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!!!!!

I work in mental health and once line managed a team of counsellors. The counsellors in that were, with a couple of exceptions, the most unstable, unprofessional, emotionally fragile, and frankly batshit people I've ever come across in my life. Dreadful boundaries, messy personal lives, no professionalism especially when working at home, doing things like letting their kids disrupt sessions, pausing a client call to give their partner a shopping list, scrolling on their phone while talking to clients. Cancelling on clients last minute. Any attempt to have any conversations about any of this behaviour would result in tears, tantrums, going off sick. Describing themselves as "highly sensitive" or "empath" and putting up "be kind" posters while behaving in unpleasant, rude or even bullying ways towards colleagues, supervisors, non-clinical staff. Labelling anyone who disagreed with them a "narcissist" - including sometimes clients.

The newbie grads came with no clue how to risk assess, melted down at any sort of risk or safeguarding issue, and were generally poorly equipped to deal with the level of complexity in the service. Core training for counsellors can be extremely variable in quality and rigour, especially at college level. The postgrad level ones seem to be a bit better, but even they don't seem to do much weeding out of those who are clearly not psychologically fit for the work. After my experiences managing and working alongside these people, I wouldn't trust the majority of counsellors to put my bins out, let alone with anyone else's mental health.

I live in a country where lots of Egyptian Drs practice and they’re excellent.

I never give a second thought to hygiene practices when I eat out - and I've eaten out a lot over the years. I've never been ill from eating out, ever, and I really couldn't care less what anyone's hands have touched.

Same, maybe it's weird but it doesn't bother me. I eat out loads and have never been ill afterwards in decades of doing it so it cant be that dangerous!

You've clearly never had food poisoning as a result of eating out. I have, 5 days of constant vomiting wasn't my idea of enjoying a meal out.

Northern town by any chance? With an event space built in on the side? It's being knocked down soon but always wanted a nosey round the bunker.

Enfield Civic Centre ?

I've just checked a Tesco finest ready meal and that has Thai chicken in it.

I know, it's on the label. I thought McD was all UK/Irish though.

this. Also (and I only just found this out) the reading age metric stops at 16 because it was designed for use in schools.

I think most food poisoning would be from the food not being cooked/reheated properly. Or not being held at the correct temp.
I work in catering at events etc. We have small pockets of time to get the money in and have to serve and take payment quickly. Lots of us staff eat the food, never been ill.

A friend had food poisoning 50 years ago aged 10 from eating a meat pie. In hospital for days, nearly died, lost a lot of weight. It was because of the pie temp.

I actually did know this. I was in quite a low set for English at school. The entire year did a test for reading age. My score apparently went off the scale as in I scored higher than age 16. The teacher marking asked her class who I was.

This is shocking. Why on earth is it happening? I thought immigrants weren't entitled to social housing? Is is going against actual rules from above, or have we been misled about what the rules are?

Do you know why people living alone were ignored until bubbles were introduced 11 weeks into lockdown?

At the time I assumed we would follow New Zealand's example - they considered people living alone from the start.

I've always wondered if just no-one thought of it (because no-one in the room lived alone, or planned to follow the rules) or if it was raised and no-one cared. Or perhaps they just assumed people wouldn't be daft enough to ruin their mental health and would sneakily see someone anyway?

I don't know specifically but from seeing other decision-making my guess is that no one really thought about it. That happened a lot - someone would suggest something, I'd say 'what about [very obvious issue]?' and they'd go 'oh yeah,' then next I'd hear the stupid decision went ahead anyway. When the obvious fallout happened, everyone would just shrug. It was horrifying tbh.

I do think there was a general assumption that people wouldn't follow the rules to the letter - there was a viewpoint from certain people that in order to get the bare minimum of 'good behaviour' you have to scare people shitless, lie to them over and over, make them feel guilty and so on. When people actually believed the utter nonsense they were being told the people in question were surprised. Some of them clearly got off on it and loved scaring others into compliance, others felt bad about it, but started peddling the line 'it's a pandemic, we didn't have enough information, we did our best.' That's another lie btw - they knew what they were doing was wrong, and that line is just a way to make themselves feel better for actively harming people.

My whole experience around the pandemic was quite traumatising tbh, purely because it showed how seemingly sane people can do massive harm through stupidity and through having an opportunity to exercise underlying tendencies towards cruelty and sadism.

I think the shift to Corporate bollocks means Twenty Twenty Six is now the most accurate.

Not the same place, but you should go to the Cold War Bunker in York. English Heritage own it now, and do guided tours. It’s fascinating.

My workplace has a bunker in the basement (no surprise, the building used to be the teaching block on a military base), when DD came to work with me for the day we explored it.

I also learned about 30 years ago so it may not be true any more, that all universities get all the A Level results for every single student in the country, days before they are issued to students. This is so that the universities can work out which offers to make.

they still do, my cousin is an admissions officer.
It is why on results day they are immediately able to offer places/confirm offers and offer places to those whose results are not the same as their predicted grades.

In 1988 I worked in a factory that made luxury mince pies for M&S (this factory has since closed)
We had to pick up the pies and put them into the plastic inserts for the boxes. We didn't wear gloves and by the end of a shift you had mince pie gunk under your nails.
When going to the loo, no-one checked if you had washed your hands, and one girl on the line was disgruntled with her job and didn't wash her hands on purpose.
M&S always gave warning of an inspection. The factory paid overtime to everyone to come in 1 hour early and clean. On inspection days the rules about wearing jewellery and hair nets were enforced. These were not enforced on non inspection days.

Over 30 years ago I used to work as a junior admin in a school office at a private school and some of the wealthy Russian clients would pay for their kids school fees with big fat envelopes full of cash.

I remember once returning a bowl of pea and broccoli soup on a P&O ferry and telling the girl on the counter it tasted like someone had peed in it (I barely had a sip and spat it out, it absolutely stank of urine!) She whisked it away from me and gave me my momey back without a word. The look in her eyes said, 'Yes, someone probably peed in it.'

What part of the messaging was outright lies?

I work at a maccies

It's the same (but not as bad as yours!)

We have different bins for paper/plastic/cups/food-all goes into the same bin around the back when I empty them

I see people sorting out their rubbish 'for recycling' and I cant tell them not to bother

When it comes to hygiene,it really depends on which manager is on

We have a good reputation for cleanliness but some dont give a fuck

I've seen bread rolls picked up off the floor and made into a burger

Sauce tubes/fries utensil/coffee cups dropped,picked back up and used

Utensils dropped and if your lucky,they get sprayed with warm water-no washing up liquid

I've seen dropped items get kicked under the counters and forgotten about and I can't remember the last the the milkshake machine was cleaned (the coffee machines 'lock' if they are not cleaned by a certain time,so they do get done everyday)

However,our last manager had ocd levels of what we had to do

She had two of us cleaning the floor with bleach and a toothbrush style gadget every single day or wiping the walls over and over again

She made sure we washed our hands every half hour and cloths where changed every hour

She made sure everything was spotless at all times-her standards where unbelievably high

She left and the new manager only cares when the owner is due for a visit-thats when the steamer comes out and used until all germs are dead

The owner comes out once a year

The rest of the time,she doesn't give a fuck-I've seen cloths get changed once a week or bleach sprayed around but not properly used-she wants the loo to smell of bleach rather than used properly

Just finished a public sector acreer, and can say this is very much NOT the case, thankfully.

When I was in private sector, a large privatised utility, the Directors would spend valuable board meeting time bickering about which of them got the 'gold' perks and who got the silver and bronze. Eejits.