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Original poster

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

760 replies

Mrmen1100 · 10/05/2026 19:24

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!!!!!

OP posts:
manateeplushie · 11/05/2026 20:08

I used to work in video banking, and a man would get his knob out on camera at least every 6 months. All the recordings were stored and we'd watch them back and laugh.

Fimofriend · 11/05/2026 20:09

Thundertoast · 11/05/2026 12:59

How much everything you see on social media and parts of the wider internet, is a bubble created by algorithms based off data its collecting about you and your online habits designed to hold your attention and keep clicking. I would love to see a public information campaign about this, honestly, as I dont blame people for not being aware but it affects us all!

How many fake bot accounts there are and just how real the people behind them can make them seem. The true scale of misinformation campaigns by Russia alone is fascinating, and so many people have no idea this stuff is real! Lots of fake accounts that are not obviously fake at all. Social engineering is very good these days. Contributing to the algorithm by posting about the same thing. Contributing to false information that is then scraped a regurgitated by shoddy 'news' sources and AI.

I work in a very interesting but horrifying field!

The funny thing is that all the misinformation about vaccines that the Russians have spread in Europe has backfired as Russia is now one of the countries in the world with least trust in vaccines.

Imdunfer · 11/05/2026 20:11

ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmmmmmmmmm · 11/05/2026 19:56

Nope. The beef is all British or Irish. The nuggets and chicken burgers ( the cheap ones ) are origin unknown, and possibly from the EU/British zones. The posh bits, like chicken tenders, 100% from Vietnam or Thailand. And still are.

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Awful, didn't know that, thanks.

AmazingGreatAunt · 11/05/2026 20:12

The global banking system is a shambles.

ButterYellowFlowers · 11/05/2026 20:12

chocolateaddictions · 11/05/2026 14:14

This is interesting. I’ve been to Club Med on the final week of the ski season so mid April - and there was a real party atmosphere among the staff, who had worked together all season and were preparing to say goodbye. It was quite touching to see and can’t say service was low as a result.

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Ski season is different. People don’t want to leave because they’re there to ski and teach/work on the side not the other way around! My ski season we all wanted to carry on skiing, partying and getting mega tips off the rich folk!

GreenCa · 11/05/2026 20:14

SparklyGlitterballs · 11/05/2026 14:47

I used to be a funeral arranger and fortunately never had to do the back of house stuff with the bodies (apart from checking their condition daily). I did however once watch the guys prepare a body before it was dressed and put into the coffin for a viewing. The deceased was treated very respectfully (honestly, they were talking to them all the time - sorry Mr Jones, we just have to do xxxx etc), but plastic caps had to be put under eyelids to keep the eyes closed and to retain their rounded look. The individual is usually placed in an adult nappy before being dressed (in case it purges fluids) but the body can also purge via mouth and nose too, so the throat had to be blocked off. It was one of those OMFG! moments.

Not a suprise to those who have worked on a hospital ward.When laying out deceased patients, all orifices are packed to stop leakage.

Izzy54321 · 11/05/2026 20:17

Pinepeak2434 · 11/05/2026 15:02

I’m not surprised about the hygiene standards. I once saw someone working behind a deli counter in a shopping centre go to the men’s toilets still wearing his apron, come back tying up bin bags, and then immediately make a customer’s sandwich without washing his hands. The way food handlers often touch their mobile phones also really puts me off, especially since so many people take their phones into the toilet with them.
My student son works part-time at a theme park and says the pizzas they sell for £19 each are just the cheapest frozen ones from Iceland.

Me too, including a doctor and social worker who had nhs bedding on their bed. They were filthy beggars.

gavelgirl · 11/05/2026 20:17

I know what lots of rich and famous people have on their walls.

JockyHollySticks · 11/05/2026 20:23

Whowhatwhere21 · 11/05/2026 14:51

I locum for Pharmacies. Alot of the small independents I have worked for will put medications returned by patients back on the shelf and dispense them to other patients. This way, they get paid out by the NHS for the medication being dispensed the 1st time. Then when its returned and dispensed a 2nd time, they will also be paid for it despite not actually paying out for the meds themselves. It's like a buy one get one free for the Pharmacy. Its not legal, they don't give a shit, and neither does anyone I've reported it too.

I have also worked at a handful of independents who expect staff to dispense, check and hand out medication with no Pharmacist on site. Sometimes with no other staff member on shift so literally no one else at all to double check. The most recent one had 2 claims open against him by patients given wrong meds/wrong dose under these circumstances, he still expected staff to carry on as usual though.

I've also covered at lots of branches for a big chain. A few of them had independent Pharmacies within close proximity that turned out to be owned by family members of the managers in the chain stores. Theft was absolutely rife in these stores. Eventually turned out to be the chain managers stealing and passing the stock to the independents owned by family. They were never prosecuted, just sacked. One of them was sacked and they replaced him with his cousin 😂 Coincidentally this store was closing and on the week of closure, lots of medication disappeared out of the controlled drugs safe, including multiple 500ml bottles of methadone, and the cousin never returned to finish the closure week.

I know of a pharmacist who went to.prison for theft of medicines. He used to put patient returns back on the shelf at a chain pharmacy and steal the equivalent original packs to sell on to his mate. Was struck off too but now back on the register. It was a long time ago. Maybe late 90s/early 2000s.

dancehysterical55 · 11/05/2026 20:25

Squirrel60 · 11/05/2026 15:14

I've done many jobs over the years, including as a cleaner for a well-known department store here in England. I did multiple exhaustive shifts, early mornings, mornings, days, evenings, nights and early hours and was treated like filth by one particular manager.

Nobody liked her apart from the arse lickers, she was up her own bum, strided around in high heels, tight skirt with a split up the back, light tops and braless. Snooty nose in the air.

I cleaned the entire store from top to bottom, all the sales floors, bakery, behind the tills, men's and women's changing rooms, public loos, the food hall, cafe, staff quarters, and offices, public and staff lifts, and also the staff canteen. There should have been me and another 4 on, but all the other 4 had again made excuses why they ''couldn't'' come in, so I was again left to do it all by myself.

One day, Miss-I-Really-Fancy-Myself gave me yet another bollocking, saying I wasn't fast enough, not doing a good enough job, blah blah. I told her I'm the only one on duty as the others couldn't be arsed to arrive again, I was utterly knackered, but doing what I could as fast as possible. She hated that I'd take a well-needed break in the staff canteen when I finished, as the canteen wasn't for ''commoners'' like cleaners.

She was bollock bollock bollock.

The next day, I was in her office just after 4 am, cleaning it and had various cleaning fluids, so I used the cleaners I'd use for the loos for her office, I sprayed and wiped absolutely everything with loo cleaner and sprayed some in the pockets of the jacket she always left hanging over her chair. The jacket cost over £1,000!

I left shortly after because of being treated like shit non-stop by her and others.

Well done, I guess.

Imdunfer · 11/05/2026 20:26

AmazingGreatAunt · 11/05/2026 20:12

The global banking system is a shambles.

The stock market is a giant casino largely run by computer algorithms.

Original poster
Mrmen1100 · 11/05/2026 20:32

manateeplushie · 11/05/2026 20:08

I used to work in video banking, and a man would get his knob out on camera at least every 6 months. All the recordings were stored and we'd watch them back and laugh.

Errghhh could he not be blacklisted? How gross!

OP posts:
DoorOpening · 11/05/2026 20:32

IVC (Independent Vet Care), which runs many many Uk vet surgeries, has nearly €5 billion of debt.

i think about this whenever my local vet practice tries to upsell me something.

Gymnopediegivesmethewillies · 11/05/2026 20:33

i was a Magistrate for 10 years. In my training I was taught that home burglaries were considered one of the most heinous crimes besides violent ones (and rightly so). Yet in those 10 years I only recall one prosecution of a burglar. To this day I don’t know if home burglaries are rare, whether resources are not allocated to investigate them or burglars are extremely thorough in leaving no evidence?

Oh, and excess alcohol is a hugely contributing factor in anti-social and violent crime - probably a surprise to no-one. Depressing and irritating to hear about day in, day out and a huge burden on police forces, courts and tax payers.

PauliesWalnuts · 11/05/2026 20:34

ScotiaLass · 11/05/2026 17:10

You can see how using a towel that had been used by someone with norovirus to polish a door handle, a bathroom counter, the tap or sink could be problematic though?

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Oh absolutely. I worked in the industry 30+ years ago - hope they’ve invested in some blue roll for it now!

60andcounting · 11/05/2026 20:39

gavelgirl · 11/05/2026 20:17

I know what lots of rich and famous people have on their walls.

I bet it's wallpaper and paint?

TheignT · 11/05/2026 20:42

Worked for a large police force doing admin work. I did three years with the vice squad and learned a lot, most of it things I'd rather not know. While doing the paperwork many of the women arrested for soliciting would tell me some hilarious things about some well known men's likes. I saw one on TV recently and smiled to myself.

One of the saddest things was rushing the paperwork for a young woman who went into labour, I mean minutes after "servicing" a customer in a backyard. Another sad moment was coming in one morning and seeing the mug shot of a girl I went to school with. It took a toll and I understood why everyone was moved on after two to three years.

Applesonthelawn · 11/05/2026 20:45

How the magic money tree works.

ThesebeautifulthingsthatIvegot · 11/05/2026 20:48

Worked in a flour factory.

The tolerance level for rat faeces in raw flour is "no more than 1 part in 100g". Not zero, like you'd hope! Don't eat raw cookie dough, people!

FalseSpring · 11/05/2026 20:49

Sproutling · 11/05/2026 17:46

That there is sometimes only 2 response Police Officers to cover an area of 76-77 sq miles, 113,000 people, with a crime rate of approximately 88 to 112 crimes per 1,000 people, which is slightly above the national average. The most common offences are violence and sexual crimes. The Duty Inspector is sometimes covering this and the neighbouring county.

I am shocked at those numbers. Back in the 1970s we had a village policeman. The village population would have been around 1000 people and maybe a few more lived on surrounding farms etc. He lived in the village and knew most people by name. His house doubled as the local police station and it even had a jail cell so he could detain a prisoner if needed.

60andcounting · 11/05/2026 20:51

Applesonthelawn · 11/05/2026 20:45

How the magic money tree works.

Do tell.

Shmurtle · 11/05/2026 20:52

Any random person can buy an ultrasound machine, call themselves a sonographer, and set up a private scan clinic offering reassurance scans, 4D scans etc to pregnant women. You don't have to be a qualified sonographer or registered with any regulatory body, and there's no minimum level of training you have to have completed.

TheignT · 11/05/2026 20:55

FalseSpring · 11/05/2026 20:49

I am shocked at those numbers. Back in the 1970s we had a village policeman. The village population would have been around 1000 people and maybe a few more lived on surrounding farms etc. He lived in the village and knew most people by name. His house doubled as the local police station and it even had a jail cell so he could detain a prisoner if needed.

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It is shocking but comparing it to a village boby is a bit misleading. He probably worked between 40 and 48 hours a week so for about 120 hours a week he wasn't on duty.

BrightBrightSunshineyDay · 11/05/2026 20:55

People have very high expectations of treatments for verrucas and fungal nails.
They're often manky and difficult if not impossible to treat.

chaosmaker · 11/05/2026 20:56

StandingDeskDisco · 11/05/2026 13:57

I have had many jobs in both public sector and private sector offices.

In the private sector, at junior / admin levels, you work your socks off. If they can possibly make your role redundant, or just not replace you when you leave, they will, and expect the rest of the team to pick up the work.

In the public sector (civil service, local authority, and FE college, but I expect the other organisations are similar), you can work at about 2/3 of the pace or less, and 'empire building' is rife: this means that every manager tries to get as many staff under them as possible. A manager with a team of six will moan to his superior how everyone is flat out and overworked, they need another person. The manager is happy to agree, because he has no idea of the actual workload, and then he also gets more people under him.
So there are hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of under-employed people working at half-speed paid for by our taxes.

that would bore me to death. It also means that all the 'empire builders' need replacing with real people