What is something you know because of your job, that would surprise others? (My example is gross, thread warning!)

[Mrmen1100]

It can be anything!!

I will start..

I am a food safety inspector (local authority) and have been for over 15 years, working in two large cities, and my current job in a smaller local authority. The same theme...

Food handlers do NOT wash their hands properly after using the toilet / before preparing your food.. lack of antibacterial soap in a toilet cubicle or in a kitchen is common place.... even when I am there, hands are not washed, it is an absolute bug bear of mine.

Preparing with raw meat then handling food ready to eat.. not uncommon

Handling cash / touching screens then handling food.. not uncommon.

Yes it does put me off eating outside of my house unfortunately 🙃

I have come across a LOT worse but this example irritates me.

Your turn!!!!!

Not from work but I have been regular reader of Ethical Consumer. Lots of fruit and vegetables from Spain available in the supermarkets come from south of Spain where they have vast farm lands (visible from space). Workers have their rights abused, documents taken away, work and live in horrific conditions and often overtime so we can enjoy fresh strawberries in April.

Fruit and vegetable picking jobs have traditionally been what a lot of undocumented migrants end up working… including in the UK. It’s one of those industries that should feature more on human trafficking documentaries!

I used to work in a big bookshop. Schools could have an account and get a discount usually 10, 15 or 20%.
Regularly teachers would come in to choose books with £100 from the PTA and be completely incapable of working out how much they had to spend.

I work in a supermarket and there’s a member of staff that has a terrible personal hygiene problem, he doesn’t shower , absolutely stinks and has now been put outside to collect the trollies. When he comes into the staff room I literally have to go out and finish my lunch elsewhere . He also does the click and collect so all these people who have their shopping delivered have has his horrible unwashed stinky hands around it. I’ve seen him weighing fruit and veg. He also has a lisp and spits when he talks, I doubt if he brushes his teeth , so your shopping is likely to have spit on it too 🤢🤢🤢apparently his bedroom is 3ft deep in crap , he’s a hoarder with mental health issues . Store manager sends him home for a wash sometimes but usually we are so short staffed he can’t .

Men will have sex via a stoma hole.

I saw some shite Tik Tok where a lady had a hysterectomy and got the remains back. She had a tiny urn for her womb ashes.
Um, no bones in the womb. Total bullshit. Made up content for clicks.

Yes, this is a thing.

I don’t understand?

Mine is quite boring- insurance companies, like banks, are running a lot of their valuations on a spreadsheet that no one knows how to fix and what they’ll do when it runs out of space. We also use a system for one insurance product that is so old that the engineers are all retirement age, no one else is trained in it because it’s so old and we pay these poor engineers a huge amount of money not to retire until we can persuade the big bosses to invest in a new fit for purpose software.

Not so much gross, but sad.
I worked in a children's hospital, and patients that had died would still sometimes have to get to the place where they would rest before a funeral director would take them into their care. A metal box is very confronting when you pass them in the corridor, so they would be treated as if they were still alive... all the tubes etc. You might have passed a person in bed with staff, and not realise that they were actually dead... and just assumed they were off for a scan or a transfer to another ward.
Not all wards had access to the back lift areas where the public did not go.

I think Covid showed up just how many critical industries rely on legacy programs.

www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833070-800-how-covid-19-has-exposed-a-huge-computing-disaster-in-the-making/

We had exactly that issue near where I live last year. Work got held up for 6 months in the middle of the job so we had a lovely long time with road closures and temporary traffic lights.
Tangentially my late father used to lay gas and water mains in London in the 50's and 60's. He was sent out to start the prep for laying a new water main on the outskirts of London (don't remember where, I was a child at the time) When he got there he wouldn't start the job and got on the phone to his boss to say he couldn't start the job because there was a gas main running where he was supposed to dig. The sent out the surveyor who asked him if he was sure because there was no record of it. Dad said yes he was sure because he had laid it! He got a generous christmas bonus this year which is why I remember the story.

Many supermarket own brand products are exactly the same as other supermarkets, just in different packaging.

For example, a £2.49 product in M&S is labelled a luxury item. But it is in fact exactly the same as the one sold in Lidl for 80p, just different packaging.

From mine all consultants (not the medical ones) are utter shysters. From DH chemical companies are alarmingly lax about safety.

My very first job ( 90s) i worked in a popular restaurant and the chef wanked into dishes like sauces, soups.. This was a well known fact there, everyone knew it, I was shocked and I never ate there.
Also years later I worked in a newly opened supermarket at the delicatesse counter, we had various mixed salads, sauces like posh humous, sandwich fillers, ham and cheese to be sliced upon request.
When these expired, we were instructed to shred those smelly green ham, mouldy cheese, rotten veg into a mix of salads, added lots of garlic and other spices to hide the smell and sold it.. let's just say, customers loved it, got sold quick!

Food businesses, vape shops, mini marts, nail bars, car washes, children's nurseries and now a number of organised crime groups are moving into undertaking, including setting up their own crematoria...

Firemen have a big propensity to have affairs.

Opportunity because of the shift pattern, attractiveness of the uniform and the job to women.

That is so interesting and it is possible to know this cognitively and yet carry on as though it isn't true. My DC (age 23) watched my youtube with me and was astonished by both the type and frequency of ads I get, which are completely unlike theirs. The echo chamber is so real. I wonder if my mumsnet 'trending' board is the same as someone elses....

They do.

@WiddlinDiddlin Do you do beta reading or know anyone who does? I might be in need of one in about a year's time.😁

The MacDonalds I worked in was absolutely fanatical about cleanliness. Everything that wasn't a bolted down fixture was scrubbed and sterilised at least once a day. The ice cream machine is insanely difficult to clean, and requires a very lengthy process, and a specialized toolkit. All the ' premium ' chicken arrives frozen from Vietnam,or Thailand.

But that doesn’t mean they are poor teachers.

Roasted Heart is very nice. I wouldn't have a problem with that .

I have learnt that nurses have to undergo significantly more training and sign-off than doctors to do the same procedures (such as catheters, injections etc). If you ever have the choice between an experienced nurse and an inexperienced doctor for a ward-based procedure, choose the nurse. With some procedures the principle of 'watch one, do one, teach one' still often applies for doctors....

…. already posted but remembered something a friend of mine told me recently . He’s an asbestos inspector and very recently been asked to go to a lot of old underground WW2 war bunker rooms in cities as they need to be cleared of the old asbestos . Some haven’t seen light of day since the war ended but is there something the government aren’t telling us , secret safety rooms for the rich if there’s a war maybe ? Makes you think doesn’t it ?