I went last Thursday for a supposedly free Lasik evaluation at the Lasik Vision Institute and have so many complaints.

First, the advertised price of $299 per eye is bullsh*t. That price is advertised to people with a limited problem with their eyes, and although my prescription was not far from the $299 one, I was initially offered a price of $1750 per eye. The “counselor” is basically a salesperson (in my case a loud Italian with an obnoxiously large nose and a few missing teeth) that tries to take as much money from you as possible. I was able to get this price down to $1250 per eye, which really doesn’t make sense since one eye was much worse than the other.

Second, I was quoted a price without seeing a doctor. Two different nurses, used a couple machines to check out my eyes and I was then put in the back with the “counselor.” First of all, I don’t trust a couple of nurses with BS degrees to check out my eyes. Second, the LVI states that you must have a doctor look at your eyes before you are quoted a price, which obviously did not happen.

I was then told that my prescription has changed from just 6 months ago, meaning my eyesight is still changing at a young age, and they still opted for surgery. From my understanding, if you eyes are still changing, they will continue after surgery, and it is usually difficult to get multiple operations on your eyes.

When I finally did see a doctor, the only thing she did was put plugs in my eyes. The plugs basically stop the draining of tears through your cornea so that your eyes stay moist. That was Thursday, and my surgery was schedule for today, Monday. I read up on this and found out these plugs are solely for post-surgery and are optional. When I went to bitch out everyone at the office today the bulbous-nosed “counselor” told me that this is done to every patient before surgery. I talked to a family friend who happens to be a Lasik surgeon at Woodlands Custom Vision, where I will soon be going to,  and she said that doing this is dangerous. Performing on someone with plugs can cause a serious eye infection.

Finally, I was initially refused my $100 deposit from my “free” evaluation, but once I began yelling in the lobby in front of everyone else there, I got it back.

The Lasik Vision Institute is a company that uses sales people rather than doctors to evaluate your eyes and get every dollar from you. They put plugs in your eyes based on commision and must see a set number of patients per day to get their full commision. This type of service for something so vital to life is outrageous, and everyone should beware and do their research. It is disgraceful that a company supposedly working to help the everyday person have the luxury of Laisik. The reason I went in the first place is because at that location, Dr. Bruce January is one of the best Lasik surgeons in the country. Unfortunately , the Lasik Vision Institute and its employees make him look bad.

Things I Hate:

When your favorite song comes on the radio and you wanna sing as loud as possible and someone calls that you must answer.

When you anticipate your shampoo will soon run out and you buy a new bottle, and no matter how much you over-shampoo it seems like the bottle will never end.

When you have one too many eleectronics and you have to either switch off between two things or buy a whole new surge protector for one plug.

When people blindly support someone based on ethnicity rather than credentials.

When your favorite show is on and the cable decides to create humongous, annoying pixels across your screen.

State troopers.

When Dish Network installs their equipment and they give you a DVR without offering the HD DVR for free, and when you realize it and you want to switch to the HD DVR two days later they say they must charge you $150.

People who think you’re unorganized just because your things aren’t kept the way they like it, even though you know where everything is, and once they “organize” it their way, you can’t find anything and are much more unorganized than you ever were before.

People that think they must force conversation…what’s wrong with sitting there quietly once in a while?

People who drive the speed limit.

People who continue to support George Bush, Jr.

Nickelodeon’s decision to play Roseanne all night instead of Fresh Prince of Bel-air.

People obsessed with Mac computers because they feel they’re better than others since they spent twice what their computers should be sold for.

When ugly people have beautiful voices…it’s very disappointing once you see their disgusting faces.

Things I Love:

People who read my rants!

You may not expect this, but the richest person in China is a female. Yang Huiyan, is only 26, and has inherited 7.4 billion. Her father, Yeung Kwok Keung, owned Country Garden Holdings Co, which he sold last April in the Hong Kong Stock exchange. Garden Holdings is a real estate investment group that focuses on building townhouses and villas in China. If you ever go to China ask how much the average townhouses cost there. They are so expensive that the majority of the population cannot live there, Chinese constructors build houses for the wealthy affluent foreigners.

Basically, Keung buys cheap land and builds villas with cheap labor. He then sells them for extremely high prices, because foreigners can buy them. That’s how to get rich in China, or any developing country. All you need is connections and kick the poor people out to build on their land.

Chinese hustling Chinese.

Yeah.

Every time I try to pay my ATT bill it’s always a hassle. Their automated message systems and the people are extremely incomptennt. Here’s how my call went.

1. I get an automated message and get transfered to an operator.
2. I say my customer number to the operator #1, she says ok and puts me on hold.
3. While on hold, I get transfered back to a different automated message.
4. I manage to speak to operator #2  and tell her my customer number.
5. She can’t deal with my type of account, so she sends me to somebody who can do that.
6. Operator #3 will have to charge me a fee, if she processes my payment, which is weird because I’ve done it before with an operator for free. I tell her I’ll just use the automated message system to pay.
7. I give the automated message system my customer number and it transfers me to operator #4. She finally takes my payment without fee.

It took 18 minutes and four different operators to pay my bill.

This isn’t the first time, I’ve been juggled around the ATT support network; they’re so big that they can’t give the correct training to all their employees. ATT has at least 20 different numbers that you can call, but odds are none of them will get you to where you need to be.

Yeah.

Tonight, I went to Amy’s Ice Cream and wasn’t too pleased with the service. The line wasn’t long when I got there, but it took at least 15 minutes to get my ice cream. I really don’t get how tough serving ice cream and shakes can be. But apparently the three employees had a hard time.

 
I was with two other people and we were going to order together. One person served all three of us, rather than all three helping. I don’t get the logic here, but one of the employees refused to serve me because there was somebody else helping my two friends. That employee also took the time to chat with a coworker, after turning me down. My first impression of Amy’s Ice Cream is that it has a really relaxed atmosphere. But that guy really ruined it for me, and made Amy’s Ice Cream seem like a haven where slouches can work. This is a perfect example of how a successful business gets bad publicity.

 
Let’s talk about making money.

Anyways even with bad employees, Amy’s Ice Cream is totally a cash cow. Their return of investment is so high, because the majority of their costs are fixed; therefore, they have a higher operating leverage, so any increase of sales will subsequently increase their net income.

The ice cream comes in three different sizes: Tiny, Small, and Large. Don’t be fooled into thinking the sizes correlate with the price: The tiny size is the cheapest and cost around $3.50. Each topping cost almost a dollar extra. They’re definitely marking it up the price by some huge percentages.

 
Here is what I predict Amy’s Ice cream income statement to look like:

Look at the operating leverage. Any change in sales will increase income 6.2 times! I could be wrong about the variable expenses, because I assumed they used 300% markup. It possibility could be even more, because I ice cream is inexpensive to make.

 
In conclusion, Amy’s Ice cream is a big cash cow for Amy, but it could be ruined by bad employees. After all, part of Amy’s Ice Cream is based of experience of their service, why else could they charge ridiculously high markups? Do ya’ll have any stories about receiving bad service?

 
Yeah.

If I had sold Tibetan merchandise in San Francisco, London, or Paris, I would be extremely rich. It seems everybody and their mothers came out to support Tibet and the “human rights” issue. Below is a video that shows how informed these people really are.

 

 
If you can’t find Tibet on a map, why are you protesting? If you say for “human rights”, I’m going to ask where you find your sources; watching Seven Years in Tibet isn’t enough to call yourself an expert on Tibet. The only reason these people are protesting is because of the publicity the media is giving them. For all you Tibet supporters, why didn’t ya’ll feel so strongly Tibet last year? There are so many other issues today that the world should focus their attention on. For instance, the fighting in Somalia, Darfur, or the food crisis in Senegal, all have more precedence than human rights in Tibet; yet, human rights in Tibet seems to be the most worthy of the protesters’ voice.

 
http://www.savetibet.org/tibet/humanrights/index.php
Here is a website that is campaigning for Tibet. If you look at the human rights section you see it’s a little over 200 words. Talk about Information overload on an issue those Tibet supports feel so adamantly about.

 
In conclusion, it’s really sad that these Tibetan protesters are trying to ruin China’s image. Rather than focusing on a more serious problem, they’re going all out to stop the Olympics for an issue they don’t know much about. They make it seem like Tibet is the new concentration camp that China built to suppress the Tibetans.

 
Team Tibet is really putting on some show.

 
Yeah.