it away for a moment.......while I finish my job. .

Really, do you stick it in your pocket, or carry it under your arm? If this were a Seinfeld episode, could we call you the "Mirror Nazi"?

We have mirrors all over, but especially popular are the pull-down (Swinger is the brand name) mirrors that pull from the ceiling. When we remodeled, we bought for of them, and mounted everything but the mirror and the wire inside the ceiling. They are great for kids, as they pull all the way down to the floor, then go neatly back to the ceiling when finished. EVERYBODY really likes them, and at one time, I was stocking, and reselling them.

[drk]

What? How do you get them down? Don't tall guys bump their heads?

[Johns]

What? How do you get them down? Don't tall guys bump their heads?

Never had an issue. Our hiring process includes taking height measurements to assure that the employees are capable of carrying out all dispensing area duties. If the don't meet the height requirement, we give them a test to determine their ability to stand on a rolling office chair, while pulling the mirror from the ceiling.

The mirror is about 7 ft from the ground, and has not hit anyone yet.

[Fred Dagg]

Never had an issue. Our hiring process includes taking height measurements to assure that the employees are capable of carrying out all dispensing area duties. If the don't meet the height requirement, we give them a test to determine their ability to stand on a rolling office chair, while pulling the mirror from the ceiling.

The mirror is about 7 ft from the ground, and has not hit anyone yet.

You possibly need a bit more zap to wow today's jaded consumer. The way forward is perhaps to modify a garage door system with mirrors, and have it trundle down from the ceiling at a click from a remote control.

[drk]

I'm calling the EEOC on you, Johns.

Randy Neuman would be proud.

[Johns]

[QUOTE=Fred Dagg;487692]You possibly need a bit more zap to wow today's jaded consumer. The way forward is perhaps to modify a garage door system with mirrors, and have it trundle down from the ceiling at a click from a remote control.[/QUOTE

See! I told you guys we needed some fresh blood here to bring in some new ideas! I like that!

Ok, let's do this right: We'll take you're garage door system, leave the door on it, cover it entirely with mirrors, then mount a dispensing table, chairs, and velcro a PD stick all in place. This way, your office won't be cluttered w/useless items such as mirrors and desks until the exact moment you need them! When the door is in the "up " position, you can use the open floor space to host BINGO games for senior citizen women (they make ALL the buying decisions), and score some extra income.

Yeah...I'm liking this idea...

[drk]

How about frame boards on garage doors?

If a well-heeled customer comes in, boom, you lower only the good stuff.

If it's a penny-pincher, you lower only the stuff you buy second-hand from us saps.

[CCGREEN]

Really, do you stick it in your pocket, or carry it under your arm? If this were a Seinfeld episode, could we call you the "Mirror Nazi"?

We have mirrors all over, but especially popular are the pull-down (Swinger is the brand name) mirrors that pull from the ceiling. When we remodeled, we bought for of them, and mounted everything but the mirror and the wire inside the ceiling. They are great for kids, as they pull all the way down to the floor, then go neatly back to the ceiling when finished. EVERYBODY really likes them, and at one time, I was stocking, and reselling them.

No Johns its not hard to do. I take my right hand pick up said mirror move it 23.5 inches to my right placing it on said dispensing table top. Proceed with task at hand of adjusting said glasses to fit the patient properly. Then I reach in the drawer and pull out some reading material while I am reaching for the mirror. I then place said mirror and said reading material in front the the patient and.........POW! They are hit with the WOW! affect. Be it good bad or indifferent I have completed my job FIRST. Now the patient may start critiquing their hair their lipstick their makeup their wrinkles even discover the spinach between their teeth.