You go to a party where you don’t know anyone. You:
a) Go home. There’s no point meeting people you probably won’t like.
b) Remind partygoers that after an examination, their pupils remain dilated, and they should avoid looking at bright lights in order to prevent damage.
c) Go over to the DJ booth and play some music you like.
Your little sister asks you for advice on her college applications. Your advice to her is:
a) Just apply to her safety schools. Application fees are expensive and there’s no point paying to apply to places she’ll never get in.
b) Ensure that your vision is equally clear in both eyes – sometimes (even usually!) eyes have different prescriptions.
c) Apply to her dream school, and a few safeties just in case, and not to stress in the meantime.
Your significant other had a rough day, and comes home asking if you could cook dinner, even though it was their turn. You:
a) Stand your ground. If it’s their turn, it’s their turn. You’ve both had rough days.
b) Provide specialty contact lenses to correct for blurring resulting from astigmatism, or non-symmetrical cornea.
c) Ask if you can cook together, and promise to do all the dishes.
You find out one of your coworkers makes $10,000 more than you even though you have a more senior position. You:
a) Don’t say anything. The co-worker probably does more for the company.
b) Re-up your commitment to providing regular vision care and performing eye exams in order to prescribe and fit glasses and contacts.
c) Ask your boss to explain the gap between your wages.
You’re out to dinner and you notice one of your friends skimped on the tip on her half of the bill. You:
a) Don’t say anything, but add a few dollars more when she’s not looking. There’s no reason to make a fuss.
b) Attended a four year professional program, not medical school, which means you’re only permitted to prescribe medicine for eye-related conditions in certain states, and you’re unable to perform surgical operations on the eye.
c) Remind your friend to leave a decent tip.
You find a $100 bill on the street. It doesn’t look like anyone’s around. You:
a) Take the money. The person probably doesn’t even know they dropped it.
b) were able to see the dollar bill easily because you don’t have red-green color blindness, a common inherited vision problem most often seen in men, because it’s an x-chromosome-linked trait.
c) bring the money to a police officer and only take it if no one had reported missing the money.
Your friend asks for a ride home even though they live on the other side of town. You:
a) Refuse. You’re not a taxi company, and they probably wouldn’t do it for you.
b) Measure your friend’s eye pressure in order to test for glaucoma using either a non-contact tonometer, which administers a quick puff of air against the eyeball, or an applanation tonometer, with which you’d press gently against the cornea after using numbing drops.
c) Give your friend the ride. More time to listen to music.
You see the glass:
a) Half-empty
b) Through rigid gas-permeable (RGP) contact lenses
c) Usually half-full, but it depends on the day
If you answered mostly a’s: you’re a PESSIMIST.
If you answered mostly b’s: you’re an OPTOMETRIST.
If you answered mostly c’s: you MIGHT BE AN OPTOMETRIST.
Ugh! Advise me, dear Toasties! I have a very close friend who I love dearly who is a really bad tipper. We both have the same job, make the same amount, are single, ect., so it isn’t a money issue. I find it embarrassing (and totally out of character, because they are super generous in other contexts), but I do exactly what a good pessimist does and just adjust my part of the tip to better cover his (I always tip generously anyway, so it isn’t like it is a financial burden). Is it worth it to bring it up or should I just continue to be mildly embarrassed and put out?
What happens if you ask him about it, right there in the moment?
“Jason” (I’m assuming he’s a Jason) “why are you only tipping 5%?”
Idk, he kind of sounds like a Jonathan, doesn’t he?
Sounds like it’s worth bringing up if for no other reason than it clearly bothers you, though I’d do it not in the moment, so he doesn’t end up feeling bad or defensive about a single specific action he just took. Maybe he just somehow missed the memo on what a reasonable tip is for his entire adulthood thus far and would appreciate a gentle kick in the pants, if he’s otherwise super generous?
I *would* do it in the moment, because to me, bringing it up later seems more like you’ve been stewing over it and plotting up a big attack confrontation over their not tipping. Which, even if true, seems unlikely to be well received and result in changing behavior instead of resentment.
Whereas a “Only two dollars?! What about the rest of the tip?” right there and then is more casual yet also gives them a chance to fix it on the spot or make a point of being an ass and to know that people notice them being an ass.
THIS. Make it light, and in the moment. Serious or systemic things are better later (“You’re bad at sex!”) but other things can be better addressed lightly and with good humor.
I would ask him about it, honestly.
I have an ex who ALWAYS under-tipped, and me and another good friend (who, unlike him, had worked food service) kept arguing with him about it. Eventually we just started over-tipping, in cash, in front of him. It made him angry but he couldn’t do anything about it–it was our money, after all. IIRC he eventually started tipping better, but he resented doing it every time. (There’s multiple reasons he’s my ex….and this was one of them.)
He was angry because you over-tipped to make up for his stinginess??? That’s bizarre.
20% is my rule although I usually round to the nearest dollar because I don’t like doing math in my head. When people bust out the calculator to make sure it is EXACTLY 15% times the BILL not the tax I go kind of insane. It’s like $5 difference, and it’s not like you go out to eat SO OFTEN that it is ripping a hole in your budget.
20% is just easier math! Move the decimal point and double it, round up, done.
He was angry because 1. we were basically openly saying to him, “you’re too stingy,” and because 2. he was CONVINCED that they didn’t really deserve it. He once said (direct quote): “I work hard for my money.” He was an electrician, and yeah, he DID work hard, but so do food service people, and they deserve to have enough to live on.
What it came down to was he was against the tipping system, which, fine; lots of people are, but don’t take that out on the SERVERS. When you go out to eat at a place that takes tips you are accepting that the price of your meal/drinks includes a tip. If you’re not willing to do that, don’t go out.
Preaching to the choir, I know, but gaaah years later and I’m still mad, apparently.
When we used to eat out with my in-laws, we’d take a crisp twenty with a post-it pre-affixed saying “I’m so sorry, he’s awful” and then when my father-in-law was awful, we’d leave the twenty, post-it side down, next to the tip.
My mother-in-law figured out that I when I was going back “get my jacket”, I was adding to the tip, so she started going back and removing money from her portion of the tip so the tip would remain at an acceptable level for a stupid waiter who didn’t even know the optimal direction to slice lemons.
I feel like twenty dollars was not enough? And now we can afford to leave more, but we also don’t eat out with them anymore?
Is it possible he’s bad at math? I ask because when I first started dating my girlfriend I thought she was a bad tipper, but it turns out she’s just really bad at math. Now I do all of our tip math and she always has me round up.
Amazing replies.
This is the quality content I’m looking for.*
*through rigid gas-permeable (RGP) contact lenses
lolol sorry i love it
We moved from Chicago to Ohio almost 10 years ago. I still miss my optometrist. That man was delightful. <3 Dr. W, I hope you are enjoying retirement in good health. <3
the glass is too big
The glasses are too big?
Better glass one or glass two.
Glass one.
Glass two.
One.
Two.
OMG I DONT KNOW WHICH IS BETTER AND I AM PROBABLY GOING TO PICK WRONG AND HAVE TO LIVE WITH IT WRONG FOR A YEAR UNTIL I CAN JUSTIFY NEW GLASSES AGAIN AAAAAAH
I see what you did there.
Now try looking with one eye closed.
What if I’m a pessimist AND an optometrist???? What then??
Then you can see all too well just how bad things really are or could be.
I’m a pessometrist. I can only diagnose vision problems caused by eyes that don’t think there’s anything worth looking at.
I’m an optimician. I help fit lenses and frames for rose-tinted glasses.
As a mildly dyslexic person this quiz was really very confusing and therefore very amusing.
Dana!
A+++ GIF employment.
I forwarded this to my Dad, who was an Ophthalmologist and has said all of those things before. . He also enjoyed it. And in highly Dad manner, approved of the answer giving the difference between Optometrists and Ophthalmologists.
I needed a good laugh today. Thank you.
I have a friend who pronounces it: “pest-imist”. She knows it’s wrong but she can’t help it. She is a pediatrician, a really good one, but I think she’s just been talking a little too much baby-talk. I told her that, at this point, she’s just lucky she doesn’t pronounce “spaghetti” “bisgetti”.
I can’t say popsicle. It always comes out popsticle. Luckily I live in a country that calls them icepops so it only happens when I say “let’s blow this popsticle stand” so it’s extra adorable.
Am charmed!
Apparently, Kristin Scott-Thomas had to do about 800 takes of the scene in Gosford Park where she bangs Ryan Phillippe right after her husband dies because she kept saying “condoliences” instead of “condolences,” but it’s because she’s fluent in French and kept defaulting to the French pronunciation!!
Overheard over the cubicle wall —
Young male voice: “What’s the difference between an optician and an obstetrician?”
(We were all very mean and wouldn’t tell him.)
You should have asked him what he needed, then directed him to the obstetrician.
Does he know about this new thing called the Google? All the kids are using it these days to avoid super-embarrassing questions…
Does he know about this new thing called the Google? All the kids are using it these days to avoid super-embarrassing questions…
I hate the puff of air in the eyes sooooo much.
Last time I had an eye test I accidentally said “Can you not?” out loud to the puff of air machine.
I hate the puff of air in the eyes sooooo much.
I do this too. Shhhhhhhhh…
Apparently, Kristin Scott-Thomas had to do about 800 takes of the scene in Gosford Park where she bangs Ryan Phillippe right after her husband dies because she kept saying "condoliences" instead of "condolences," but it's because she's fluent in French and kept defaulting to the French pronunciation!!
Awesome, thank you!