Rant

[lensmanmd]

Me: Your PAL order @11mm SH is below minimum
Optician: Thats how it fits. Raise it to minimum if you must
Me: It’s below minimum. Change frames, change bifocal style, or remeasure.
Optician:

I am the Ahole.
Fight me!

[Kwill212]

Imagine how ridiculous a frame would look if actually had a properly measured fitting height of 11mm...

[drk]

Talk to anyone else in the office?

[lensmanmd]

Talk to anyone else in the office?

Sup was copied. Not a peep from the sup. Sigh. And they are all ABOC. So much for certifications.

[mervinek]

And they are all ABOC. So much for certifications.

It's sad, really. I worked with people who were ABOC and were dumb as a box of rocks. You'll have that in every field. It's frustrating when you're the coworker that has to clean up that mess. It's frustrating when you're the lab dealing with people like that. I remember working in the lab and getting an order that was -4.00 one eye and +4.00 other eye. I questioned it. Optician was super offended and angry. Fast forward a week and she ordered a remake for the +4.00 Should have been a -4.00. Face Palm. You mentioned the bulletin board you used to do, we used to dream about a website called badframes.com. Every time we got an ugly frame or bad condition frame we would all say..."this belongs on the website!" This kind of stuff lightens your day and makes lab staff laugh. Extra bonus points if you include a photo of staff wearing the ugly frame.

[lensmanmd]

McTicians

[Lensman11]

Poorly trained opticians are nothing new. When I owned a wholesale lab we used put on a bulletinboard the ridiculous things customers would order or request. This brings to mind one of my favorites. This was early days of progressives and frames did not have demo lenses so it was popular to put clear adhesive tape across the eyewire and put a cross at the pupil height. This usually meant that mono pd was at the same position so lab had to take the measurements off the cross to fill the order. We received a frame with black electrician tape across the eyewire with a white cross to mark the pupil position. We call the optician his answer was I was told to put a piece of tape across the eyewire and mark a cross on the tape. Good intentions but zero understanding as to what he was doing. This was in the early 1980’s.

[Barry Santini]

The Fitting Height is just that: The position intended by the fitter.
Do not assume this is always one and the same with the pupil height.
And it is rarely the same as the OC Height

B

[AngeHamm]

A majority of the most aggressively useless people I have had to work with in this business have been licensed.

[Uncle Fester]

A majority of the most aggressively useless people I have had to work with in this business have been licensed.

HEY YOU! TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW!!!

[Judy Canty]

A majority of the most aggressively useless people I have had to work with in this business have been licensed.

Hmmmm...

[lensmanmd]

Hmmmm...

AngeHamm is not wrong. We have clinics in VA that I support. Many are good. Many are……and I'm trying to be very polite.

[Judy Canty]

There are more than 1900 licensed opticians in VA. I doubt that either of you have worked with the majority of them.

[lensmanmd]

There are more than 1900 licensed opticians in VA. I doubt that either of you have worked with the majority of them.

I support NOVA, so yes, not the majority. My sample size says enough.

I’ve also worked in NOVA alongside licensed opticians, as well as apprentices. Real world experience says the same. Many were qualified. Many were not. As the SME, they came to me with questions that they should have known as an LDO.

I was a Maryland resident at the time and was not granted the opportunity to sit for the board, though I worked FT in VA. I still regret not appealing that decision.

[Uilleann]

In fairness, I've attended countless classes over the decxades taught but "master" and "advanced" opticians, and all manner of licenses from across the country - and more than a few were precisely this dense themselves. *shrug*

[Judy Canty]

In fairness, I've attended countless classes over the decxades taught but "master" and "advanced" opticians, and all manner of licenses from across the country - and more than a few were precisely this dense themselves. *shrug*

Oh, here we go again. Don't see the need for a license, don't get one.

[Lensman11]

A license is meant to protect the public from untrained people in any profession. Having a license never guarantees the level of competency just that you passed some kind of test to show you have some basic knowledge in the field of your license. We have all come across professionals that don’t know quite know as much as they should just don’t do business with them and don’t hire them.

[Judy Canty]

You still didn't answer my question about not being allowed to take the VA exam.

[Uilleann]

*Grabs popcorn*

[lensmanmd]

*Grabs popcorn*

Popping some now. I prefer mine with a shake of Tajin and chipotle powder.
A wild and spicy ride. I’m done with this rant, so I’ll enjoy the ride. VA refused my license request. It is what it is, regardless. Their loss. Not like VA requires CEs for renewal.

Annndd. Wait for it…….oops. My popcorn is ready.

[Uilleann]

Popping some now. I prefer mine with a shake of Tajin and chipotle powder.
A wild and spicy ride. I’m done with this rant, so I’ll enjoy the ride. VA refused my license request. It is what it is, regardless. Their loss. Not like VA requires CEs for renewal.

Annndd. Wait for it…….oops. My popcorn is ready.

I'll sit beside ya, but mine will have Old Bay on top. :)

[AngeHamm]

I feel like I should perhaps elaborate on my first statement.

I am not licensed. Both the best and the worst associates I've shared workspaces with have been licensed. There is a huge difference between people who value licensure for its professional benefits and people who value it for ego and authority. Working with someone who doesn't know what they're doing is bad. Working with someone who doesn't know what they're doing, but is convinced they do, and is convinced that their license gives their ignorance authority is terrible.

[Judy Canty]

I feel like I should perhaps elaborate on my first statement.

I am not licensed. Both the best and the worst associates I've shared workspaces with have been licensed. There is a huge difference between people who value licensure for its professional benefits and people who value it for ego and authority. Working with someone who doesn't know what they're doing is bad. Working with someone who doesn't know what they're doing, but is convinced they do, and is convinced that their license gives their ignorance authority is terrible.

I could not agree more.

The biggest issue in VA is that ODs and MDs continue to refer to employees as opticians, licensed or not. Publicly holding someone out as an optician in VA requires a VA Opticians license. It is a protected title that is abused by people who should and often do know better.

[Uilleann]

Yet ask the public about such semantics, and 99.999% don't know, or care a whiff. A trend only likely to continue as onliners, and chains proliferate. Frankly, most would likely LOL at the vitriol expressed by the "elite" few, and genuinely wonder why some unbdies are so tightly wadded up. Be offended all you like - it won't move the needle of public perception at all. I actually don't care either. *shrug*

[KrystleClear]

Them just saying to raise it to the minimum is... odd. Like what if it's a teeny b-measurement frame and you raise the seg to a 17 or 18 and then they have to look through the progressive corridor when trying to look at a distance? I'm not immune to making stupid mistakes. A few months back I measured a seg for a trifocal and looked at my ruler and wrote down 11 instead of 16. I just read the ruler wrong I guess? I try to look at my orders again before calling them into the lab and ask myself "Does this make sense?" And just dotting the pupil or lid or what have you on a lens should not be the only consideration when determining a segment height, but honestly, you can study all you want and get all the degrees but you still need common sense and practicality.