Optician Career
Optician Career
The Real Poop
Opticians are the guys and gals who hook you up with prescription glasses when you need them. If you can't see what's on this page without getting all scrunchy-squinty on us, you could probably use their services. If you think you'd enjoy working with all kinds of people's peepers, but hate the idea of looking at gross eye diseases, this is the perfect place for you to be.
There's a tradeoff for not having to deal with goopy eyes. An optician doesn't have the bragging rights of, say, an ophthalmologist, let alone the salary. Whereas the average ophthalmologist rakes in an eye-popping six figures a year, your typical optician earns a year's pay of $44,881 (source).
In spite of that money canyon separating your humble optician lifestyle and your overachieving cousin's ophthalmologist bougieness, there's a lot to like about this job.
First off, there's the stress factor, or rather, the lack of a stress factor. An optician is highly likely to have a light-and-breezy relationship with his or her co-workers and clients, since there isn't the pressure of being a capital-D Doctor (which also means that you can get to work like ten years before your friends get done with med school).
As a matter of fact, optician is the most highly recommended job in America, with 100% positive feedback, at least according to one survey (source). This could be a result of several different factors. For example, the workplace environment of an optician is either the retail section of a medical office or a department store, pharmacy, or specialty shop like LensCrafters.
And it gets better: there's plenty of room for an ambitious optician to move up by stepping up to a management or proprietary role, or by taking additional training to specialize in contact lenses, false eyes, or cosmetic fittings.
There are even programs designed to help opticians become ophthalmologists. What's more, the unemployment rate and job outlook for opticians are also way better than average, with job growth booming due to an increasingly elderly population (source). Thanks for living long enough to lose your vision, old folks.
Being an optician (or at least being any good at it) demands skills in math, eye-related science, and the basics of business management (source). It helps to enjoy both the technical side of things as well as working with clients and coworkers to get the job done. Your ability to breezily interact with a range of personalities is key.
As far as routes to break into the field, starting opticians have three options: they can earn either a two-year associate's degree or a one-year certificate in a program accredited by the COA, or get on-the-job training. This may be done through an apprenticeship which would take about two years (source). Then, depending on the state in which you live, you'll need to get licensed, which may require passing a qualifying exam.
On the day-to-day, opticians handle customer needs, from taking doctor's prescriptions and measuring faces, to educating the patient about care and options for their eyewear.
Glasses have to serve both fashion and function, so there are methods for making glasses better for different uses, like driving or sports. After working with the patient to figure out the right specs for the specs, opticians send work orders to the lab, where ophthalmic lab technicians make it happen (source).
Opticians also perform business tasks, like organizing the inventory, filing and transferring prescriptions, and keeping records of work and sales. This responsibility helps some opticians rise to management or owner roles, which translates to more money.
If all that sounds good to you, there's no better time than now to take the plunge. Optician jobs are readily available these days, and training can take as little as a year, with the possibility of instruction under an experienced optician even sooner. While other people are still paying for their four-year degrees, you could be getting paid to continue your education while training on the job.