So I went to the optometrist yesterday, I want to say he was awfully cavalier about the safety and welfare of motorists and pedestrian on the streets, sidewalks and buildings of the greater Lansing area. Thing is I really only saw him for about two minutes, so let’s say his nurse (ok, lady in blue scrubs who kept referring to the ‘doctor’ the way certain munchkins referred to the Wizard) and she was the cavalier. Right before she put shit in my eyes I told her I drove myself there and was driving home, she was all like “Shouldn’t be a problem, you might be a bit sensitive to light and your depth perception and ‘up close’ vision might be off for, I dunno, six to eight hours … Ok this is going to feel a little weird …”
According to the doc who hung out long enough for me to ask whether the script had changed (they put my glasses, befogged and all, in a lens reading thing-a-ma-motherfucker) and he said ‘The left eye moved a click and astigmatism a smidgen’. I said something like An Astigmatism to no one in particular, every no one particular or otherwise didn’t find that amusing. The doc cocked his head, shook my paw (who’s a good boy? Have a biscuit) and went along his merry way.
I was in a foul mood, or if I was it dissipated into the far (or possibly near) fog of my depth perception. My mood took a decidedly foul-ward direction talking to the sales guy. Through the course of my life I’ve had a number of jobs but only three careers (that is categories wherein some jobs fall, industries I worked at least a decade in; Food service (though mostly as a cook; line, short order, institutional, and filling in for a sous chef in a place you don’t want to eat) Social work (juvenile corrections and Permanent planning) and Sales. If that guy were on my team I would have fired him. Well, ok, I would have dressed him down, told him all about himself and threaten him with a shallow unmarked grave under the mall near Abercrombie and Fitch.
His first mistake was being red haired and beard and male (Come on, you know that throughout your life you’ve always wanted to just smack that infant. Kid, grown ass man. You (and I) don’t even know why, we just do). It’s not like he had control over that, well, he could have shaved off or at least trimmed the unruly beard and he could have dyed his hair, but, honestly, he exuded essence of red headed boy. Maybe it’s different for girls, maybe it’s not. I don’t want to smack a red headed girl, but perhaps girls do. I don’t know. I’m not trying to be funny and am a little ashamed of this particular bigotry and it’s not like I have a list of pre-judgments, traits I project onto every red-headed male primate, except for the one; Red hair, the natural, pale, could direct traffic with, red hair.
I didn‘t smack. I got past the red hair thing without so much as a twinge of a squint and an imperceptible closing of the right hand towards a fist. Dude tried to upsell me and in this attempt he did the two things that, were he one of my sales-people, would have had him in my office and upbraided. 1) He exaggerated the truth to the point of fear tactic and 2) he was derogatory towards the competition (in this case he had no idea who that competition was). I wanted anti-glare. He wanted to charge 130 for it. I said no. He said I’d be blind then at night and would probably die and wasn’t my life worth 130. In hindsight there are a million things I could have said, a few hundred thousand would be returning the vague threat.
It’s a poor sales technique, but it’s especially poor with a product the consumer is obviously familiar with, which is an easy deduction when the customer is getting new glasses. In plain old real time sight I told him that I was replacing glasses because the anti-glare coating was breaking down leaving clouds in the center of my vision. Instead of dropping it, or what I would have suggested while belittling him as his boss --- ask the customer why he had gotten anti-glare on the previous pair (it’s the only valid sales question at that point, it covers a couple of basic sales rules; Let the customer speak, people love talking about themselves and two it gives a specific insight into the customer’s needs) What he did do is ask where I got the glasses, dead set on making a derogatory comment.
I told him Mall 205. He said they use an inferior coating. I’ve got 130 bucks that says he has no idea what or where mall 205 is. See the idea is you talk up your coating; you never, ever, ever denigrate your competitor, especially when you have no idea who the competitor is, but, there is no especially in never, ever, ever. It doesn’t make your product look good; it makes you sound like a dick.
Truth is the real reason for anti-glare, I mean the reason most people get it, is because it allows the opposite sex to see your pretty eyes under harsh lighting. You want to ask the customer leading questions under the guise of chit chat about his or her marital status, dating status, whatnot. The art of sales involves a lot of flirting. You could argue this; you’d be wrong. I sort of hate that I’m a really good salesman as I think of the gig as being a bit evil, but, and with due humility and no small amount of shame, I’m a really good salesman. I flirt well. I know my customers before I pitch them an up-sell.
If I thought I could have made it without killing anyone I would have taken my prescription elsewhere just because dude was a douche and I went into sales-training-role-playing antagonism. He told me that their anti-glare was the best; Scotch guard. I think he was mistaken, I think he was flustered because of how sideways his little sale went. Thing is if you sell glasses at an optometrist, especially one whose nurse dilates the customers eyes, it should be like shooting fish in a barrel. Dude brought a sawed off loaded with buckshot for a barrel full of goldfish. I might get a second pair. I’ll go elsewhere. Might even get anti-glare on the second pair. I might explain to all who will listen at the office why I’m going elsewhere.
As far as I know I didn’t run anybody over on the ride home. Those thumps were probably bumps in the road, screaming bumps in the road. A few minutes ago it was snowing, beautiful thick white fat flakes like a hallmark Christmas special where the kid rides in a horse drawn carriage to grandma’s house, under a blanket with his mom and dad and siblings and talks about the miracle he just, golly gee willikers great gosh almighty, wishes would come true and probably will after a conflict or two that makes it seem even more unlikely.
So there’s this head shop up the street with fancy ass e-cigarettes. I’ve been smoking them. I like them, cut way way back on normal smokes. Sure I got the highest nicotine level possible and the only tobacco flavored juice they had (who the fuck smokes cotton candy e-cigs?) But theirs is no tar or other toxic shit with them. Thing is I don’t want to quit tobacco, just cigarettes. My clothes smell like a bonfire of chemical tars and cigarettes are just yucky, I mean I enjoy maybe two out of the forty or so a day I have averaged since like 1973. Pipes and cigars are a lot different. I don’t inhale the smoke and I’ve averaged less than one a day since 1996 and, if we’re using 1973 as the jumping off point, probably less than one a month. I really like a good cigar and a good bowl of tobacco. I’m kind of digging the e-cig.
When e-cigs were a new consumer product (I think they’ve been around a lot longer than they’ve been a consumer product) the limited little cartridges they ran off of tasted a lot like crack. Ok, I’ve never smoked crack but I’ve smelled it burning, smells like cat piss from a cat who’s been drinking cleaning products. I was a bit leery. It’s a brave new world out there. I think if they make too much noise that ATF and the anti-smoking lobbies are going to get their knickers in a knot and start legislating and taxing the bejesus out of e-liquid with nicotine in it.
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