Awkward (and other) questions about MNers jobs-following on from *Pinocchio's 1st thread.

How old is she and where is she training ? I would recommend a large London hotel for a one-stop shop where she will be able to get experience in most aspects of patisserie and maybe some time in a good restaurant although she should expect to be given all the crap jobs (like separating a box of eggs - and by that I mean a box of trays of 36 eggs !). Pierre Herme is, of course, the stage to beat all stages but fiercely competitive to get, they have applicants from all around the world.
If you can afford it, the Eddie Spence royal icing course at Squire's Kitchen would be an excellent investment if they don't cover that sort of work on her course. If I remember rightly it's about £450 for 3 days but you do have to have good intermediate skills.

Can you just clarify what you mean by "which product ranges do you recommend" ?

My areas of professional knowledge are

1. Baking/Patisserie/Cake decorating as I used to be a patissier
2. Hospitality Management
3. Wine (used to work for a fine wine merchant)
4. Police and the process of a criminal trial in particular

Sorry if this has been asked (I'm catching up reading) but I was wondering, what do women with quite physical jobs that carry the risk of violence (nurse, doctor, care worker etc) do when they are pregnant? I know you'll have an assessment but does it affect your job a lot? Did you ever feel frightened about being pregnant in your job?

Urgh I found it pretty boring, bottom of the rung me but yes we encouraged models to lose weight; recommended sensible ways to do so, reiterated that eating disorders usually have side affects that would make them less bookable; hair loss, rotting teeth, bad skin etc the pressure was only there if they were too 'fat', we'd take measurements and often wouldn't take people on that weren't within the required 'range' (for Milan mostly) similarly we had to warn men and women to not to do too much weight training or they'd be at risk of becoming body models rather than fashion models.

We had a lot of mums on speed dial as most new models are on the younger side and a lot would be discussed with them too, our office was very much open to parents as if they weren't happy we might have lost a model making us good money.

I personally didnt get any freebies but the agent did (jealous) I'd take the calls for the freebies and invites and say yes to the stuff I fancied then they'd come thru and the agent would say yes or no and I'd never get a look in :(

In all honestly I'm not up on current models and fashion trends, not even sure how I landed the job! I tend to veer towards the edgy however and think a model only looks good in the right context; I'm all for very strong sharp features, I believe softer faces belong in commercial campaigns

Still makeup mostly

What do you do now, Szeli, if that's not too nosey?

edam It can be very much the same in high fashion models, I love the differences, I used to be a junior booker for an agency

I'm so sorry to hear of the extent of your illness. Thank you! I think the mentoring thing is a great idea. I have one or two projects on the go at present which are taking up my energy but will mull it over for the future. At the very least at the moment the support group I'm a member of tries to reach out to new people and we work hard to welcome new people. It's hard to reach new sufferers because they're often not well enough to come online, or think a support group will be depressing, or they haven't been diagnosed

I have actually studied with the OU. Hoping to study further some time, but the degree utterly exhausted me so I need to get a bit better first. They are a great organisation.

Anyway, nice chatting with you, thank you for taking an interest.

What's it really like working in CID? It's probably not even called that anymore too much watching the Bill

I'm interested in the new rules which will allow non police to take senior roles. What skills are required? Is it as scary in a deserted warehouse as it looks?

Return, it's interesting what you say about actors looking good on TV/in film as opposed to real life. I'm a magazine editor and have noticed the same with models on photoshoots - sometimes people who are very photogenic aren't particularly good looking in real life, or aren't beautiful, anyway. Occasionally you do get a model who is drop dead gorgeous and sparkles on camera. Lucky things! Sometimes the model is quite striking, rather than good looking, or walks in looking like Plain Jane but the camera loves them.

NB I don't work with top models - I'm not talking Vogue here! - so it may all be different at the high end.

mignonette What do you do? Ambulance or A&E?

Yes, inbred lab mice are very different to the fancy mice that get sold as pets - you need to mate siblings 30x to get a 'line' that is as near to identical as you are likely to get. The first mouse I had to kill must have smelt my nervousness when I went to fetch it from the room in the animal wing, as it bounced all over the walls and cages and finally embedded itself in my finger with its teeth, so I was swinging my arm round and round screaming untl it flew off (and I got the animal tech to catch it for me). So I really didn't feel bad about that one.

I actually met DP before working there for 5 years - no-one believed we'd stay together. He did come down and hang out in the bar quite a lot though, and was also a scientist, so pretty understanding. Just as well given the time we had to say to ILs "Good news! WhiteCoat can come for Christmas after all! We just need a shelf in the fridge and a bit of the workbench in the garage with a socket, and don't look at what's in the fridge..."

It's OK.

I have done a bit of CBT myself, but have only vaguely heard DBT mentioned.

Will take a look at the MIND link. I do think MIND is a great website and charity.

So glad TESCO and Asda are donating to them now re bad taste costumes.

mignonette - I did non-commercial basic scientific research - sort of 'how do these kinds of cells and these genes work?' Included neurons so I know a bit about Alzheimer's (and it runs in the family so I read up on it). The new developments are really exciting - even though it's very early and any drug would take a decade to get to market, probably two, it's a new pathway to look down at a time when people had run out of ideas of what even to try [overgeneralisation alert]

The slaughterhouses I've seen were actually fine (not all of them knew visitors were coming! Transport is probably the weak link in welfare) but the large scale is hard to get your head round - I was really glad I'd seen unnerving nervous twitches from headless mouse pups before (it's a reflex), because when a stunned ton-and-a-half bull gets a bolt through the head and does the same thing, it is rather freaky to see even though your head knows it's dead and feeling nothing. And then another, and another. I never had to kill more than three mice in a day so it wasn't an industrial process getting them into the right place - just pick up, bring to the lab in a cardboard box! Though lab mice are pretty much running-away biting machines... thankfully I never lost one as it would have been 'accidental release of a transgenic organism' and shedloads of paperwork etc. There was two hours once though with about 20 of us trying to catch a mouse that kept legging it under a freezer.

The biggest contrast between lab work and any other job I've had is in the lab you always have a cast-iron excuse for staying late (my experiment didn't work so I need to re-do it, or my experiment did work so I have to photograph and process everything), lots of small dark rooms with locks on the doors, and most strikingly an on-site cheap bar and social club. So people socialised loads with their workmates,often had moved abroad so knew few other people, and resulted in ridiculous levels of on-site shagging and affairs! Probably most of the scientists and students, though the technicians were local and less affected! Sometimes a problem if you needed a darkroom on a Friday night!

Doctors/Surgeons etc
Every Dr and consultant that I have met always looks healthy and seems to be able to keep going and not get tired.

What is your secret?????? How do you maintain such good health and vitality?
I try and do all of the usual healthy eating, exercise and sleep properly but still get coughs, colds and looked knackered by the end of the week.

I have always wanted to ask most Dr's this question

migonette cheers sorry was just having a shit day yesterday

What is DBT?