Secrets of your trade.

@Olddentist can I ask a question? You may not have seen it but there is a Netflix documentary on a link between breast cancer and root canal. DH mentioned it the other day (I haven’t seen it). Have you heard / read any research on this? It seemed such a strange correlation but there had been a study on it

(It’s stuck with me and I’ve still yet to watch it and you’ve popped up as an actual dentist I could ask )

I once heard from a senior member of hospital staff that it was quite common for surgeons and other theatre doctors to shoot up with the leftover drugs after performing surgery. Anyone able to verify this?

Smotheroffive, yes the fearful tattooed never fails to amaze me.

Sometimes when a new patient comes in and tells me in great detail how afraid they are I ask them how many tattoos they have.

They look at me as if I am mystic meg (assuming the tats are hidden!)

3luckystars I am terrified that I will miss the job a lot

Work in TV/Film.

Everything bought for a Production office (so everything from photo printers, to furniture, to stationery, to coffee machines, to soft furnishings, to electronics etc) goes in a skip at the end of the Production. There is no time or budget to have Production staff deal with it in any other way. Everything will have been bought new at the start of production, and will go in a skip after (on average) 6 - 9 months. The worst thing I have seen go in a skip was half a ton of boxed spring water.
I am now quite brazen when i'm working in studios where Productions are clearing out and will fish things out of these skips either for myself or to donate.

Often, if an (eg) TV series is unlikely to be renewed for a second series, the Art/Props/Costume dept will hold a sale at the end of Production and you can by everything from the kitchens and bathrooms installed in a house set, to the characters' clothing. I've got some really lovely high quality furniture and soft furnishings from productions that I would never have coughed up for myself!

Also, actors are generally awful selfish people and I have no tolerance for them. But the industry absolutely makes them what they are. The hoops you are expected to jump through for them is absurd.

Well isn't that weird dentist that highly tattoed are scared of needles!!!

And the teeth whitening...big name toothpastes claim to be whitening though?! Either they're false claims or illegal then?

I made comment on that previous sickery nuts having seen a lot of it for myself I found it a very odd and nasty thing to try to 'share as an inside secret', and said so.

There are bad nuts in every walk of life though, so maybe, but I think it was more likely a troll comment than anyone caring for animals and trained to do so, would actually behave this way.

It's really kind of you to take the time (and register) to make a good point. Welcome and beware of the trolls!

Glad to hear it Nutts

Left me a bit cold that and I'm known to have an ....alternative sense of humour.

Such an interesting thread. I would like to ask re fostering. Through circumstances not choice I have no dc. Can't foster at the moment due to having to work and it not being a fixed pattern. Will hopefully leave soon and will then be around 51. Could I then foster and how can I improve my chances? Thanks. 😀

Must just add that I haven't RTFT and some other vet or vet staff member may already have stated this. In which case I do apologise in advance for the repetition.

Another vet here. I just registered for Mumsnet for the first time because I couldn't let this go unsaid.... In my 12+ years of working and 10 years prior of seeing practice during training (in Scotland, England and Canada) I have never ever said that I have "killed" a pet. Nor have I ever heard another vet or other colleague use this term. Mainly we say "I euthanised him/her....", sometimes "sent him/her to heaven" or "said goodbye to...". But never ever "killed".

Of course this may vary amongst other vets but I felt strongly about sharing this. To my ears "killed" (whilst being technically accurate) sounds insensitive and callous. Not trying to start a fight. Just wanted other pet owners to know this information.

Cruddles that's really interesting. Do fewer businesses have back up sites (or smaller ones) now that so many people can work from home if needed?

My dentist looks like Voldemort.

The teeth whitening is interesting!
Do you think you will miss the job? Who does your teeth?

We are like the local priests.
Patients tell us all kinds of secrets and we will never ever disclose anything to anyone. I once had a patient tell me he was going to murder someone.
He went on to murder someone else and is now serving life in prison.

I can spot a difficult / troublesome patient the second they walk through the door and am seldom wrong . My most experienced nurse can do the same .

A mouthful of bad teeth in a young child still breaks my heart

Almost retired dentist .
Worked in own fully NHS practice for 30 + years.

Some random thoughts

I love my patients and genuinely see it as my job to deliver affordable quality pain free treatment to anyone who walks through the door.
I have never turned a patient away.

Patients who are heavily tattooed are usually very scared of the dentist . Needles in particular.

My nursing staff are just like a family.

Most dentists and dental nurses are kind and caring. I knew a few nurses who were neither kind nor caring. All worked in the large city dental hospital. One was a really unpleasant individual. She didn’t care about patients at all. She should never have been in that job ( senior nurse in dental hospital )

Many children behave better when their parent is not in the room. Nervous parents should stay well away. .

It’s a very demanding job mentally and physically. All day every day you are putting people at ease who don’t actually want to be there.

I have spent a lifetime fighting against decay and ageing of the teeth and oral tissues. It takes its toll.

Most dentists I know are unhappy in their work but have too many financial commitments to change career path.

Over the years , the external regulations and box ticking required has sucked a lot of the joy out of the job.

At least 4 times a year a patient will claim that their last dentist put their knee on their chest during a tooth extraction.
Patients occasionally claim that I did this during the last extraction.
The knee on chest story is completely untrue but patients still firmly believe it .

The only decent ( and legal ) tooth whitening is done by dentists. If you smoke, forget it.

Smokers are usually in complete denial about the damage cigarettes do to their teeth and gums.

Dentists nowadays are terrified of being sued.

I have loved my job most of the time. Many of my patients are now friends.

‘Ghost’ offices are known as hot back up sites (if all the IT equipment, phones etc are plugged in and ready to go) or cold back up if the space is there but not the networks. Only big companies tend to use hot back up sites because it is costly.

There are empty offices in major city’s owned by large government organisations and corporations like the BBC that in even of an emergency in the capital they can all be moved to this office to carry on working. I know of one in Cardiff that is literally a ghost office that is owned by a news corp incase of emergency

Standard for a lot of firms, I work in the City and we have two backup sites. One is located just over the river in South London and is tested monthly. The other is outside the M25 and has one major test a year.

But they sit empty and dormant otherwise. In my 20 years in banking across different firms and countries I've used backup sites in anger probably 8-10 times, but only one of those was for an issue that lasted longer than a day

There’s a tunnel under the A4/M4 elevated section in Brentford that used to link Beecham/SmithKline Beecham plc head office to the then landmark Lucozade building on the other side of the road.

It was used by staff to go between the buildings and it also contained locked large paper storage archives/cages. It was very, very wide, well lit and the floor painted with that kind of vinyl paint, red I think.

It always gave me the heebeejeebies and if I was on my own I constantly looked over my shoulders freaking out at what may be lurking in the cage shadows. I may have run through it a few times when I was on my own.

Ooh, I have one! Opticians have worse handwriting than doctors.

@IDrinkAndISewThings
Can you get on to occupational therapy?
They provide aids for deaf people such as a
flashing light instead of doorbell.

There are empty offices in major city’s owned by large government organisations and corporations like the BBC that in even of an emergency in the capital they can all be moved to this office to carry on working. I know of one in Cardiff that is literally a ghost office that is owned by a news corp incase of emergency

The back up computer systems for banks at Canary Wharf are not actually located at the Wharf. Some are located in a very unassuming location, think, above a Mac Donald's somewhere!

This is the case with every financial institution. It’s called disaster recovery. Core systems duplicated in a separate location.

love this thread.

I work with lawyers herd cats so could be seen as pretty boring but nope. IME those with the highest level of education have the least amount of sense. Literally. I had to have a bag of socks at the ready for one particular genius who regularly forgot to put his on. Yep. He was a key inventor on a very key part of the heat shield for a very famous space vehicle. Others I have shown the same flipping spreadsheet to every year for 9 years, and they actually cannot follow along as I talk through it. Can. Not. I color code, highlight, move my finger down, use a pointer, but nope. Nothing. Very, very smart people who just clam up at numbers. This is not unusual. I think it has a lot to do with their heads being filled with information for which they can cite actual laws/code. Outside of that, it is a blur. Or too risky to say they get it.

In the old days they had couches in their offices. Trust me, never ever sat down. They were used for other than sitting. The bad old days.

Started out working behind the bar in social clubs in the early 80's. Regular thing then to have the bar manager secretly fill the bottles with generic spirits instead of the real thing. It made all the claims of "Oh I can only drink X or I get sick" quite scary to hear. I didn't keep that secret. Nor the jobs.

Not supposed to go for a wee alone at the BBC either, annoying when I visited while pregnant. (This is for Visitors, stay with the person who endorsed you pass)

Oh and even little babies in prams get a pass (no photo though)

Oh and there is an Avro Arrow that does still exist. The Americans didn't destroy them all.......

The back up computer systems for banks at Canary Wharf are not actually located at the Wharf. Some are located in a very unassuming location, think, above a Mac Donald's somewhere!

Canary Wharf is within one big faraday cage. It's well known, from experience, to mess with your cars electronics.

Thames House (MI5) there is more underground that what is built above.

You really cannot go for a wee in GCHQ without being accompanied, everywhere!