go to Mrs Bnc's opticians to get new lens fitted to my existing frame
Big mistake if i were to. The optician ignored Mrs BnC's polite request he should please not alter/adjust the left hand arm (temple?) of the frame of her glasses when he was fitting the new lens. He then proceeded to replicate what he'd done with her other 3 frames. Mrs Bnc thought the glasses were comfortable but after getting home and trying them out by wearing each for a few hours she got a pain around her ear. Stupidly, she continued for the two (reading and distance) for a few days until finally unable to withstand the agony we went to a local opticians who (kindly, ie free of charge) adjusted all 4 frames. Now they're all comfortable. Except that the pain hasn't eased yet. According to Mrs Bnc's chiropractor, the area around her ear bone? (my description) is inflamed. To recover, Mrs Bnc is now not wearing her glasses. which means no reading, no watching TV - both necessary ways of passing the time as during her recuperation from her major operation some 15 weeks ago.
And all because the optician wouldn't listen but went ahead regardless.
This is not the first time that Mrs Bnc's health has suffered at the hands of people that don't take any notice of what she is saying. For example, her doctor messed up her arm whilst taking a blood test and then anew months later having offered to use her other arm for a second test messed that arm up too. And only because of where the arm was positioned which Mrs Bnc had said was wrong. A new receptionist (woman) at the garage was disbelieving that Mrs Bnc's car had a knocking sound when the garage couldn't find anything wrong. In the end, we identified the cause of the no sound when tested by the garage, yet noise when Mrs Bnc drove alone: weight distribution. The garage then fixed it, but no apology from the receptionist.
I listen. I learnt how and taught myself to listen when I used to offer counselling. Listening as I discovered is not about waiting for the other person to stop talking so as to resume where one left off. but taking in what the person is saying and allowing the direction of the conversation to go off track as necessary. A straightforward question doesn't necessarily result in a straightforward answer. At least, it would if the straightforward answer doesn't require any further explanation.
Amongst professionals, such as an opticians or doctors, there seems to be a tendency to treat the patient as ignorant of what the patient considers the best treatment. All well and good if the patient doesn't know for certain, but not if they do. It's not the first time that Mrs Bnc has been to an opticians but it was the first time an optician has ignore her request. As for the doctors, there are only two NHS surgeries in our town: Mrs Bnc had her fill of the first's attitude, talking to Mrs Bnc like she's elderly and past it. She changed (I follow) to the other surgery, only to be spoken to like she's elderly and past it. In connection with her operation in hospital, the surgery wrote her a letter but much of the content wasn't applicable to what Mrs Bnc was having done and had Mrs Bnc not had presence of mind she might've been petrified by what she read. The hospital was most apologetic.
I have come up with a solution for Mrs Bnc to remember when dealing with people she doesn't know. Think of them as motor mechanics whose bread-and-butter work is on Ford, Vauxhaull, Nissan. etc. Turn up in a Rolls-Royce or Bentley and expect a commensurate standard of treatment and one is likely to be disappointed. One is expected to make allowances for attitudes at the lower levels of society, not vice.versa. Snag is that even at the higher levels one can encounter attitudes that are misplaced.
I often wonder what Mrs Bnc is doing to deserve having her requests ignored, especially by people whose services she is paying for. Her first name (xxxx) is just four letters long but most people, including my late father and my sister, have difficulty remembering it, let alone pronounce it correctly. I know that many women consider themselves 'invisible' when amongst men but surely in this day and age it is not beyond the bounds of reason for people generally to take time to listen to what is actually said, and not jump to conclusions that they know better.
