What does your job make you notice?

[alligatorsmile]

I work in advertising so I always notice bad fonts, dodgy claims, poor punctuation, use of stock photos and all sorts of things that leave me steaming with annoyance while normal people all around seem to be able to walk past a crap sign without wincing.

Does your job make you notice things the normals don't see?

I’ve spent my life in customer service related roles and can easily spot poor or ‘fake’ customer service. It is harder and harder to get good service these days.

I now run a charity shop and can also ‘recycling fanatics’ who think they are doing a good turn by donating to charity shops and therefore avoiding landfill. But often what they donate is totally unuseable and I end up putting it in landfill myself . Nobody wants your uni text books from the 80s, stained baby clothes, children’s shoes unless they are pristine condition, chipped dinner plates etc etc. The worst are the performance parent types who bring their children in before Christmas with a load of (broken and damaged) toys to donate loudly proclaiming that little Jemima is doing her bit to help the poor people.

But thank you to everyone who donates saleable items. .

Badly written species names, particularly in media reporting of science news.
It's not bloody T-rex and it's not E. Coli. It's T. rex and E. coli. But I'll forgive the lack of italics.

Also in the news: "X can cure cancer" instead of "x has been found to reduce one cancer in a mouse model".

I don't understand why you can't do the subtitles straight off the script?

Some programmes don't come with a script.

When they do, it is sometimes not that well-written / accurate.

But mainly it's to do with reading rates and timing. When dialogue is very fast, or there are multiple people speaking at once, some editing is necessary. It's as minimal as possible, and we try our best to keep the subs as accurate and useful as possible

@DotOnTheHorizon there was an interview segment on the radio today and the interviewee (not sure who) was asked by a foreign official 'what's it like to be Boris Johnson's pooper scooper?' Discussing international opinions of BoJo.

Lack of attention to detail. Upside down tablecloths and projectors that aren’t anywhere near straight are my particular bugbears. Ffs, how hard is it to notice a label in the middle of a table.

@Frazzledandfedup there isn't a poop scoop big enough!

His brother is lovely. Dealt with him when he was in No10 policy unit. He remembered me when I joined his Dept a few years later! He should challenge BoJo for leader

I work in customer services and notice it more and more when out shopping that the art of customer service is dying. You can see why people prefer to shop online and not deal with a bumbling idiot in a store who is more interested in talking to a mate than doing a service.

On the other foot I also notice how rude and demanding people can be for no reason.

@DotOnTheHorizon One can hope. Sometime's it about personality and ambition rather than ability.

I run a hotel, I see rudeness and what people are willing to try for a free stay

@CharDeeMacDennis Thank you for answering and thank you for doing a great job trying to improve things. I applaud anyone that does your job well and good subtitles give me a happy sigh. I will also start checking out the jobs board.

And this But mainly it's to do with reading rates and timing-I read very quickly and some of the text appears and then is gone in a split second. Not useful at all to anyone with both hearing and vision loss.

Vision decline might be a better term than vision loss. As in time is needed for the words to be read and processed. Don't think I'm explaining myself well.

Will shut up with the nerding now

i clean a restaurant and notice the amount of people who think its acceptable to leave toilet roll all over the floor, surely they dont do that at home, how hard is it to pick it up and chuck down the toilet the one you are in the cubicle for

I notice spelling mistakes all over the place. Parents who are struggling affecting their kids self esteem. Kids with nits. Badly poured pints, wonky tables. Dirty spectacles.

The problem with subtitling is that it's highly skilled but with the growth of cable TV, the rise of agencies and readily available subtitling software, any old idiot thinks they can do it, and agencies try to get work done on the cheap with ridiculous turnaround times.

How many people really really hurt themselves falling off shit

Seriously, stop climbing ladders/tables/into your lofts you absolute loons

I complain about subtitles all the time.

Whole bloody 8 series of Lost with NO subtitles. MADNESS

Shitty form programming so that the field where you put your email address autocapitalizes the first letter. Just not necessary.

I work in elderly care. I spot signs of dementia and illness where family who only see them might put it just down to a one off. I also see how incredibly lonely the majority of elderly actually are ☹️

I notice how much smokers smell when examining them. And how much my room smells afterwards when they are gone. Depressing when they come in with a smoking related illness or even worse when it is their child.

I'm very good at recognising red flag behaviours early on in relationships. My own, friends and even on the TV in soaps etc. Plenty of experience working with victims of DV and part of my current role is delivering intimate partner violence courses to perpetrators of D.V.

I notice the amount of women who brush aside emotionally manipulative behaviour of 'oh it's normal' and 'i like that he wants to look after me"

That a surprising amount of my service users (offenders) go to the same gym as staff, the same shops etc.

That a some request to get someone a drink isn't always simple. I'm the kind of person who would automatically go to make a drink and have had to make a conscious effort to change.

In a previous life (DWP)

How much petty small minded knobs there are (people maliciously reporting disability fraud that could ruin someone's life)

That people can be so blatant! Photo of wedding on FB with dress and all, engagement happy selfies, tan line where ring was - yet you've never ever met your husband of 6months!

That for all the shit reputation DWP staff have they actually deal with a lot. I always thought they took home loads of money each month and were rich. 19k pa to get abused over the phone.

That the general public think screaming at someone on the end of the phone and demanding how they sleep at night, will make people break rules and give out cash hand over fist.

In a previous previous life (Tesco checkouts,)

Lots of people view checkouts as a convenient place to leave their tantrumming toddler and trolley whkle they leisurely pick up another 50billion things.

No cause and effect. Yea we have no milk in the store. Because people like you have bought 20litres of it as the first snowflake.

People don't like taking a cashier's word for it - call the manager to check that for the 20th time my voucher is expired

That many customers are actually lovely. Especially elderly people who like a bit of a chat and really appreciate it when you go slow and don't rush them. Or hassled parents grateful to you packing their shop and letting toddler take a bunch of tokens

That makes sense BlamesFartsOnTheNeighbour but surely there has to be quality control somewhere along the line? How on earth do subtitlers and agencies get repeat work when they turn out garbage? My brain just boggles at the concept.

I work in pharmaceuticals regulatory affairs and check medicines boxes labels and leaflets. I spot typos and expiry dates on anything

CharDeeMacDennis thank you

Arseholes, theres a lot of arseholes I'm my workplace

I'm a Child and Adolescent counsellor so generally read a lot more in to what people are saying especially when they are talking about their kids which happens a lot. Also pay more attention to behaviours or word choices of children