Secrets of your trade.

@Allergictoironing my DP is a long serving civil servant (37 years) and remembers when there was the tea trolley. He also remembers the departmental phone having its own desk!! Now he hot desks and WFH most of the week.

This is all fascinating!! I’m a bit gutted my lovely cake has been binned by school though. Is there anyone on here from a school who would eat scones sent in when jam and cream as end of term
Treat for teaching staff or cupcakes I spent ages on?! Head actually stopped me and asked for recipe of a tray bake I made - I’m now gutted but impressed at her acting skills! What a waste of cash!!

Your health visitor doesn't care if your house looks perfect when we come to visit! The most we will record is 'home conditions good, well heated, age appropriate toys available' for home conditions to be a concern things would have to be very cluttered, smelly and dirty.

We do have code words to use over the phone if we're at a visit and feel that we need some kind of help, I won't tell you what they are though incase it hinders a poor HV's escape one day!

It can be unnerving going into someone's home for the first time, we don't know you, you or someone else in your home may want to harm us. Of course that's all part of the job though.

Lastly, I think that it's brilliant that we offer a universal service for everyone. I struggle to label the emotion, maybe frustration? When I see people complaining that the HV is coming to 'check up' on them. In reality the HV service is there for the most vulnerable families, our role now is basically all safeguarding. We see some really, really awful things and It's exhausting, sometimes I just want to take the children home, feed them, bath them, and love them like my own. Before this role, I had no idea that people like this actually existed, it's like a whole other world I didn't know about. It's opened my eyes so much. So yes, we really do just want the best for you and your children, we aren't checking up on you so much that we are just making sure that all children are safe.

Senior IT Dev here who cut her teeth in financial IT.

The millennium bug situation was overhyped and was largely over by the time it hit the papers and panic, it was mostly running a few scripts and find and replace even on legacy systems.

Google, Facebook, Amazon are not secretly recording your conversations to target you with adverts.

Even with Adblockers, VPN's etc you still leave a large footprint.

You really should not be wanting more government intervention with the internet at all.

FrozenMargarita17 and nevernotstruggling

Ours is a pink file

I work at a British department store, I think it's fair to say it's widely considered to have the best customer service of them all! If the message, "Time check, the time is currently :" That means there's a suspicious threat or package & you're to report to your department to help find it!! But no need to frighten our customers needlessly...

GP here. Totally agree with ginburee- doing gynae examinations is so absolutely run of the mill that I don’t bat an eyelid. I do so many of them.
I never remember an individual woman based on how her bits look. The amount of times women have apologised to me about not having shaved/waxed or that their labia is really big/prominent. I don’t even notice. Seriously. And they do actually come in all shapes and sizes and that’s fine. All I’m interested in is making sure it’s all healthy down there.

Also, my reception staff talk to me. If you’re a shit to them I’ll know and I won’t be in any hurry to call you or accommodate you beyond the essentials of my ethical code. I do of course make exceptions for someone usually nice who is clearly just frightened, upset or very unwell.

Conversely we all go the extra mile for particularly decent, pleasant patients. Human nature.

a little bottle of Prosecco for a lady dying of breast cancer recently, a takeaway curry that a couple of us sat down and ate on the ward with an old soldier who fancied one once.

That is really lovely to read. Thank you

You sound lovely @mypyjamasarebaggy

Doctor here. We have also been known to talk to unconscious people and stay with the dying.
If I have elderly patients who are lonely I sometimes buy them little presents to try and cheer them up - books, treats - a little bottle of Prosecco for a lady dying of breast cancer recently, a takeaway curry that a couple of us sat down and ate on the ward with an old soldier who fancied one once.
There is no ‘critical list’ often referred to in the media.
The chocolates you bring for the nurses on the ward may be the only thing we eat on long shifts - doctors don’t get any scheduled breaks.
I keep all my Thankyou cards for a very long time and get very upset on your behalf if things go wrong.

Worked in politics.
I was surprised to find out that book endorsements written by a famous person is usually not written by them and they won’t even have read the book.
Few politicians write their own speeches.
When reports or announcements are published at a certain time (eg 3pm) the press will already have had a copy for a number of hours but with an embargo placed on them not to publish early. This is so they can read it through in advance. Most press though just use the press summary given out at the same time as the report.

We have always used red file when visits go wrong - social services. We ring the office and ask for the red file....it means please send the police and back up straight away

I have worked in many leisure centres and every pool (I have worked at) lies about the temperature. The board showing the temperature of the pool is written by staff and is no way connected to any thermometers. That includes a relatively new flag ship site for the largest leisure facility chain in the UK.

I work in the newspaper industry - ask me if you have queries

Oh and I worked in a community mental health team before and if someone is in trouble at a community appointment they call us and ask for 'the blue book'

I used to work for a large opticians company. I had no idea how complex being an optical assistant was until I got the job.
It's not just about helping someone chose glasses and booking appointments, it's also fitting glasses, which can be complex, dispensing glasses, which can also be very complex depending on the person's prescription, head size and choice of glasses; doing repairs and adjustments, teaching people how to put contact lenses in and out, doing delegated 'pre-screening' for optometrists who don't often know how to use the machines themselves and get stroppy about having to do their own pre-screening if you're juggling 15 other jobs and they're just sat playing on their phone waiting for the next patient...
You need quite a good grasp of what prescriptions mean and it can get quite complicated. The fit of your glasses can have a massive effect on if you're able to see properly out of them. I am genuinely baffled how people get away with buying glasses online unless they have a very small prescription...

The main trade secret I'll tell is that if you're a nice customer and have been a bit clumsy with your glasses staff will bend over backwards to try and get them sorted out at as little cost as possible. If you're rude, a solution may not be found and you might have to buy a whole new pair of glasses (sadly, sometimes this is the only option even if you're nice though).

Oh, and sometimes people's glasses get broken when trying to adjust them... they might just be replaced by an identical pair off the shelf rather than tell you yours got broken... Although I always fessed up.

I just don’t know where to start. I know so much about marketing it makes my brain hurt.

Tearing up reading the posts from you amazing nurses and carers - thank you so much for everythingyou do, you're all absoloute superheros.

I work as a primary school TA, I have absolutely no teaching, childcare, education related qualifications, my degree is in something entirely different. I am regularly left solely in charge of a class of 30 children teaching phonics, maths, whatever. If the teacher is doing PPA or off sick I cover, when I first started 6 years ago a qualified teacher would cover. I get paid £9 an hour for this. Our schools are in a funding crisis that has got notably worse in the 6 years I have been doing the job.

.....and I have kept every card & note I ever received from a patient. My favourite is a little message written across the top of a newspaper page and then torn off in to a long strip. These things mean the world to me.

If you’re kicking off it’s just done once you’ve stopped being silly.

Can you explain that a bit?

I have been a nurse for over 20 years (and a midwife for 17yrs). As a nurse I wholeheartedly agree with all the other nurse comments on here. I still tell porters we have a patient needing to go to Rose cottage, and open a window (when possible) to give the soul of the departed freedom to leave. We used to lay a flower on the chest of our patients who had passed away, but this is not allowed now. I always spend as much time as I can with all my patients, but more so with those who are nearing the end of their life. I have spent many a night with a dying person, whether they be conscious and needing reassurance or peacefully sleeping, I talk to them in the same way. I hold their hand or stroke their hair, apologise for not being able to give them as much time as I would like to, I always tell them when I am leaving the room and when I will be back. I make sure their tables are clean and tidy, and any photos or cards they have with them are neatly arranged near to them. I have always felt it to be a great privilege to be with somebody as they leave this life, just as much a privilege as when bringing a new life into this world. I missed my Dad’s passing by 5 minutes, and will never get over that, he was not alone in any way, but I deeply regret not being there soon enough. I really do care for all of my patients as if they were my relative, not sure if student nurses are still taught to do that, but they should be.

Mental health nurse here. Symptoms of mental illness can be really challenging, and when caring for patients we might not be safe, we don't always know what to say... And it is very difficult when we are depriving someone of their liberty. But patience, compassion and love are what we can give. Some express it with brews or a room tidy, some with hugs, handholds and hours of listening. I've worked in psychiatry 28 years and am still blown away sometimes by the commitment and love shown by clinical staff and by the reciprocal love shown by our patients often in deep, unknowable distress.
Bit of an earnest post

When I did some temp work in a department store if you heard an announcement saying "The time is now..." it meant you needed to search your area for anything suspicious (bomb).

One from hotel work - I once shadowed housekeeping for a morning and discovered that the water glasses and tea cups didn't go for a spin in the dishwasher each day, but instead had a quick wipe 'round with the same cloth that had done the rest of the room

Current jobs isn't all that interesting in terms of secrets, though we do an awful lot of "cut and paste" ing in reports (consulting).

There’s a lot more to a legal arrest than the caution. Missing any part of it makes it illegal. If you’re kicking off it’s just done once you’ve stopped being silly. Don’t swear at the copper who nicks you, you’ll be arrested for public order as well as whatever else you’re being lifted for.