I've Heard of Hard Sales Tactics, but That Was Ridiculous

September 19, 2010    

So I picked up my new glasses yesterday.  I’m told they don’t look too bad.  Which is good - it means I got lucky.So I was at my optometrist last week, and I looked at the machines that measured my eyes, and then did the “which is better, 1 click or 2, click 1, or *click 2?” bit.  Nothing unusual.So then he says he’s going to dilate my eyes.  Fine, happens every time I go to the eye doctor.  Puts the drops in my eyes, but then the fun thing happens.  He opens the door and tells me that it will take a few minutes for the drops to finish dilating my eyes (it usually does), and there is a lady standing at the door.  The doctor tells me she will take me to where I can wait until my eyes are finished dilating.So, not suspecting anything, I follow her, and she leads me directly to the part of the office that has the eyeglasses, and starts asking me, casually, what kind of frames I like.  So, I start talking to her about what I like about my current pair of glasses, and what I wish was different, and before long, she’s handing me frames to try on.“Hmmm”, I said, looking in the mirror, “I think I like these best of the ones I’ve tried on, but it’s kind of hard to tell, because my eyes are blurry and itching like crazy from the drops.“I even tried “I don’t want to pick out frames now without my wife here to give me her opinion.”  But the lady just kept blindly going on as if I wasn’t objecting (granted, I wasn’t objecting forcefully enough), asking me about whether I liked anti-glare coatings and what-not.So the doctor comes back to get me, does the last part of the exam and lets me go.  I go to the front desk to pay, and the bill is about $150, because my doctor’s appointment copay and new glasses have been combined into the same invoice, and the poor clerk at the front desk can’t seem to figure out how to get the computer to split them back apart.So, I give up and, rationalizing to myself that I needed to get new glasses anyway, I just pay for the whole thing and leave.A few days later, I get a call that my new glasses are ready and, like I said, I’m told I could have done a lot worse.But I’m going to be switching optometrists…