code-chick.net

utter incompetence

to make a long story hopefully shorter… (uh huh, right - this is going to be a HUGE post.)

i needed new prescription for contacts, so i went to a new eye doctor a few weeks ago. since i’m not on my parents insurance anymore and don’t have vision insurance, i wanted to find a decent one that didn’t charge as much. she - like the last one - told me i wear my contacts too many hours a day, to wear my glasses more, and gave me an identical contact prescription to last year’s since my eyes hadn’t changed. well, i can do that, so i decided to see if i could find a new pair - i figured if i had frames i liked more, i’d be more likely to go whole days without putting in my contacts in.

fast forward to last weekend. found a pair of frames i really like and brought in both prescriptions (the one i got in august and then one from last july - see, glasses prescriptions are valid for 2 years where contact prescrips are only for one)… the guy at sears told me to go with the new one, and mentioned that he knew the eye doc. i guess this was the first potential issue, because i didn’t totally trust the new glasses prescription… i mean, the contacts one matched last year’s (which was working just fine) but there were a few numbers on the glasses one that weren’t the same… but what do i know, i don’t know what all that stuff means (even though i asked him to explain and, now that i think back, got some vague answer).

tuesday i went to pick them up. LOVE the frames, but after an hour of having to lay down while wearing them because i’m almost dizzy, something’s obviously not right… i finally came to the conclusion that if i look just out of my left lens, walls in the house literally appear to be curved toward me! my right lens was fine though. so last night, my mom and i (i wanted someone that could “fill in the blanks” of what they told me if i forgot something) went back to sears and brought both prescriptions.

after making sure the lenses matched this year’s prescription, she compared the two. and right away, she knew what probably had happened. well i have an astygmatism (yes, i butchered that spelling) which means instead of spherical shaped eyes, mine are more oval-shaped - i’ve known this since 4th grade, when i started wearing glasses. the new prescription says i have no astygmatism in my left eye… hmm, wonder what the problem is?

went back to target (where the eye doc’s office is) and she was still there.

we told her what was going on, and that i can’t wear my new glasses from her prescription. first, she basically made it sound like my fault that i didn’t bring my glasses (or my old prescription) when i was there a few weeks ago. ok, why should i need to bring them? since when do you need to?! pearlevision did just FINE the first time i went there, without them. and i even told her what my contacts prescrip was to make her job a little easier, that fact wasn’t ballpark-enough for her? uh huh, that’d be strike 1.

so then (since i was wearing the old glasses) she wanted to test something on both pair. i swear, she checked the curve of both sets of lenses at least 15 times on each of the 4 lenses. WTF, either you get a number or you don’t. checking each lens that many times probably won’t get you new numbers EACH time! strike 2.

so then she says she’ll re-do my eye exam next weekend (the first time i can get in around work and her other appts) for free. fine. so then my mom asked, point blank, what would happen if the prescription changes for my left eye. well she ‘didn’t know’, so she had to go ask the other guy who works there (she either leases the space, or something… because she’s not a target employee). well according to him, sears is supposed to absorb the cost of the new lens as a ‘professional courtesy’ since it’s within the first 3 months and it’s a doctor’s change!!!! (to which my mom replied “oh, so they’re supposed to cover your mistake?” hehehehe). strike 3!

sorry doc, i know more about what’s going on than you think, you’re just an absolute idiot if you think i’m stupid enough to believe you. where’d you get your optometrist license, a cracker jack box or a gumball machine?

(and fyi, sears said they’d work something out if the prescrip changes… we don’t expect them to cover the cost of a new lens, because they had nothing to do with it - and it’s not like $50 anyway. i’m willing to pay for it just to get this over with, so i can tell her off for good)