Random 3 for September 7, 2025 – Decisions, intuition, customer service

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Only three for today. Maybe I’m lazy!

Courtesy of vanie-ndut

Decisions, decisions – Sometimes we must decide before we know all the facts. It’s a shot in the dark. Will it or won’t it. I had to make one of those this week. My decision was wrong. I was wondering what the percentages are on making the right one. When I was younger, I erred on the side of “this is gonna work” but as I’ve aged, I’ve noticed I more often “this is not gonna work.” So, does it have to do with age? With experience? Gut feeling? Or is it a shot in the dark?

Judging a book by the cover – Figuratively. I had to get a blood test recently. I’m a small person with skinny veins. I go to the same place where I (hopefully) get the same person who is very good. She wasn’t there. I had a new person. The new person didn’t inspire confidence. She was middle-aged but she looked like she may have made a recent career change. Not sure why I was getting vibes. I always tell new people that I’m a “hard stick.” She nodded, not concerned. Dang, she stabbed me and the vein collapsed. She tried again with no luck. She started to eye up my hand. Nope, nope, nope! Getting blood from my hand is painful so I guided her to another spot that usually works. Score! Four vials of blood later, I left. Somehow, I just knew when I looked at her that it wouldn’t be easy and I don’t know how I knew that. That’s a decision I made without actual data and I was right.

Is the third one the charm? – I’m getting new glasses. I should have them but when I picked them up (the first time) the vision in the left eye was blurry. There was disbelief on the part of the tech working with me. It took calling in two more people to find the problem. They made a prescription error. They sent them back. I went to pick them up the second time and dang, still blurry. This time I knew exactly where to look and they made the same exact prescription error! They are due at the end of the week (fingers crossed). (No, I’m not going to use this place again.) I have used them for several years with good results but there seems to be heavy turnover and poor training. When I said my vision was blurry the person working with me didn’t know what to do or where to look. Very “deer in the headlights” look. It didn’t inspire confidence. I felt like I was checking out at Walmart. She handed them to me and that’s where her role ended. The whole staff needed happy pills! They made me feel like their error was my fault. (BTW I was very nice. Both times.)

So how was your week?

83 thoughts on “Random 3 for September 7, 2025 – Decisions, intuition, customer service”

  3. I know that vibe about drawing blood. The last person who drew my blood was a pro; I could tell in the way she felt for a vein. I have one good vein, one meh! vein, and the others, don’t even bother. If they don’t go for the good vein, I am going to leave with bruises. The good ones always go for the good vein first.

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  4. On the subject of blood tests, I have found that the regular technicians/nurses at my local clinic do the best job. Whenever I had to have it done in a hospital, even by doctors, it was a very hit and miss affair (literally).
    For the rest -(will it/won’t it work?) – I am a pessimist by nature.

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  5. Oh, ugh on all the multiple bad service (from veins to glasses). Here’s a weirdo comment from your woo-woo blogger (woo-woo = supernatural stuff). I believe human consciousness is evolving which means our instincts are getting stronger. This is why you sensed that tech wouldn’t stick you properly. Now, for those of us who are noticing these types of things, we need to learn how to trust those instincts. Sounds like you handled it all well. 👏

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  6. I have bad luck with veins even though I’m skinny and my veins show! Once the tech nicked the vein withdrawing the needle and my arm instantly swelled up. This was in ER and the nurse put ice on it and the doctor tried to say I was allergic to latex and offered me some Benadryl which I declined. Later one of the other nurses that I knew who worked there said that lab person was notorious for her poor technique and nicking happened in some of her patients as she was always in a rush. My arm was bruised from top to bottom from where it bled inside for weeks after. Another time, in the CAT scan dept, a nurse was supervising the recertification of another chronic care nurse where they don’t do many iv’s. My blood went spurting all over the floor and the supervising nurse yanked my arm upwards and yelled at the nurse if you do that again we’re done. You can always tell when the person isn’t confident. Prior to my scope the nice Polish nurse had that ‘deer in the headlights’ look and again, there were problems. The doctor came in the room and I said I don’t like blood, and he said, you’d better not look then as it’s dripping down your arm! Someone else had to redo it. Going to the cath. lab as part of my preop, the new grad nurse put the iv in, it hurt like hell and I told her, she said it was fine. I get in the cath lab and the older more experienced nurse yanked it out and said this isn’t even in a vein and redid it. So now I’m paranoid when I have to have something done – do you mention it and make the tech/RN even more nervous or just hold your breath and hope for the best?

    I had the exact same problem with my glasses – and the same reaction – it must be my fault – you’ll get used to them. give them a chance etc. A year later I took them back and asked them to redo the progressives to just a bifocal line, with a very small area for reading, and that worked better as I really only use them for watching tv. I have my readers for reading. Some people just can’t get used to ‘progressives’ so I’ve been told now. When I took them back I luckily got one of the more experienced opticians, whereas I had been dealing with a new person. How can you get used to them, when you can’t even see out of them – defies logic!

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    • When I had cataract surgery, I received an IV that was supposed to put me under. Nope, I looked and there was blood everywhere. The guy redid it but I never went under. It either wasn’t in a vein or something was wrong. I was talking to them while they did the surgery. I assured them I wasn’t under. I wrote a letter to the head of the clinic as I thought the tech was totally incompetent.

      The glasses have been frustrating. We’ll see what the next pair brings.

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      • Oh that sounds awful….that would be my worst nightmare, as I’m squeamish about my eyes and terrified of cataract surgery. There’s a doctor here who just offers Ativan/Lorazepam and I know people who refused that, but I would have to be out!

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        • They numb the eye so you don’t feel anything but it’s a weird sensation. I knew I couldn’t move or they might cut something so I steeled myself. They got a letter with all the gory details! I even told them the entire conversation while I was supposed to be under. They were planning their Thanksgiving dinner. Details I would only know if I actually heard it.

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          • Wow…….it’s the don’t move part I would be panicking about. My mother recalled the whole OR conversation about where to get the best hamburger when she was having her last hip surgery and she said she was so hungry! It was kind of a spinal plus sedative but the anesthesiologist was probably afraid to give her too much sedative because of her age. Luckily, I was out like a light with my open heart surgery, as they had explained to me I would be in a very deep anesthesia state in order to be on the heart-lung machine after they stopped my heart. I should blog about that someday….it was a very surreal experience. I woke up later that night and talked on the phone and remember the OR recovery nurse saying what good skin I had for my age…..as if I cared at that point…..just give me something for the pain….

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  7. I hear ‘ya about making decisions without all the information you feel you need. It’s stressful. Sorry your decision didn’t work out.

    I have impossible veins so I always get stuck a number of times whenever I have bloodwork. I can drink gallons of water beforehand, but it doesn’t help. Most annoying.

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    • I was like that too until I found this very skilled phlebotomist. Not even a black and blue spot. (I think I proposed to her once I was so grateful!) I go to a chain lab and they move their people around. She was at my lab for 10 to 15 years and now she’s gone. 😦 Last time I had a new person but she moved with confidence and it was good. This time nope. Maybe I freaked her out by telling her I was a hard stick but at a lab they must do tons of older folks who are hard sticks.

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  8. I had a woman not even look for a vein once, she just grabbed my arm and stuck the needle in. She got blood and I thought, wow, that was fast. Then, within an hour my arm was in pain. For days I couldn’t straighten out my arm without incredible pain. She must have gone right into a muscle or something. It was awful. She was awful. Your eye place doesn’t sound so great either. Hope they get it right.

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    • Wow! I never heard of that. How can you get blood if you don’t aim for a vein? I have had black and blue spots that looked like I was in a fight. There is a gizmo that maps the veins under the skin. I never saw it in action but one of the techies told me about it. I wondered by they don’t buy it and use it especially at a lab. It’s not like a doc’s office where they don’t take much blood. This is what the staff does all day.

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  10. Number two and number three are as bad as during the pandemic with short staffing and/or people who didn’t know what they were doing.

    I think I recently relayed my story (when you mentioned your iron level) about giving blood twice a year at the Red Cross drive at a local church, until I had a “newbie” who couldn’t find a vein (I’m also hard to pinpoint) and the needle/line kept falling out, so I called over to the supervisor and other phlebotomists, who were having coffee and donuts and within earshot I could hear them complaining about their significant others. I asked to have someone come over and do the blood draw properly. I was bruised up and down my arm and never went back there or to a Red Cross building to give blood again.

    I did not get new glasses this year as he’s monitoring me for cataracts, so I need to go back next month, five months after the last appointment in April. I got new glasses in the Spring of 2021 and the lens was not right in the one eye. Not only was it blurry, but it wobbled in the frame. I went in and told them both gripes and they put it under the machine “nope, right prescription” and the lens is fine – no worries. The lens fell out when I was cleaning my glasses a week or so later and the technician said it could not be fixed there but had to go back to the lab. When the glasses came back, the optical tech did the fitting to my face, then bent down close to me and he said “between you and me, they cut the glass too small for the frame and had the prescription upside down too.” I think he was truthful to too many people as he was gone the next time I went to see the eye doc.

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    • Maybe he got a better job working at a place that did things right. I went to an optician connected to a optometrist’s office. She was great and could order a size down if you needed it. The bad part was the cost was high. Glasses that were $300-$400 at a chain were $1200 there. I wouldn’t mind spending a little more for better service that not that much more.

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      • I’ll bet you’re right – he was great and after he left, the next optical assistant helped me pick frames the following year and they were curved and the glasses made me dizzy and I could not wear them. They said I was finding my “proper viewing spot” – sigh.

        My former ophthalmologist had an optical department attached to their practice – you could order new lenses and they’d fit them into the old frames on the spot. In those days I wore contact lenses, so I just wore the glasses to give my eyes a break from the hard lenses at night and on weekends or doing yard work. But he shut down the practice when he had nerve problems and could no longer stand. So I had to find a new place and I go here as they have the “Optomap” where they take images of your eyes from year-to-year with a computer imaging machine and don’t use dilating drops. I had an issue once where the dilating drops messed up my eyes and I had to have a neighbor couple come to drive me home – my mom also had an eye appointment that day and 8 hours later I still could not drive despite reversal drops, so we had to call the neighbor My eye doc charges too much for glasses – I’ve never gone to a chain. Mine are progressive lenses, but they’re strong and thick lenses, so I have them beveled down thinner and blue light tint put on for computer use, so that is what they say jacks up the price. I don’t get designer frames.

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          • My eye doctor keeps telling me to get contact lenses again – I think he thinks I don’t look good in glasses from the way he says it. I never had problems with contact lenses and wore the rigid gas permeable which were basically hard lenses. Toward the end, I was wearing mono-lenses, one eye had a contact for distance, the other eye had a contact for close-up which was better than trying to wear the traditional bi-focal contacts as they move around in your eye too much and your vision is distorted then. I think my charge is around $75.00. I got Priority Health’s enhanced optical and dental, but this year I was told they no longer cover Optomap, but I’d do it after the past dilation drops issue. He puts all the years of retinal scans on the computer at once and can compare from year to year. It is interesting to see how it looks.

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            • I wore gas permeable contacts until I started to get red veins. Looked like I was drunk. I had trouble with the soft ones. I found them difficult to get out of my eye. During a trial training session, neither the tech working with me nor I could get the lens out. It took 20 minutes. I certainly don’t want that happening at the end of the day! These days it’s less a matter of what looks good but what is comfortable.

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              • Wow, I wonder why you got red veins. I liked the RGP contacts, but I never blinked enough, so I had two pair to alternate them and a special washing machine, but I still had to go have them polished once a quarter to keep them from getting a film over them. That would worry me too if I couldn’t get the contact lens out of my eye(s). My current doctor recommended the soft disposable lenses. I was told in 1974 when I got my first contacts that I had an astigmatism so it may not work out for me, but I never had a problem. I was so vain that if I let my eyes rest on the weekend and wore my glasses, that I would only go out in glasses if I had on my wraparound sunglasses (Solarshields) so no one could see my glasses. I’ve come a long way since then. 🙂

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  13. How did you know that the new person could have been new at her job? It’s interesting. I think after many years of experience, we size people up without knowing it.

    Just by luck, I chose an optometrist near my home. They’ve been excellent. The work of optometrists has become so high tech.

    I had the opposite luck with my pharmacy, a well-known chain in WA. A couple of years ago, they sold to RiteAid, and almost immediately the people who worked in their pharmacy started quitting, and they started messing up my prescriptions. That’s when I changed to Walgreens.

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  16. Sometimes being nice doesn’t pay and if they are still wrong on the third attempt, I’d demand a refund, get my prescription and go elsewhere. I did when I had my first pair of varifocals and I fell over imaginary pavement kerbs because they’d got the filter wrong. They were apologetic, and said they would rectify the error. Six weeks later I was still waiting, and two weeks after that they said they couldn’t deliver, so I got my money back…………. and the incorrect glasses in my existing frames, which were actually my previous prescription as they’re replaced the incorrect lenses. I never went back.

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  18. I’m lucky to have one vein that practically empties itself. Barely needs a tourniquet. I won’t let them use any other!! The phlebotomist always tells me I can bring that vein back anytime.

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  19. I can sympathize with your having glasses that don’t work well. At least, it was a prescription error. I took my newest glasses back three times, but there was never improvement. The eye doctor conjectures that it had to do with the compound from which the lenses were made. I will go to a different optician next time, too.

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  20. Sorry about the harrowing blood test. I was once asked if I was a drug addict because my veins popped out so much. Then you wonder why you need therapy. Sounds to me that you have good instincts when you need to make a decision also when you encounter a Morticia Addams with needles.

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  21. The blood draw sounds awful. They tend to have trouble with mine and sometimes have to use the butterfly needle or something like that on my hand. And the glasses issue sounds frustrating. Good help is hard to find.

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  22. My son was an optician for a good 20 years so I always got great service. Now that he’s no longer in the biz, like you, I’ve found it’s hit or miss on the current batch of opticians. And yes, I’m crestfallen that there’s no longer the ‘friends and family’ discount anymore. I bought two pair of glasses recently and talk about sticker shot. Those puppies better last a loooong time.

    Sorry about the blood draw. Nothing worse than having Countess Dracula trying her best (?) drawing blood without leaving you feeling like you’ve just been through a war.

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  23. Fingers crossed your glasses arrive this week, correct prescription and not damaged in any way. Finally got my new glasses last week after the tech broke the curved part for the ear by bending them to fit without warming them first. Kept the ones they broke while they sent for new frames. Took two weeks added on to the two weeks I waited for them to come in the first time. Then they came in the wrong color… a particularly ugly purple or would have just kept them. Took three weeks for the correct colored frames to come in… 7 weeks total. Ridiculous.
    I have one cooperative vein in my left arm. I show them immediately the magic vein. Some are all huffy but most are glad to listen. I make sure I am well hydrated.
    My week was terrific after I got my glasses and the tropical wave heading west toward us sputtered out.
    Hope you are having a peaceful, cozy and fall-like Sunday.

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    • You win the eyeglass battle, at least so far. There were more parts to my story but not as interesting. Hmmm…purple. After a lot of blood disasters including getting an IV right before surgery, I’ve been lucky for the last 10 years. Mostly the same person at the same lab. They used to use a “butterfly” thingie but I was told last year that they changed the standard and it should work for me. It did until this past person.

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  24. These days, I don’t trust my instincts and do a lot of research. Even then I only average 50/50. As for vein stick, I’ve had them do my hand, and you are right – it hurts. Eye glasses – now, there’s a topic I can chime in on. I go to the same place too because we don’t have a lot of choices, but I’ve always gotten good service. I needed the nose pieces adjusted or replaced, walked in, and a young woman about 20 walked up to assist me. She has a black lace dress on suitable for New Year’s that was so short, I almost wanted to pull it down for her before I saw something I didn’t want to see. We sat down, she looked at the glasses and at me and had no clue what to do. At that point, I said I can stop back another day so she went and got someone else who immediately replaced them and I was on my way. It’s very frustrating these days to find good customer service.

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    • Our choices here are to go to an eyeglass place run by a doc where the prices are very high but the service is excellent, or go to one of the “big box” eyeglass places. If you get a competent person, it works. If not, you are screwed.

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