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!
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!
I bend light. That is what I do.
Imagine how ridiculous a frame would look if actually had a properly measured fitting height of 11mm...
Talk to anyone else in the office?
McTicians![]()
I bend light. That is what I do.
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.
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
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.
A majority of the most aggressively useless people I have had to work with in this business have been licensed.
I'm Andrew Hamm and I approve this message.
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.
I bend light. That is what I do.
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*
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.
You still didn't answer my question about not being allowed to take the VA exam.
lensman11 is not me, but he is a more knowledgeable other half of me. I’ve had the pleasure of working with him in committees, as well as, picking his encyclopedic optical brain.
To your point. This was over 20 years ago, so the actual details are quite fuzzy. All I wanted was a license, since I worked in Virginia back then. I couldn’t stand having to work under a license that was less knowledgeable than me.
All I know is that application was denied due to my MD residence.
I no longer have the desire to be VA licensed. At my age, I no longer have the desire to become an ABOM, nor ABOAC. ABOAC, would be a cakewalk for me. However, it won’t provide me a pay raise. Neither would a license, since I no longer need to travel to NOVA, unless it’s for meetings or training the staff on upcoming product releases.
An ABOM, would provide additional income, but I’m comfortable. Having to travel for seminars will take me away from family. Something I refuse to do. I already work too hard at my day job.
I bend light. That is what I do.
So, you either have a split personality or simply refuse to answer my question. There has NEVER been a residency requirement to sit for the VA exam. There are education and apprenticeship requirements that must be fulfilled. I've been licensed here since 1978 and I was on the HASOPT Board for 2 four-year terms. Residency has never been a stumbling block.
I really don't care what your feelings are about licensure, however I am offended by your desire to paint every licensed optician in VA with the same brush. It's insulting and disingenuous.
I learned many years ago that you cannot make yourself look better or more competent by trying to make someone else look bad or incompetent.
*Grabs popcorn*
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'm Andrew Hamm and I approve this message.
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.
Last edited by Judy Canty; 06-29-2022 at 05:37 PM.
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