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!!!!!

Thanks a lot, for some reason I totally didn’t think about the whole not sitting still aspect - that makes total sense, along with the working environment and everything else you said, thanks for your answer!

Housing association tenancy manager here. I've changed my name for this as it may be contentious and would get sacked if it got back to me. The truth is that new lifetime tenancies are given out to people who have only recently entered the country, whatever you may read in the newspapers. Many of them have a 2 year leave to stay but are given lifetime tenancies which no one will follow up on. Off the top of my head I would say 80% of our tenancies last year were given to people where the adults were not born in the UK and they are not UK citizens. This is leafy home counties.
Make of that what you will, I'm just fed up of seeing people deny it happens. Im just happy if the rent is paid !

And all of the doggy love!!

Yes I meant attraction to children. Why are there so many, it doesn’t make sense for the species.
and yes attraction to teens is fucked up but more understandable.

It's shocking what some of them do. I've worked with one before running off to the toilet every 45 mins sniffing coke.
One particular store had staff supervised to the toilet because someone was nicking.

The one with the controlled drugs nicked had a car park out the back. Walk across it and you'd be at the pharmacy owned by the managers family. He would openly come across, fill up a tote box to 'borrow' meds that were never returned then go back to his pharmacy with his box of freebies. I was placed there to see over the store closure and found the controlled drugs missing. It was all reported and on cctv who was coming and going at the time but nothing was done about it. The day I did a count on the controlled drugs, the manager left for lunch when he saw me doing it and never returned.
Hygiene is shocking in some of them as well. I wouldn't ever take a tablet thats been popped out of the pack and put in a bottle.

This is clearly evidenced by the time JK Rowling released her crime fiction under the pseudonym 'Robert Galbraith' = terrible sales. Promptly released the info of the authors real name and dont'cha know it = sales were booming.

I used to work at my local swimming baths back in the early 80s. To get from the changing rooms into the pool involved walking through one of those grim footbaths that used to have red, foamy iodine in it. We regularly would have to remove a cockroach or two from the footbath when we opened up for the day. Big buggers they were, too 😵

In the old days, when you retrieved physical patient notes and Xrays for clinics, they were kept in the basements of hospitals... you would regularly crunch through cockroaches who would feast upon the paper...

If it’s still the same it’s
Royal borough Kensington and Chelsea
and
Newham

Neither of those would be all that much use for us in the UK. 😁

DH is a retired accountant and although he does our spread sheets he sends our taxes to a specialised tax accountant firm. He says 'You are not paying for their expertise... you are paying for their indemnity insurance'.

That said, now we as sole traders have to report to HMRC 5 times a year we are just going to do it ourselves.

Oooh. I just thought of one.

In diagnostics genetics labs, you are trained that there is aronnd 10% non paternity in the general population. i.e. 10% of people don't have the dad they think they do.

Obviously you would never reveal anything like this but i have had to write some very interesting reports where i have said " the risk of this couple having a child with this disease in future is negligible."

Having worked in education for many years I’m constantly surprised at the number of inept teachers that are ‘moved on’ because they are useless and then go on to be promoted in their next school.
Know quite a few who are deputy’s and heads.
One was a functioning alcoholic, regularly taught the class very hungover.
Moved on because the head didn’t want to deal with the issue and now they are a deputy!

I agree. I think Tower Hamlets is also in that category.

I did a clincal placement in the London Hospital in the early 70's At the time the medical records department had a huge mouse problem so some bright spark in buildings maintenance decided to encourage the feral cats who lived in the grounds into medical records ro deal with the mice. They would leave doors open and put catfood down. Enter flea problem! The clincal department that i worked in was next to medical records and when we went into the main hospital, the quickest way was through medical records. This was fine when you were alone but if you were bringing a patient off the wards or dealing with an outpatient, they couldn't go through medical records of course so we had to learn two ways to get anywhere.
Final story. We used to supply aids and equipment to people when they went home - loo raises, bath boards and so on. we had a store for immediate use in the department but the bulk of our stores were kept in a room up behind the clock on the face of the building. The clock face was actually in the room. it was the students' job to keep the department store stocked and also to transfer delivered stock that wouldn't fit into the department store from the department up to the room behind the clock.

@godmum56 I was also at The London... nb how old we both are, because we do not call it Royal, albeit that I was on a presentation line to the Queen when she enobled us. So funny to see the corridors lined with plants as though they were floral borders...

And keeping on theme, in the old hospital museum in the Medical Collage there was a back street abortionist's kit, complete with a cheese grater... which made a far greater impression than the Elephant Man!

Agree.

Also applying for probate. It cost me less than £300 to do it myself. My parents’ solicitor wanted £6k.

Women often forget to remove tampons sometimes putting a 2nd one in. The smell on removing an old tampon is truly the worst thing I have ever smelt.

Old Whitehall civil servant here - it always amazed me that people didn't realise that letters from Ministers in response to policy questions from the public were written by junior officials not by the Ministers. Officials also draft all the Parliamentary briefings for debates/PQs/PMQs and policy speeches. Spads and Ministers themselves do go through the drafts and amend/fluff it up.
I started in 1992 and left in 2012 - I always said I started when it was like Yes Minister and left when it was like The Thick Of It.

A cheese grater? 😫

This was obvious at the time

Not to everyone. I had people tell me a decision was a 'good' decision and criticise me for doubting it, when I had been involved in making the bloody decision and knew there was no reasoning at all behind it!

Some years ago, Steve Webb was our MP. He and I disagreed on the subject of gay marriage and a number of emails flew back and forth between us. We were both polite and we argued in a firm but friendly manner. The emails were definitely from him and not a minion. I'd never have voted Lib Dem for many reasons, but he was a lovely MP and a man of principles and convictions. We just didn't agree on some things.

I was only referring to Ministers replying on Government policy. MPs are responsible for their own correspondence with their constituents.

I started at The London in 1978, so just 11 years after David Steele's Abortion Act 1967 had been passed... I think the "kit" came from the 50s and yes it was terrifying.