Real-Life Communication
You're an optician working in the store of an optical shop.
As such, it's your job to make people feel comfortable wearing the glasses
you sell them. This means ensuring your clients get the right frame, lens
and fit for their new glasses. Making people comfortable also involves helping
them mentally adjust to the change wearing glasses will bring to their day-to-day
lives.
Getting glasses for the first time can be a scary experience
for anyone, but especially for children who often don't understand why
they need to wear glasses at all.
"Dealing with the public, as anyone
who has ever done it knows, can be a trying experience at times. You have
to be able to handle people's reactions when they're happy and when
they're not," says optician Richard Weiss.
Right now, the clients
you're helping are an eight-year-old girl and her father. They have just
come from the optometrist, who has told the little girl she needs glasses.
The little girl is scared and upset. After trying on several pairs of glasses
she begins to cry.
"I hate this," she cries. "Why do I need glasses
anyway?"
Her father looks at you pleadingly and asks you to explain.
You sit the little girl on the counter, pull out your chart with a picture
of a normal eye and a problem eye and begin to explain.
"You see, you
have a condition known as myopia or nearsightedness. With this condition,
objects over an infinite distance become blurry images," you explain as you
point to the nearsighted diagram on your chart.
"It's quite a
common refractive error in which light rays focus at a point in the front
of the eye's retina due to an elongated eyeball."
The little girl
stares at you, looking startled and confused. No glimmer of understanding
here. You realize the problem -- she must not know how a normal eye works.
You point to the diagram of the normal eye and explain.
"In a normal
eye, the light reflects off an image and through the lens and focuses directly
on the retina, which is where your brain receives the image from," you add
conclusively. But just when you think you've wrapped up this lesson,
the little girl begins to cry again.
"For goodness sake, she's
only eight years old!" says her exasperated father. "Will you please explain
it in a way she can understand?"
Using the above information, explain
nearsightedness to this little girl.