After my eye exam, a woman behind the reception desk entered my prescription in her computer to see if they had any contacts in stock. Then she frowned and said, "I'm sorry, we'll have to order these. We don't have contacts that go up that high."
I had to stifle a laugh. It reminded me of trying on designer jeans at Anthropologie. The largest size I could find barely fit over my knees. When I asked the sales clerk to get me a larger size, she looked me up and down and said, "We don't sell jeans that big."
Oh, the joys of having hips and bad vision.
I wasn't as offended by the "you have gimpy vision" comment as I was the "you have a fat ass" comment, but it got me thinking: Am I too sensitive? Or are people too insensitive?
Here's the deal: All the eye doctors I've seen here in Michigan have been total jerks.
I know that sounds a bit too coincidental, especially since I'm the common denominator during each eye exam. I know I'm sensitive (I'm a writer, for goodness sake), so the things they've said to me may not bother most people.
But they bothered me.
Here are a few examples:
One day when my husband finished with his eye exam, he came out into the waiting room and asked me to help him pick out some new frames. As I followed him over to the wall of glasses, the male sales clerk (I don't know what they're called -- the people who help adjust your glasses?) in the front laughed and said something like, "Have to get a pair the wife approves of, right?"
I know most people would have just laughed that off, and I'm not usually one to get offended over a somewhat harmless sexist comment like that, but I did. Not only did he lump me into a category of control-freak wives, but his words meant he assumed all wives were controlling about appearance -- no woman would ever let their husband pick out the glasses he preferred. Oh no, she had to make the final decision.
At the same visit, my husband had decided to try contacts for the first time. I was excited for him, and I knew he was somewhat nervous about putting them in for the first time (he didn't believe me that you couldn't feel them), so when they called him back, I went with him to lend some support. The doctor actually barred the doorway with his arm and told me, "We don't need an audience."
That, to me, was so rude that I refused to give him any more of my business.
At the next eye doctor, the moment I walked in the front door, the owner charged up to me and asked if I'd gotten his voicemail message. I said no. He said that they'd called and left a message, asking me to come in a half hour earlier. Because I hadn't, now all of his appointments for the day were going to be late.
I don't think I have to explain why I got offended at that one.
On to the third eye doctor!
Okay, this lady was just incompetent. During my eye exam, the frame on the wall (where they project the letters) had a jagged crease in it, so half the letters had a shadow on them. Plus she hadn't closed the door to the exam room, so the light from the hallway made reading the letters even harder. I told her about this, so she closed the door slightly further, but not all the way. I told her there was a wrinkle in the frame, but she ignored me. In hindsight, I don't think she knew what I meant.
When I got my new glasses, the prescription was wrong. Go figure! Then she proceeded to tell me that the prescription was correct, and that my eyes would get used to them -- that sometimes going from contacts to glasses can feel and look funny.
Um, no.
She had to examine me again, and then I had to wait another 3 weeks for my new lenses to come in.
Fourth doctor! This one was last week. I was recovering from food poisoning, so I was a bit weak when I went in for my exam. I filled out the new patient questionnaire form while I waited, then the doctor went over it with me in the exam room.
"No medications?" he asked.
That's when I remembered, no, wait, I do take medication. I'd started taking medication for my allergies. I laughed and told him I must have forgotten to mark it down.
He handed the form back to me, and in his most condescending voice said, "Why don't you scratch out here -- where you marked no medications -- and write down the medications you actually do take."
Seriously? I must have a face that begs people to treat me like a moron.
Although he was condescending, and he didn't give me much advice about the other concerns I brought up, I figure I'll give him another chance. I was pretty loopy that day. But still, why? Why the rudeness? Why the incompetence?
While I waited to pay for my visit, I heard him usher another woman into his exam room. He recited the same opening sequence he'd said to me verbatim, even using the same exact tonal inflections, like he was parroting himself. Maybe he's just exhausted from repeating the same stuff over and over, day in and day out. I don't know.
But it makes me want to vigilant about being kind, no matter who I'm talking to. I never want to get so bogged down by the monotony of my job that I make someone feel stupid and I don't even notice it.
I never want to make someone feel inferior because of their intelligence, their body, their color, their beliefs, or whatever else, because I'll never know the issues they're working through at that moment. I need to assume everyone is going through something big, because they are.
Even when they say they're fine.
Our words cause a ripple effect each time we utter them -- no matter how harmless they may seem -- and we aren't often confronted with the damage they cause. So if the goal is kindness, always kindness, how can we fail?
I know I'm going to miss the mark, possibly every day for the rest of my life. But I'm choosing right now to aim for the bullseye.
