Transitions Optical Reviews 7

I hope this review gives a clear picture of what I personally experienced. While the workplace is clean and a few people are genuinely pleasant, my overall time there was deeply disappointing and often stressful.

From the start, I felt significant pressure to take on excessive overtime, to the point where it seemed refusing extra hours could put me at a disadvantage. Training, in my experience, was nowhere near adequate, leaving me unprepared and then held fully responsible for mistakes that I felt could have been avoided with proper support. I strongly advise anyone starting here not to sign training documents until they are genuinely confident they’ve been taught what they need to know.

The work environment often felt intrusive and uncomfortable, with conversations and personal remarks spreading far beyond what I considered professional. I also encountered verbally harsh interactions, and when I sought help or support, I did not feel that my concerns were acknowledged or taken seriously. In my view, the workplace has a serious need to improve its approach to respect, communication, and fair treatment.

Some interactions with certain colleagues made me feel intimidated and deeply uncomfortable, especially when personal-space boundaries were not respected. These situations left me feeling unsettled, and I would strongly encourage new employees to maintain firm boundaries from the beginning.

Throughout my time there, I also perceived uneven and inconsistent treatment among staff from different backgrounds. Although this is my personal impression, it had a significant impact on how I experienced the workplace and contributed to a growing sense of unfairness.

Overall, despite a few positive aspects, my experience was marked by pressure, inadequate preparation, uncomfortable interactions, and a lack of support. These issues were significant enough that I believe anyone considering this job deserves to be aware of them upfront.

I have purchased Vision Express (Oxford Street East branch) glasses with Transitions® XTRActive® Polarized lenses less than 11 months ago. These are (quite expensive) photochromic lenses largely designed by Transitions Optical company to use in a car - they basically darken on sunny days, putting less strain on the eyes. This is quite an important background info for what I am about to tell you.

Fast moving forward 11 months, this week I discovered that my vision in the glasses is very blurry and on closer look both lenses seemed to have developed a “spider web” of mini cracks homogeneously located throughout both lenses.

When I came to the Vision Express branch, that sold me the glasses, to figure out what was going on - the manager’s immediate reaction was that the 100-day Vision Express warranty has passed, but it looks to him like I simply scratched them. After explaining that I have done no such thing - I store the glasses in the provided glass case in the car and only take them out when I drive - the manager very unwillingly agreed to give the glasses to a technician to have a look at. Coming back in 1-2 minutes later (literally) with the answer, the manager explained that might be due to either chemical or thermal reaction. In any case he refused to help further and referred me to the customer services department if I wanted to complain.

And here is the problem - I stored my glasses in the car because to me (and am quite sure, to any reasonable person in my place) it made total sense: as I mentioned at the beginning, these are the glasses largely designed to be used in a car (not anywhere else - e.g. neither walking on the street nor in the office). Not at any point during the purchase process was I warned by Vision Express staff not to store the glasses in the car. In fact, their own website advertising this product doesn’t still have any warning as of now (16/08/2024):
visionexpress.com / brands / transitions.
Even more remarkable, same relates to the manufacturer of those glasses: transitions.com / en-gb / products / transitions-xtractive-polarized. Only after visiting the branch, I searched the web and came across such issue in the lenses as “crazying”:
smartbuyglasses.com / optical-center / lenses / crazed-lenses
glasses.com / gl-us / blog / crazed-lenses

Why have Vision Express, and Transitions Optical, not been warning the customers that you simply cannot store the glasses with afore-mentioned lenses in the place that you are supposed to use these lenses mostly in (I.e. the car)?! Hopefully you also notice the huge design flaw flagged in that question of mine - how is it possible that the lenses are so fragile that they cannot sustain the heat in the car.. in the UK?! We are not having Middle East summers with +50C outside. We barely reached +30C on a few days in the last 11 months. Have I known the fragility of the lenses I wouldn’t of course store them in the car (and as a result - damage them). I would actually think much more before ordering them in the first place.

Vision Express who sold the glasses to me doesn’t want to do anything with this case anymore (neither the branch manager which sold me the glasses nor customer services phone line) - hence, I went out to criticise them publicly. If they want to reach to me, they can and am ready to provide more details. Given how much these Transitions® XTRActive® Polarized lenses are sold for, I have expected QUALITY product. In my experience, it turns out to be a fragile low quality one, which is not communicated well by the manufacturer nor the distributor of this technology.

I ask Vision Express, and Transitions Optical for that matter, to reach out to me privately, fairly investigate, and reach a more reasonable resolution than currently.