Are u supposed to trim hair after thinning it?

I always get what I feel are bad haircuts. I'm a guy with incredibly thick hair and never can find someone to give me a decent hair cut. I finally got a decent hair cut like 7 weeks ago. I asked the barber to thin it out and he did and it was a decent haircut that I actually got a few compliments on. Anyway I went back to the same guy just now and it's a usual bad haircut.

They always buzz my right temple short and I guess they're trying to even it with my left temple but I always think it looks stupid that one side is buzzed to straighten it and the other side isn't. The buzzed skin look just upsets me. Anyway, what I thought was weird is that he used the thinning shears first and then used the regular scissors afterward. When he was doing it I thought it was strange. Wouldn't that just negate the shears? And I believe it did, there's no layering to my hair. Last time he trimmed first with the normal scissors and them used the thinning out scissors.

Is there a right order to thinning out your hair? Thanks