Shirley at Fred Meyer

Fow the huck do you become a licensed optician in this country without being able to speak English? Or rather, how do you do so, and hold a job at a big chain - and then how do they fail to provide an interpreter? And how do your colleagues decide it's not worth intervening when you and your customer are clearly arguing in different languages?

I left angry, went out and caught my breath. 10 minutes later I went back, and argued again until they let me change my order to only $10 over the amount my insurance covered. I approached someone else in the department to do so, but the woman who could neither enunciate nor speak in sentences insisted on butting back in and not letting me talk to her coworkers.

From her coworkers reactions, I strongly suspect she spoke perfect English, and that it was just a ploy to get people to say "yes" to things they didn't need or understand. There was a phrase she repeated 6 or 7 times during the second conversation - it was either "all done" or "hold on" but I still don't know which, and they have very different meanings. She refused to clarify or rephrase.

These are polycarbonates - they've done me fine. My eyes haven't changed - I'm only here because the nosepiece keeps falling off, and my insurance will pay $300 to replace them. So unless you can explain to me, in English, why I really need high-index glare-coated transitions lenses with accident coverage for $80+$20+$80+$45 more than a new set of polycarbs, you're just going to have to accept that your commission is a little bit smaller. And let me pick out my goddamn frames by myself, without you constantly trying to hand me frames $50+ over the budget I've already clearly mentioned repeatedly.

I'm not some narrow-minded asshole who thinks "furners" should "go home". However, when you lack basic communication skills in English, perhaps a highly technical service industry is NOT where you should go job hunting. She utterly lacks the social skills for that job.

EDIT: She lacks communications skills. Her co-workers lack social skills and related customer-service skills. At least two of them saw and heard us arguing. One of them made eye contact with me repeatedly, but refused to intervene. I suspect their office is commission-driven, so they have no incentive to intrude on someone else's "sale". Sure, the problem wouldn't have happened if she spoke better English, but it also wouldn't have happened if her English-speaking colleagues had cared enough to help. Instead, they twiddled their thumbs and did their best to stay out of the path of the outraged customer. Self-centered jerks.