Unfiltered Story #215233

(I’m at an optometrist to get new glasses. As my last measurement was some years ago, I do a new one. For the lucky ones without glasses: You basically look through some optical machinery and read letters while telling the technician if you see better or worse with specific optics.)

Technician: “Ok, can you still read the last line?”
Me: “Kind of. I can pattern-match the letters, but it is partly guessing.”
Technician: *switches lens* “Is it better now?”
Me: “No, it was nearly perfect before. It’s the resolution that keeps me from clearly reading it, not the sharpness. It is perfectly sharp.”
Technician: “Uhm. What do you mean?”
Me: “Well, you know, it is too small to read, but the edges are sharp. Think of a camera.”
Technician: *not convinced* “Ok.”
(It’s not a complicated concept, is it?)

(Some time later, I have to decide which of a pair of lenses works better. A simple “one or two” decision. The technician switches two lenses rather fast and then asks “the first or the second?”)
Me: “Uhm, could I see the first one again, please? Yes, the first is better.”
(I do this two or three times)
Technician: “Try to answer more intuitively!”

(You know, I’m buying 400€ glasses that I intend to wear for four years or more. I like to think about this, if you don’t mind. In the end, the glasses luckily were perfect, but wow. She wasn’t new either, only experienced employees do these tests. And no, the store was mostly empty and had several other employees available.)