Browsing tag: rant

I’m tired of hearing people say “Writing is my passion.”

Why does nobody ever say “Accounting/Chemistry/Physics/Law/Greek/Programming is my passion?”

There seems to be something noble about aspiring to make a living through the arts.

But in two, five, even ten years, when you’re working thankless hours for a pittance, you might be rethinking that plan.

And maybe by that stage, you won’t be so passionate about putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, anymore.

So I know one commenter couldn’t say enough good things about Specsavers, but I can safely say that my experience has been well and truly the opposite.

Let’s recap. I was underwhelmed by the service at my initial appointment. A week later I went back for a fitting of my new lenses – as usual, I got a phone call the night before to remind me of it.

BUT, a couple hours before I was due to head over, I got a call about, er, making an appointment for a fitting. Apparently it hadn’t been noted that I was already booked in for one. That just screams unprofessionalism to me.

Now, this is a brand new branch. Maybe they’re just having teething problems. But honestly, if they are so disorganised they can’t keep records of appointments straight, why would I trust them with the health of my eyes?

That appointment went fine; I scheduled a final checkin for the following week. No phone reminder this time. I had a different optometrist this time around (for the record, he was a middle-aged Asian man, very professional and he actually seemed to listen when I answered his questions). There was a little bit of confusion when it came to placing the order for my lenses – the chart the optometrist had was different from the one the sales assistant had – but I left feeling pretty happy.

UNTIL. Until I got a call not much later, saying that the optometrist (a locum – might explain why he seemed so much more onto it during the appointment) was unfamiliar with their suppliers, and they couldn’t actually order in the particular brand after all. I could go for a different brand, which was double the price but came with double the amount of lenses (6 instead of 3).

The problem is, I’d still have to order two separate boxes because my eye prescriptions are different. And I ain’t going to pay over $300 in one hit for contacts when I’m not even sure how often I want to wear them! This is me, dipping my toes (eyeballs?) into the water, not committing to deep sea diving.

Of course, I could pay them off over time, she said, as it was their mistake. But you know what, that’s just not in the budget, and I’m not willing to wear their screwup. I’m cancelling the order, and will probably buy my contacts online at some point…like, when I see a good deal. Contacts are handy when it’s raining, or incredibly sunny, but I no longer want to go out of my way for them. (Look out for an upcoming post detailing why!)

UPDATE: In the interests of full disclosure, I have been back twice since this post. One, to cancel the order, only to be told that these were in fact the original $80 a box ones. I didn’t have time to stick around while she checked with management, though. Two, I returned to find that no, these actually were the $160 a box lenses, and finally got a refund for the $60 I’d already paid toward them. Lovely, apologetic sales assistants, but the lack of communication and organisation  – horrendous.

Bummer. Turns out I owe tax, even though I’m always careful to try and make sure my tax rates are correct throughout the year. Hopefully now I’m no longer receiving a student allowance, I’ll start getting refunds again.

Even worse, I never knew anything about it until I got a notice last week informing me my payment was OVERDUE! When I called the IRD, I was told a letter was sent out in July last year. Lord only knows why it never reached me. That’s $353 down the drain.

Then to add insult to injury, our useless head flatmate went from saying that our last week at the old place was all paid for (something he told me six months ago) to saying that everyone was in fact a few days BEHIND due to the dates we moved in.

I’m not even going to go into the ridiculous details. Either way, whether he deliberately lied to us for the entire time we lived there, or he just had an epic communication fail, I refused to go out of my way to accommodate his clusterfuck. I told him to take it out of our deposit. And trust me, he had PLENTY of opportunities to clarify this, had he bothered to.

(Don’t tell me that I should have been on top of all this, please. We moved right in the middle of my last semester, in a week when I was putting in double my hours at work. The deal was that I didn’t have to arrange anything or worry about anything. T and the guys were handling it all. For someone as jaded as I am, I should never have made the mistake of trusting someone else on this. My own fault. Still, at least I come out better off than if we’d stayed put and continued to let the heinous ex-flatmate suck me dry.)

It bugs me that the last few places we’ve moved out of have been on bad terms. And in most of the places I’ve lived with other people, things have started off so well and only deteriorated from there. Part of the problem is living with people our age. Why haven’t we tried to find a place with more mature flatmates, you ask? Well, most DON’T want to live with people in their early 20s, and you’d be amazed how many specify no students or shift workers. Not to mention that they also often price people like us out of the market. Maybe a single 30-something could comfortably afford $300 rent on their own a week to live in a nice townhouse, but we certainly couldn’t.

I’m not quite 22 and have been flatting for over four years. It feels like eternity, and I’m already over it! Living on our own is worth every cent, one-person kitchen or not.