(gentle music)
(upbeat music)
- In this addition of a philosophy corner,
we are going to call it Mr. Spock, red lights
and Pita one in 1000.
This is not about optician stuff.
This really, truly is about you
surviving.
This one is from my heart to you guys.
Now, this is going to take a few minutes.
So please stick with me.
- [Announcer] Two hours later.
- If you sell glasses, you work in retail,
and this is about survival.
- Eye of the tiger man.
(upbeat music)
- You surviving in that retail setting
for your first six weeks, six months
and on to six years,
16 years.
Sidebar one, if someone refuses to fill out the paperwork
for a basic routine eye examination, well receptionist,
it's not about a battle for world domination, okay?
You're not Mr. Spock doing a mind meld.
- You don't need to see his identification.
- We don't need to see his identification.
- You're not a grand master Russian chess person.
It's not a battle of wits.
Okay?
Learn
to let it go.
Sidebar Two, very closely related to this is,
there are adults who can't read
and write.
If that person is in front of you at the counter
and you are insisting on them filling out the paperwork
no matter how much you carry on and start crying
and explaining that it's HIPAA compliant and the law.
Well, they can't write.
They're never gonna fill in that paperwork for you.
Learn to let that stuff go.
Welcome to the philosophy of the red light.
You are out driving in your car
and you pull up to one of those giant intersections,
two lanes of traffic ahead in every direction.
And the light turns red.
And you stop.
Why did you stop?
Why did the people around you stop?
If you could freeze time and get out of your car
with a clipboard and a pen and walk up and knock
on the windows of the cars of the people around you and say
why did you stop at that red light?
Somebody might say, I don't wanna get a ticket.
Somebody might say,
I don't wanna hurt anyone.
Person might say, I don't wanna wreck my car.
I don't wanna hurt myself.
The next fellow may say with complete conviction,
well, it's the law.
The next one could say, I could lose my license.
Another person could say, my God, you know what the fine is?
That could be $400. That's why I stopped you fool.
Six people, seven people, same behavior,
right?
You all came to a stop at the red light
but every one of you did it for a different reason.
You can only ever see
behavior.
You can never ever see the reason
that someone does something.
It's the philosophy piece of it.
So as hard as it is,
don't take that behavior that you can see personally
because you don't know the reason behind it.
And you can't and never will.
There are going to be times
when you have a very difficult customer
and you shouldn't be shrugging it off,
you shouldn't be taking it personally.
Are you going to have situations that bother you?
Are you going to have situations
where it is keeping you up for a night?
Wondering, could I have done something better?
That's not a bad thing.
It means that you genuinely care about doing a good job.
A good job as an optician means you're a good person.
You wanna make sure that you're doing the right things
but it shouldn't be everybody.
And when you have that behavior, that is unpleasant
in someone towards you,
you can learn to not take it so personally.
We have talked about the Pita one out of 10.
One out of 10 of your customers
is a wee bit of a pain in the (beep).
Well, that's called retail.
If nine out of every 10 of your customers
is a pain in the (beep) and you're over on opticians
on Facebook whinging about them and your stupid patients.
Well, that's you. You have a problem.
You need to change jobs.
My wife, Dr. Deb has worked in mental health
her entire adult life.
She is in fact, a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
My mother
died a year ago,
really struggled with serious mental illness
for most of her life.
I have kind of a unique perspective on this.
If you want to learn more.
If you actually wanna know the true stats
of the prevalence of mental health issues
in your world, head over to nami.org,
The National Alliance on Mental Illness.
And I can tell you one thing for sure.
The prevalence of mental health issues
is certainly not decreasing but actually rapidly increasing.
Increasing the likelihood that you are going to have
to deal with someone with a treated or untreated
mental health issue.
That may very well be your customer.
May very well be a coworker.
Yes, my goodness, managers suffer from mental health issues.
Owners, yes, doctors and wealthy people.
They have mental health issues as well.
Could be you,
worried and over here.
And yes, this does also sort of include or touch
on the drugs and alcohol issues.
Now what on earth am I going on about here?
In this one in 1000 or more case,
when you are dealing with someone
with a true mental health issue,
you will not, you cannot make that individual happy.
They have irrational expectations or demands.
This is not a cop out. This isn't a default.
This isn't a go-to excuse.
If you are talking about one out of 10, nine out of 10,
one out of 100 and you're flipping "oh, that guy was crazy."
Okay. No, that's not what we're talking about here.
We're talking about the one in 1000 case
where that person truly has irrational beliefs.
You are going to have to deal with this.
So be kind to yourself.
Do not beat yourself up over someone
that has irrational expectations, beliefs and demands.
You literally can't do something that they're asking.
There are times when it simply isn't going to happen.
Don't carry that around with you.
Our biggest headline ever
as if you have not already figured it out.
Retail is hard.
Keep upon that all of the stuff you need to know
to be a good optician and it gets well even harder.
So yes, of course, to survive in retail, we all vent.
Where do we do that?
Behind closed doors.
And I mean, that literally.
(man silently sobbing)
- I'm in control of my emotions.
- I mean that it's okay when you go up to the front door
and lock it for the night at 5:30 and you turn around
and you have a coworker, who's a friend who you trust.
Yeah, you might talk about one of your more difficult
customers of the day. That is normal.
We vent to let it go.
Catharsis.
It's a form of releasing and letting something go.
That doesn't work if you go on social media
to complain about your stupid patients.
That only perpetuates it. It makes it worse.
It feeds on a sick cycle.
Stop it.
Learn to leave work at work.
And why not?
One of the beautiful things about being an optician is,
well you're just an optician. No one is going to die here.
You're not the president of the United States
or a brain surgeon.
Learn to leave work at work
and focus on what's important.
Go for a walk,
ride a bike,
experiment with meditation,
get a good hobby that holds your interests.
Focus on your friends and family.
The things in this life that really matter.
If you have been in the trenches for a year now,
and you know that you have become a pretty darned good
optician and you genuinely can look at where you work
and realize that the expectations are unrealistic, unfair
or you're not being treated well,
go and find another job.
Thanks for listening.
I'll see you again next week.
(gentle music)