A day in the life of….Missy0303

I thought I would share with you all what it's like to be me on a normal working day.

Monday 3rd February

6am

The alarm shrieks into life… Ugh…I am loathe to open my eyes, so I reach out from under my warm duvet, feeling around and hit the snooze button…a whole 9 minutes later it shrieks again. Ok, time to get up, if I hit the button one more time I will continue to do so and therefore will oversleep. I push the duvet off of me slowly…brrr it is freezing, sit up in bed and reach over to the bedside table for my specs. Yep I'm blind as a bat without them! I look out the window to see it has it quite icy outside Brrrr!

I put my slippers on and go into the bathroom, where I shiver and quickly splash my face. I then strip off my PJ's and fill the sink with nice warm water, proceed to get washed (I've still to get my new shower installed) and usually have a bath at night. A quick wash in the morning's the best I can manage at moment. I then dash back into my bedroom to apply a little moisturiser, and chuck my work clothes on. (Which I had ironed the previous night) Black trousers, white blouse (in the winter months I wear a vest top underneath and a black cardi or sweater over the top…it's freezing at work) and fasten my name badge to my cardigan. I then go downstairs, quickly checking my emails, whilst having a quick coffee, then make a start on my hair. I usually wash it the night before and therefore have to straighten it with my GHD's for work, if I am running out of time I will usually just throw a scrunchie bobble in and tie it back. This particular day I have time to straighten it. It needs a trim at the moment so my fringe is secured back with a clip.

Once I have finished my hair, I go wash my hands again. I then proceed to make up packed lunches for my kids to take to school. 2 flasks of hot tomato soup, 2 yoghurts, 2 cereal bars, 2 packets of crisps and some grapes today. I then pop a cup a soup and a banana into my lunch bag.

7am

I go into my daughter's bedroom and gently shake her awake, her clothes are awaiting downstairs in the warm living room for her to get dressed. She moans a bit, and ignores me for a good 5-10mins before finally getting up with a sigh, goes into the bathroom for a wash and then comes downstairs to have her cereal. My daughter is a very slow eater at times and can take about 20mins to eat a small bowl of cereal. Therefore I always try getting her up a bit earlier. She then gets dressed, again this is done slowly, if she was any more laid back she would be horizontal I think.

7:30am

I go into my son's room, throw back the duvet (the only language he understands) and say gently but firmly "time to get up mate" He grunts his reply… " Nnmmnnnnm"

8am

I've been up and downstairs about 5 times, each time to try get lazy article of a son out of his bed, same regime every morning. Finally I call his mobile phone which I know is beside his bed, and say, "Ok final call, if you don't get your butt downstairs within the next 3mins your phone will be surgically removed from your hand" This usually always has the desired effect…as he knows I mean business.

8:30am

I call a taxi to take children to school, their school is a 15min walk from our house, but I don't usually have the time to walk with them, as I would be late for work. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays they can go to school at 8:15am for breakfast club…which means they can leave a bit earlier…and I can get to work on time.
After depositing them in the taxi, making sure they are kitted up with everything they need for the day, I walk down to the bus stop to wait for my bus to take me to work. I am usually late on a Monday morning and a Friday morning as there is no breakfast club at school and I don't like the kids being left outside for too long in the mornings before going into school. (The taxi drops them off at the school gate, and it is usually the same driver most mornings too, and he makes sure they go in as well) There is always a classroom assistant or the janitor around in the playground from around 8:30am too.
My bus journey to work is really only a 10minute journey but between 8:20and about 9am it is usually more than double that, hence why I'm always late, my boss is ok with this as he understands, having kids of his own.

9am

Arrival at work…(give or take 5mins) coat off and teeth chattering go onto shop floor to log onto my station to check diary for the day and see if any deliveries are due, so I can plan my time effectively. Notice that there are plenty of room for walk in appointments for eye exams in the diary, so manager has just said we can take anyone who wishes to have their eyes tested today, so long as they are due. My boss is away on conference so his wife, also an optometrist is in today.

10am

First hour drags in quite slowly, nothing much happened, as it's Monday there was no deliveries today, and our first appointment didn't turn up. Had a chat with one of my colleagues about our weekends. Then we take it in turns to have a 15 minute tea break. I have a bowl of cereal for mine, and leaf through a magazine…to find out the latest celebrity gossip.

11am

Time for the first appointment today, 1 more person called to reschedule as they had to work, A lovely elderly gentleman comes in and informs me he has an appointment for 11am, I smile and ask him to take a seat in the waiting area and that I would be right with him. I print off a form for him to sign to say that he is eligible for a free NHS eye exam (in Scotland EVERYONE is entitled to a free test every 2 years, or every year if under 16 /over 60 or has or is related to anyone with glaucoma/diabetes) I ask Mr X to check the details we have for him are correct, and then ask him to sign it. I then take him through to our pre-test area where I explain that I am about to do an initial examination, I ask him to place his chin on the rest, in front of a machine called an auto-refractor which works by shining a light onto the surface of the eye, and measuring how the light changes as it enters the eye. This gives us an estimated prescription, and also lets us see at a glance whether the patient is near or far sighted. The patient stares at a picture of a hot air balloon at the end of a long road…this just gives him something to focus on, the picture will go in and out of focus a few times to allow the auto-refractor to do its job.
I then move the table so that the next machine is in front of Mr X, this is the tonometer, which is the one ALL patients hate. It works by blowing a few small quick puffs of air over the surface of the eye, this tells us if there is a lot of pressure in the eyes, or not. We usually do a few puffs so that we can take an average of them. Some people have high pressures, but this does not always indicate any problems, but if someone's pressure changes dramatically from one year to the next then we will keep a close eye on it. Abnormally high pressures can sometimes indicate early signs of glaucoma, but as I mentioned before, this is not always the case.
I then take Mr X into a smaller dark room just beside us, and get him to sit in front of another machine, this time I am checking his visual fields, I ask him to cover his left eye and look through the small window on front of the machine, and explain that he will see a series of flashing green dots that I will need him to count for me, he can either tell me how many he sees each time and where they appear, or use a handheld beeper to indicate how many flash on the screen. What I am checking for here is any missed dots which can sometimes indicate a problem with peripheral vision. What we are looking for here is any clusters of dots that the patient can't see.
Finally I ask Mr X to slide his chair to the next machine which is our digital retinal camera, I line up the camera lens, and proceed to take photographs of the back of his eyes, not always easy as some patients have really small pupils, and therefore may need eye drops to dilate them occasionally. The photographs are great as they allow the patient to see exactly what the optometrist sees with his ophthalmoscope, and also means we have a hard copy of them too, so we can compare on the patients next visit.

During the whole pre-test time, I am chatting away with Mr X, asking him questions about how he is getting on, having any problems with his current glasses, offering advice on how to avoid getting his glasses bent as he was asking. I then take him back to the waiting area and inform the optometrist he is now waiting, and give her the information he told me.

11:30am

Mr X comes out of the test room with the optometrist, who hands him over to me, explaining what he needs, and what she has advised. She gives him his new eye prescription, and then I am left to give him some information on varifocal lenses, as he was interested in trying them. I ask him some questions about his lifestyle, what he usually wears his glasses for etc, so I can be better informed about what type of lens would be more suitable for him. I then tell him about different types, he decides to try the mid price one, and we then go to choose a frame which would accommodate it. I suggest a few frames and he chooses one that he likes and which fits the best.
I then take some measurements, making sure I have double checked them as it is very important to get it exactly right, or the patient may end up not seeing properly. I then explain that once the glasses are made up with his lenses (in about a week as they were being ordered in from our supplier) that we would get him to come back in (at his convenience) for a final fitting and to be shown how to get the best use from his new glasses. I then totalled up his purchase and took payment, by card at the till. I then made sure I had Mr X's phone number so we could keep him informed of his order.

12noon

I am on first lunch break today so I nip upstairs to my locker for my purse and nip out to the bank to lift some money to pay the bills (bah humbug) and then pop into the newsagents for a newspaper and a bottle of diet coke. I go back into our small staff room and pop the kettle on so I can have my cup a soup. I then flick through the paper for anything interesting, and phone my mum to check she is getting the kids from school for me at 3pm, and remind her their drama group is cancelled for the day, in case she forgot and didn't pick them up till 4! I finished my soup and ate my banana, and then when my 45mins break was up went back downstairs to let one of my colleagues go for their lunch. Our back stairs are very draughty and coming out of the nice warm tearoom, I am shivering….brrr.

Another couple of people come in for tests, and between myself and my colleagues we help them before and after their tests.

1pm

I take advantage of a quiet half an hour to do a price spot check, which I have to do on weekly basis. My job is to make sure stock is merchandised well, to ensure we have the stock we need and basically to know where everything is should anyone need it.

2pm

It's a very quiet day today, a few people have come in to collect their glasses, and so I have done a couple of frame adjustments, all of which took about 15mins. One lady came in with her husbands glasses to be repaired, he had sat on them by accident, this is something which we get on a regular basis, and most of the time can be fixed in a few moments. I straightened the glasses up, but advised that hubby pops in to get them re-fitted as they may not sit as well on his face now. She laughs and says it would serve him right to be a squinty old git! Her words not mine lol.

3pm

I go to my workstation and log onto my employers online training course, and complete another module, it's good because I can do a little bit at a time, and leave it and go back to it again later if a customer comes in. I'm a bit bored this afternoon. If only we had solitaire on our computers!

4pm

A young mum comes in with her 2 children to have their eyes tested, the eldest at 9yrs old already wears glasses, but the younger one at 5yrs old has never been tested and was a bit wary. Children don't need the full pre-test part of the eye exam, and so we usually only do the first part with them, as it is difficult, especially with the younger ones to get them to sit still for very long. The oldest girl came first and I let the younger one stand beside me so she could see what I was doing, I then let her sit on her mums knee so she could put her chin on the rest, and then I asked her to look for a big red balloon…she forgot about her fear and was all excited when she saw the balloon. They both then went in together for their test, again this put the little girl at ease as her sister went first. When they came out, big sis needed to get some new glasses and had already decided upon a nice plastic pair rather than going for the same ones she had already had. Little sister was a bit upset as she didn't need to get glasses and had worked herself up somewhat….I suggested to mum that she might want to pick up a pair of little sunglasses for her, to make her feel all grown up…I told her we had some in stock for little ones, but that she would probably be able to buy some cheap ones from Primark or similar. Little one liked this idea and mum thanked me for the advice. I then told them to pop back just before closing time to pick up big sisters glasses.

5:15pm

What a long day it's been, and to top things off, it's started snowing outside…down South however has been getting it bad all day so I guess I shouldn't complain.
The two little girls came back to pick up older sisters new glasses and little one was sporting a snazzy pair of pink sunglasses, with the lenses popped out of them (she didn't want dark glasses, wanted ones same as big sis) my colleague fitted them properly for her as I was busy vacuuming the carpet.

5:30pm

Time to lock up and go home…woohoo…
My manager is pregnant so is finding it more difficult bending down to lock the bottom lock now, so I lock up and run to catch my bus home.
My mum visits her sister on a Monday afternoon and so takes the kids there, so I have to pick them up from her house instead, its incredibly cold as the snow is still falling slowly, kids are all excited and are dying to get home to get out to play again, we jump on another bus and arrive home about 6:30pm.

6:30pm

Kids are out trying hard to make a snowman out of half a centimetre of snow lol. Not much success there. I pop the kettle on for a coffee whilst I am making my dinner, kids have been fed already.

7pm

I sit down to eat my dinner, and watch TV for half an hour in peace, kids are still out front playing, they'll be freezing when they come in so I put the electric fire on for a while. I then nip upstairs and iron clothes for next day, and quickly make the beds from this morning. I shout the kids in and get them to show me their homework that they done at their Grans.

8pm

Time for daughter's bed, she goes off with no complaints, tired herself out with the fresh air, and asks if she can read a chapter of her book before she goes to sleep…she no longer asks me to read to her..which saddens me a little but I guess we have to let them grow up eh? Son and I then sit downstairs watching TV together for a little while, and then he pops online to talk to his school friends and his stepsister.

9pm

Son goes to his room, and pops a DVD on, he usually falls asleep within the first 15mins of watching one. And this is no exception. Peace at last!
I run myself a bath, and whilst waiting on it running, I check my emails. I do a quick paid survey. Then I go and soak for 15mins. I put the heating on in my bedroom and fill my hot water bottle, my room is the coldest in the house…and I hate being cold. I then come back to the PC to answer my emails, do another survey and delete all the dross!

10pm

I decide to have an early night, and pop a DVD on in my room, turn off the heater and jump into bed…all snug and warm because of the hot water bottle…20mins later I have to turn the DVD off as my eyes are struggling to stay open. I normally either read some of my book or watch a DVD at bedtime as I cannot just go to bed and go to sleep.

Tuesday 4th February
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YAY lie in today, day off!

Well that was a whole 24 hours in the day in the life of Missy0303. Each day can be much the same most of the time, but this was a somewhat stress free day, as the children managed to get up and out the door on time, this is not always the case, as many of you mums and dads will probably know…more often than not I am running about like a headless chicken, just trying to get my children out of bed and into the taxi each morning, and then I usually miss my bus, and run to another bus stop, to try catch an alternate one. My jobs pretty much the same most days too, although I get to meet different people all the time which is the part I enjoy most, I love talking to new people and through doing this job have gained a huge amount of confidence in doing my job well, as I can chat away with the patients and build up a rapport with them, enabling me to find out their needs, which makes me better informed when helping them.
When I finish work at night, I turn the work button off, I try not to take any worries home with me as that would infringe on my personal life, and I spend little enough time with my children that I refuse to let it spill over. It is the type of job that I can do this easily and so suits me better. I would love to work part time again, but financially know I couldn't afford to, I need to pay my bills, and still have some left over for treats for both me and my children, like our holiday abroad. If I worked part time I couldn't afford the luxuries we have.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and I welcome any comments, questions or anything else…
Michelle (Feb09)