u/Traditional-Bid-5433

My name is Dinidu de Alwis and I do some journalistic work (you can see on u/dinidu on X). I want to more know about the series of tech-related layoffs that have recently being going on in Sri Lanka, some of which appear to be illegal. If anyone would like to give me a bit of background that'd be great. I really think there's a story here to be told.

I don't record phone calls or use screenshots of messages I receive, without explicit consent from the other party, and I guarantee absolute confidentiality.

Only Use Vision Care as a Last Resort: I'll tell you why.

tl;dr - medical-emergency creating levels of responsibility; horrible follow-up on payments.

I wear scleral lenses, which is a special type of lens used to restore vision for those with a condition called Keratoconus. You need a tool to both insert it and a different tool to remove it. I bought my first pair from Specs and Lenses. I made the mistake of buying my next pair from Vision Care.

These lenses are also capital expensive AF. Anywhere 150,000+ for a pair (but you can use it for two years or so).

I had the lenses delivered to the Wennappwa branch. I go to pick them up, and like with a toy at Christmas - going from almost-blind to near-perfect vision is better - I go and open the box thinking I can wear it - to find no insertion or removal tools. Turns out that has to be purchased separately.

Vision care doesn't have any stock in any branches.

The tools are very specific. Whilst an experienced wearer can learn to use the insertion tool to also remove the lens; for an inexperienced wearer absolutely needs the removal tool to make sure they don't rip their corneas out with the lens. This means in a hypothetical where VC somehow sent just the insertion tool, someone who put them on can't remove the lens without going to a hospital - which is a real medical emergency: and even in a hospital they will have to rig something up and find a creative solution cos these lenses are huge, and the suction will damage your cornea.

I managed to find my insertion tool and my specific scenario was okay (and VC did magically deliver the out-of-stock products in a couple of days). But this was a completely irresponsible delivery of medical devices of VC. This was January 2026.

The second, is what's currently going on. I accidentally broke the left lens midnight Sunday 21 June. Monday morning I call them up, talk to the technician (who is awesome) and tell her to place an order, which she does. She however tells me that until an advance payment is made VC won't process the order - which is fair enough.

When I call to follow up a few days or a week later - just out of some internal nagging to don't trust the competency of a company - turns out that my payment hasn't been reconciled, so my order just sat on a desk for a week.

Then comes the part where I find out that they're cheap as in kunu loba. VC only sends orders to the manufacturer every two weeks - which means if you place the order with VC the day after the last order was sent, then your order will just sit on a table for two weeks until it forms a package, then they get a return shipment once a month. So my expected delivery date is next Friday. That's the 8-week window.

And to top it all off, now they have an AI telephone answering assistant who's only role is - wait for it - to transfer you to a section. Nothing a good old menu-driven system could have not achieved. In addition to not serving an actual purpose, it just adds to the frustration of an already frustrated customer.