Any Opticians?

[BirdFeederFun]

My duaghter after her eye test has expressed an interest in training to be an optician.

She's expecting to get high grades at GCSE and I think she needs 2 sciencey/maths A levels for the degree.

But it seems a big commitment at 18.

Do you enjoy your job? Do you get bored?
Is it a good career? Can she earn well?

What are the degrees like? Is there a post grad route (I can't see it).

None of the main unis near me seem to offer it.

I worked in an opticians for 6 years. I once asked the 40 something optom if he enjoyed the job. He said that sometimes the thought of doing this for the next 20 years was depressing because it was so monotonous. The same thing day in day out, the same questions to each patient every 20 minutes, day after day. He was on good money though and was going to be getting a good pension. I think all jobs are monotonous after a while tbh.
Could she maybe approach one and ask about sitting in shadowing for a few days, doing a bit of work experience before she decides?

That's a good idea about work experience.

It looks likes it paid well but yes it's going to be the same day in day out for years isn't it.

Just bumping as surely we have some mn opticians...

My ex dh has been an optician all his working life (51 now) and he hates it. He says he's too old to retrain now. I also hated it as he was AWOL every Saturday leaving me with 2 small dcs on my own to entertain while I did the housework/shopping (I also worked full time Mon to Fri) and he's never earned enough to be comfortable. In fact he's on about the same now as when we got married in 2005 and we've had two kids since then. His lack of career progression (he had no money behind him to buy a practice) was a contributing factor to our marriage ending as I was always under so much pressure to earn well and I missed out on so my time with our dcs. Sorry it's not better news!

Gosh thankyou. And yes really helpful. I think my duaghter wants to go to uni to train "as something" but my fear is that ties her into a specific path like your ex found. And optician seems very specific.
She's attracted to the science behind it I think and lack of night shifts.

I thought it did pay quite well? We don't have any fmaiky money - is buying a practice the only way to progress?

Thankyou so much for your help.

I'll definitely see if I can steer in a different direction.

Hi, it's only a 35 to 40k a year job, and Ex dh usually has been practice manager too. He's worked for three independents, Speccies and now Asda. The only ones that made any real money were the independents that had a few practices and businesses like that aren't cheap to buy. We could never afford for him to set up on his own and one practice, even if we could have scraped enough for that together, is unlikely to make megabucks.

Gosh yes that helps so very much. I've read your post and she's now ruled it out!

She'd got to the stage of trying to get work experience.

DIL is an optician and she loves it. She earns very well, apparently. Part of her current job involves going into old people's homes, taking all her stuff with her. She gets a company car, seems to work long hours, but finds it very satisfying. There are positions for opticians/optoms in hospitals too.

My cousin’s been working as an optom in a small independent practice for a few years now and actually enjoys it, but yeah, it’s very much a "depends on the setup" kind of job. She’s lucky because the place she works at runs pretty efficiently, and a lot of that comes down to their systems. Apparently, they use something like this kind of software to manage bookings, stock, records, etc. Makes a massive difference compared to how clunky things were before.

I’m an optometrist and I did find the 5 days a week doing the same thing a little monotonous - but it was great when the kids were small as it’s easy to work part time and if you want variety you can work in a hospital or (as I am doing now) work in research - every day is different as I work on different clinical trials on different days and I learn new skills/techniques for each new study and then there are days with no patients when I work on data and study reviews - this definitely helped me when I was getting a little bored with the ‘sameness’ every day - just something to consider also - most healthcare roles have a lot of repetition - think GPs/ dentists etc . It’s finding a role that you are happy to do within that skill set.

I work in an opticians .

We have varied staff .one works part time hospital / part time practice .

there is always learning .
we have regular locums who do earn very well per shift .