Job specific misconceptions which persist

[housemdwaswrong]

An acknowledgement to @whatusernameshallihavenow for totally ripping about their thread for general misconceptions that persist. I've tried linking to the thread but I can't. Sorry.

I wondered which job specific myths there were (and hopefully thus avoiding brexit or covid).

Proofreader: You don't need any training as it's just checking spelling.

In my past life supply-teaching: supply teachers get paid more than 'proper' teachers. Prevalent view around here. I never, never understood it (or was working for the wrong agencies).

@PuddleglumtheMarshWiggle

That putting "I love books" will get you a job as a librarian! No! We don't want you reading at work. We want to know about your metadata skills, your knowledge of digital repositories, your understanding of the difference between green and gold open access, current copyright regulations, do you understand about correct citation and plagerism? Please read the essential criteria first, you'll never see "love of books" listed there.

Ohh so, total ignoramus here, what do you need to be to be a librarian? What in the role means you need to be aware of all those things? Genuine question, why would you need to know correct citation and plagiarism? You're not writing books? (This is very different to my day to day)

So £12,650 salary for a teacher would be £10/hr.
Call it £11/12 because the employer is contributing to a pension and there are statutory benefits to being an employee.

£25k would be about £24/hr. £50k would be nearly £50/hr.

But this is all based on the idea of a certain number of hrs/year worked.

I take it back it was an interesting thread but now it's teachers versus non-teachers. There were some really interesting posts on this thread, now I have to hunt through for them in-between teacher's squabbling. If you want to bang on about teacher's salaries start another thread.

November R:

The Supreme Court disagrees, they say teachers are paid for Directed hours and undirected hours combined in their annual salary.

The Supreme Court held that given that everyone accepted that teachers did not just work on weekdays, it made no sense to apportion their pay on that basis.

They held that it would be wrong to say that teacher’s pay is directly linked to the directed hours or that the amount of undirected time is inextricably linked to the directed time (i.e. it is wrong to say that what teachers are paid for is teaching, everything else is ancillary and not ‘work’ in its own right).

The Supreme Court held that Undirected Time while often linked to Directed Time activities is not necessarily always so linked and that the work falling under Undirected Time is part of the fundamental duties of teachers and reflected in their annual salary.

from supreme court

“That the public sector have an amazing pension. Mine costs me 14% of my salary which is a huge chunk, and each year paid in gets me an average of 1/80th of my salary.”

That’s an amazing pension compared to most of us. I would be careful not to complain out loud

@trailing1 oh that makes sense, I never considered the one off prescriptions, was just thinking about it from my angle using it regularly. I was really puzzled and couldn't work it out.

I was waiting with bated breath for hydroxychloroquine to go out of stock with all the fuss but grateful it didn't, but that's very different from asthma pumps :/

Interesting, thank you :) x

That social workers get bonuses for putting kids in care and removal targets to meet.

Foster parents wave off their fosterlings without so much as a backward glance. Our foster baby is off to a new life tomorrow and my heart will break just a little bit more, saying goodbye is the hardest thing.

That looking after other people's animals is a dead easy way to earn a few quid.

@unmarkedbythat

That social workers don't do anything anyone else can't do; I get so sick of teachers, police officers, nurses etc saying that they do the job of a social worker alongside their own. You don't and it's just daft, please stop.

Couldn't agree with this more 👏👏

It's fascinating, isn't it, how people never pile into threads like this to tell people with first-hand experience of being (or being married to) an HGV driver, a lawyer, an accountant, a librarian, etc., that they are wrong, and that their experience is incorrect -- and yet they do with teachers...?

Almost like some people have an axe to grind...

That office receptionists just sit around all day, and don't really do anything apart from having a chat with people passing by.

Someone on another thread actually told me she didn't care if my job become obselete because she didn't really see what receptionists did. Just because you don't know what work I'm doing, doesn't mean I'm not doing any. It's particularly ignorant seeing as most people don't spend much time in the reception area, and only pass through for a few minutes. Amazing how you can think someone's not doing anything just because you're not in the same room as them.

Funny how it can be so hard to find someone to do lunchtime reception cover because most people don't like doing it, even though it apparently consists of doing nothing

Basically anyone viewing the 'outside' of someone's job as a customer, a client, a student, a patient, etc. has no idea what the 'inside' of that job is like. You don't get to see any of the background stuff, the training, the preparation, the paperwork, the follow-up, the assessment, the evaluation, any of it.

You can't judge someone else's job by how 'easy' it looks to you as the recipient of their goods or services. It will inevitably not be.

I would also like to point out that public sector workers also pay income tax, national insurance, council tax and VAT. Just like everyone else. Everytime I hear 'I pay your wages love' I roll my eyes and think 'I bloody pay my own!'

I hope that you don’t work in finance.

That social care workers are unskilled, any one can do it and all you do is sit around and chat to residents and make endless cups of tea.

That data protection/compliance is the most boring job in the world!

www.google.com/amp/s/michaelt1979.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/are-teachers-paid-for-the-holidays/amp/

Good blog that explains teacher pay.

That social workers don't do anything anyone else can't do; I get so sick of teachers, police officers, nurses etc saying that they do the job of a social worker alongside their own. You don't and it's just daft, please stop.

I think when teachers say this they mean their role has expanded beyond its planned remit of education. Schools do a lot more pastoral care that previously would have been done by social services (due to funding).

*@CountreeGurl do public sector jobs generally come with more benefits? Eg. Flexi time, more paid sick, enhanced maternity packages etc.

They generally do but that’s irrelevant to whether they work as hard.*

A key point here is that the so-called additional benefits are equivalent to what you'd get in a professional corporate job that you were equally qualified to do. So the difference is the much lower payer in the CS at professional levels.

It's said that at junior levels, the CS is a well-paid job - the salary is slightly better than an entry level position in the corporate world. Extra time attracts overtime pay. The benefits (flexible working, mat leave etc) are better than you'd get working as a sale assistant in a shop, or an admin assistant in a small company.

Once you get to mid to senior levels, then it changes: There's no overtime pay, you work many many extra hours unpaid, and the salary is substantially lower than the equivalent level in the corporate world.
In my field you're talking people with science, maths, engineering Masters and PhDs from elite universities, with masses of experience and some really rare skills, who could walk into an extremely well paid (£100-200k +) corporate job, and are often headhunted for such roles. Most people I know are in the CS because they want to make a real difference, and kind of enjoy being at the centre of the action.

The other one is engineering... DH is an engineer and people sometimes assume he's up a ladder fixing overhead power cables, or with his screwdriver in a BT box on the roadside and are stunned to find he has 3 degrees in maths and physics and spends his day writing equations and code. There seems to be limited appreciation of engineering as a professional career here, unlike in Germany, where engineers are practically gods.

I've moved from a private corporate job recently into a civil service role and took a paycut! On comparison, even though my private role was far more stressful, my civil service role had vastly more responsibility for lower pay. I do enjoy it though.

A key point here is that the so-called additional benefits are equivalent to what you'd get in a professional corporate job that you were equally qualified to do. So the difference is the much lower payer in the CS at professional levels.

Is this still accurate? I think when you take into account the extra holiday, pension, sick & may pay, security etc there's often a smaller gap these days. I would agree that roles 140k plus are rarer

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=b3duZXI9NTA3MDAwMCZ1c2Vyc2VhcmNoY29udGV4dD0xMTU4MTA0OTUmcGFnZWNsYXNzPUpvYnMmY3NvdXJjZT1jc3FzZWFyY2gmc2VhcmNoX3NsaWNlX2N1cnJlbnQ9MiZwYWdlYWN0aW9uPXZpZXd2YWNieWpvYmxpc3Qmb3duZXJ0eXBlPWZhaXImam9ibGlzdF92aWV3X3ZhYz0xNjk4MDQ5JnJlcXNpZz0xNjA3NzI1OTc4LWEyZGI0YWVhZjdiMWIwNmM1ZTYyM2VkYWVmMDczMWQ5NzI5MDM2YTA=

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=Y3NvdXJjZT1jc3FzZWFyY2gmdXNlcnNlYXJjaGNvbnRleHQ9MTE1ODEwNDk1JnBhZ2VjbGFzcz1Kb2JzJnNlYXJjaF9zbGljZV9jdXJyZW50PTEmb3duZXJ0eXBlPWZhaXImam9ibGlzdF92aWV3X3ZhYz0xNjk3NDg4Jm93bmVyPTUwNzAwMDAmcGFnZWFjdGlvbj12aWV3dmFjYnlqb2JsaXN0JnJlcXNpZz0xNjA3NzI1ODYzLWYyYTQyMmNmN2VlNTIwYzEwZWVhMGZiMTdjZDBhZjU2M2VhNGJjYjE=

The links I posted are pretty competitive to the private sector.

That photographers just need a fancy camera cos all they do is push a button and let the camera do all the work!

That the more educated you are the better your chances of getting a job - someone with 5 masters degrees, a phd and 3 fluent languages can’t figure out that the company they are applying to, despite a link and a staff page, has 10 employees and isn’t thinking about global expansion, isn’t world renowned and doesn’t plan on changing the world anytime soon. They haven’t even identified the right industry - and there were many apparently well educated applicants in this category.

@TurquoiseDragon Those adverts cause me to mutter curses under my breath.

Fortunately I no longer have to sort out the monumental fuckups correct the errors made by the numbskulls who believe all that cobblers.

That all public sector jobs have great maternity pay. Teachers’ is better than statutory but rubbish compared to lots of company and other public sector schemes. Teaching is the only job I know of that doesn’t allow accrual of annual leave and/or holiday pay while you’re on maternity leave so 52 weeks is the absolute maximum you can take - no tagging annual leave on at either end. So you can take a full year off but accrue no annual leave or pay.