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Are optometrists allowed to use the “F” word anymore? You know, fun? It’s easy to be serious these days. I remember when the first order of business at local association meetings had something to do with a certain beverage from Scotland. Needless to say, we had some fun discussions about our profession’s challenges!
Plus, it was a lot easier to get doctors to agree to be officers when they were two swigs in.
It’s not that we aren’t fun individually or even when we mob some hapless legislator’s office. I find plenty of reasons to laugh with, and at, my colleagues. To me, clip-on ties and hair gel are hilarious. Plus I think it is really, really fun to watch the aforementioned legislator try to pronounce difficult words like “glaucoma” and “latanoprost.” Like I said, optometrists can be fun any time they want.
So why not have fun, not just when harassing politicians, but also in the office? I read things on Facebook, Twitter and all the other inane time wasters where optometrists are having near-death experiences just fitting a contact lens on some 50-year-old. Of course, being medically trained, we all just pop antidepressants when we can’t solve problems the old fashioned way—by drinking Old Fashioneds all day.
But pill popping doesn’t help. If you listen to the rapid disclaimers at the end of some miracle pill’s TV ad, you should be well aware that the side effects of oral antidepressants include not wanting to put on new nose pads for free.
Cyndi Lauper hit the nail on the head when she sang, “Eye doctors just wanna have fun.” Ok, a few changes were made in the final recorded version.
Here are some ideas to make your day in the office more fun:
- When it’s raining in Biblical proportions, ask your assistant to run out to your car and get the newspaper you left in the front seat.
- When patients are no-shows, use the time to examine your lifelong invisible friend.
- Schedule a recheck for your new invisible friend who can never seem to adapt to new glasses without a remake.
- Read about the Texas Rangers. Not the baseball team—that will just depress you more. I mean the original Texas Rangers, the ones who made Texas what it is today, half as big as Alaska.
- Tell your career-long patient that story about the lady who put fingernail polish remover in the same eye twice in one day. That one never gets old!
- Take a peek inside your office refrigerator. Wonder what that green thing used to be …
- Tell especially nice patients they have won the Patient of The Day contest, which comes with all the privileges someone would get if they didn’t get a single number right on the lottery.
- Whisper during the refraction—you get points if patients start to whisper back.
- Tell patients you have to “puff” them 20 times and take the average. Throw out the results and do applanation tonometry because the puffer’s seen better days.
- With a new contact lens candidate, put a hard lens on one eye and a soft lens on the other and ask which seems more comfortable.
- Visit the office attic or basement and kill anything that moves.
- Tell your staff they are all fired and today is National Opposite Day then wait to see who shows up tomorrow.
- Change your Snellen chart to read: “A guy walks into a bar.”
