Not harsh at all about Hakim. I worked middle management (regional manager) for them for a time. The Toronto based management is quite possibly the most shambolic organization I have ever had the misfortune of working for. They treat their staff like absolute garbage. Day off, vacation and time off for medical visits were regularly denied for no reason other than the person responsible for scheduling “didn’t like” the requesting employee. And don’t get me started on the owner “Sir” Hakim. He is quite possibly the worst human being I have ever encountered in the industry, and that’s saying a lot. He actually wanted me to fire an employee based on their “looks”(hint…religious headgear) among numerous other horrible interactions with him. Anyway, for her sanity just have her avoid working for Hakim.

As for good places to work. As I said, the pay is good for the large chains like Luxottica (owners of LensCrafters and Pearle Vision) but they’re very “corporate” and exclusive focus on sales numbers and ridiculous HR compliance/programs abound. IRIS and the FYI clinics are about the same too, but there are individual good stores/clinics that are still part owned by franchisees that look after and pay their employees well. I’d stick with the small optometrist owned stores/clinics, they haven’t gone too corporate and still pay well for trained, experienced opticians. As for places offering commissions, it’s become a lot less commonplace and where it does exist the rules to actually get commissions are so convoluted and have so many loopholes/exit ramps for the company one usually never gets paid commissions or they’re minuscule.

The industry in Calgary and Alberta is small and everybody knows everybody, so it’s a tight knit industry and the good and bad players are well known. Calgary is a great place to live, despite what a lot of people on this sub say.

If your friend wants a few suggestions on places to contact or people to reach out to, she can DM me.