Me vs. technology: who won this round?

For what it's worth, this is a letter I wrote in response to a nasty experience I just had at the optometrist's. It's very hard for me to be assertive and normally I would just quietly fume and make myself sick. But I want to post this in case anyone else in the world has ever felt this sort of unnecessary intimidation. BTW, this wasn't even my main eye test, which was done on a series of perhaps nine different machines, but a "follow-up" which was then going to be followed by another "follow-up". BTW, I was warned to take all identifying marks off this in case they "took legal action".

Dear Dr. Somebody,

I feel I would be remiss if I did not report a very negative and stressful experience I had at my last appointment with your office. I was treated rudely and disrespectfully, and the instructions I was given could not have been more vague and confusing. I was surprised that the receptionist conducts so much of the eye testing, but I was willing to let that go as I was under a lot of pressure and needed to get it over with. Another problem was that she has an accent which was making clear communication with her very difficult. This is not a criticism but a fact. Along with my partial hearing loss, it meant I had to ask her several times what she had just said.

When I sat at the third machine (I can’t name what it was because I am not cognizant of the technology), she told me I would see “flashing lights” and that I would have to “push the big button” when the lights came on. I was not at all clear what this meant, as she just handed me a sort of wand without showing me what to do with it. When I asked her for a clearer explanation, as by now I was quite confused, she said, quite irritably, “But I already explained all this to you.”

I sat through the first part of the test staring into the machine (I wasn't allowed to blink) and waiting for the “flashing lights”, which I assumed would be identical to all the other tests I had already had, with a very bright light like a flashbulb. This did not happen. I only saw tiny pinpoints of light appearing and disappearing at light speed all over the outside of my field of vision, but I did not respond because I was waiting for the “flashing lights”. So I sat there doing nothing and feeling confused and very foolish. After a while I had to assume she meant these tiny pinpricks of light and tried to keep up with them, which I could not.

When she came in to switch eyes, I once again asked her to clarify the instructions. Once more she said, sounding exasperated, “But I explained all this to you already.” I have severe arthritis in my hands at the base of the thumb and could barely keep up, as it was quite painful, and my hand was sticking to the “big button” due to the hand sanitizer. I felt as if I was holding a joy stick and trying to play a very fast-moving video game which I did not understand. My eye-hand coordination has always been extremely poor, the lights were tiny, very hard to see and moving at incredible speed, and I was sure I was failing the test. I was not comfortable asking her anything else as she had already been so abrupt with me.

Perhaps this has never happened to anyone else you have dealt with before (I was certainly given that impression), but I do find it hard to believe, as you must treat a great many elderly patients. My last eye test basically involved reading lines of type and looking into a couple of machines, but I have not experienced anything remotely like this intimidating high-tech “state-of-the-art” setup. But all these marvelous machines accomplish exactly nothing if you go home feeling worse than when you came in. Customer relations should always come first, and your job should be to serve the public with patience, courtesy and respect. This is absolutely crucial when most people are already so overstressed that only one bad experience might put them over the top.

I have my glasses now, am happy with my vision, was already told my eye health was good for my age, and don’t need any more rude and disrespectful treatment that leaves me feeling foolish and only adds to my already sky-high levels of stress. Please cancel all my further appointments, and do not contact me again.

Margaret Gunning

(Blogservations. The machines have taken over. I was tested on no fewer than NINE high-tech pieces of equipment just because I needed new glasses. At first I was in awe of it all and felt like I was on the Starship Enterprise, though I did not know why the receptionist ran the first three tests on me in a "little room" off to the side. Did she have any actual training to do this sort of thing? The rest of the appointment was a blur of e-charts, flourescent eyeball diagrams, blood vessel maps, and complicated explanations by the optometrist of all the diseases of the eye which I might have, but don't, and which finally concluded that there was nothing wrong with my eyes at all, and that in fact my eyes were ten years younger than my (admittedly run-down) biological self. 

But it was in the follow-up, which I now call the "foul-up", that I became enmeshed in a collision course between complex machinery and total incoherence. "Push the big button"? 

WHAT button, where? And why that sour frown on her face even as I struggled to figure out just what the fxxx she could mean?

I won't go back, but I confess here and now that I haven't sent the letter yet and probably won't. I usually "think better of it" the next day - and when I think of the letters I USED to actually send, to doctors, psychiatrists, etc. to protest such minor things as institutionalized abuse, and how those letters became part of my "file/diagnosis" - well, let's just say it never paid off in the end. It was all seen as pathology, as EVERYTHING a psychiatric patient says or does is pathology. They're mentally ill, remember?

Oh, and one more thing. I didn't think anything could be worse than the time the optician took one look at my prescription and exclaimed "WOAHHHHWW" - meaning: God, are you ever blind! But what happened today "trumped" even that wretched experience.)

UPDATE. I sent the letter and sighed with relief to be DONE with it all, hoping they would at least honor my request for NO followup. This morning I received not one, but TWO phone calls from this person, though I specifically asked them NEVER to contact me again. I hung up after the first call, then the phone immediately rang again and it was that person, the one whose dismissive rudeness basically ruined my day.

 All of a sudden, I seem to be the one who is in trouble. The receptionist said she would only call back if there was a "problem", but the "problem" is that the instructions I received were so fucked up that I could not complete the totally unnecessary test. My daughter has a severe eye problem, has had two surgeries, and I believe has been botched by an incompetent surgeon. Now she needs a cornea transplant due to HIS incompetence. This may leave her BLIND, unable to work ever again, and forced to go through the legal system.  I don't usually use this language, but I am beyond upset - I am terrified for her - so FUCK THEM ALL!