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 just really hope that lessons were actually learnt from this, about keeping stockpiles in good condition and not left to go out of date, making sure there is ppe to fit women instead of just "standard man", and clear plans to follow if there's a similar situation again.

I probably hope in vain.

What I've learned is in another pandemic/lockdown I'd cancel denplan and save the money. Me thinking I should keep paying as dentist would still have costs was a bit onesided.

Unless they sacked all the staff , sold the building of course there would still be costs . Private dentists were entitled to no help from government at all.

As I’ve said before I’m massively surprised they were closed for so long. For the vast majority of practices they were open but restricted in what they could do because of all the cross infection control so eg routine check ups , scaling were cancelled because it took so long to treat people who had problems. By the time you had gowned up , set up surgery , done treatment which took much longer in all the PPE , scrubbed down then left the room fallow for 30 minutes to an hour , instead of maybe seeing 25 to 30 people a day you were seeing 6 to 8 and utterly exhausted afterwards .

20 to 50 obviously doesn’t include children. The messaging that adults were at risk was no doubt safer than saying we’re locking down to keep children safe. Parents would have been terrified and dashing to A&E every time their child had so much as a runny nose.

What the council wastes money on. Especially in adult and wellbeing. Its our council tax and seriously boils my piss

My brother worked for the council and he got a warning because he screwed in two loose screws on a door handle and changed a lightbulb. They were paying a £50 call out fee for every single thing in that building so for those two 'jobs' he saved them upwards of £100 but almost got fired for it.

But a prescription charge isn’t for your particular meds, it’s a contribution towards then nhs. Otherwise you’d be paying very little for something cheap and the pricing of an expensive med would be out of reach.

Exactly what im getting at. Plus kennel and cattery fees.

holidays for “naughty kids” and them trashing places snd then billing the council ridiculous amounts

i can go on and on

Free in Scotland and Wales but then more competition from people moving here to take advantage of it.

That’s really interesting!
Is the male calf still fertile?

This. Cancer meds can cost thousands… the charge is a middle of the road one to balance out across the service.

@Gloriousgardener11
Yes the male calf would still be fertile. There is a small chance his testes would be smaller but he'd still be able to breed.

I thought everyone was aware that the extremely low risk to children was known about and publicised widely from the very beginning. Obviously not.

With lockdowns 88 children had Covid as the cause of death between 2020 and 2022. Quite a large number of children with long covid too. A 15 year old sibling of one of dc’s classmates was horribly disabled with long covid.

I don’t personally find that extremely low risk.

I find you hard to believe as you are so factually incorrect. I also find it hard to imagine you being part of any sort of messaging after you wrote phrases such as: "messages...implying scary danger and death".

Luckily it's not a matter of personal opinion. Yes, some children were badly affected by covid and died from it, just like some children are badly affected and die from other infections. Statistically, no matter how you feel, covid is of extremely low risk to children. That wasn't hidden at all by the authorities, they actually stated it quite regularly, so you either weren't listening or don't believe them either.

I never stated I was part of any sort of messaging. I was part of decision-making around healthcare during covid. The messaging was beyond disgusting and I would never have been part of that for one second. Everyone who had a part in it should be totally ashamed of themselves IMO.

You said that you were part of the decision making. And you wrote:

Oh and a lot of the covid messaging was outright lies. I think a lot of people know that now, but maybe don't realise how blatant it was.

The decision making affected the messaging, surely. And pretty well everything you have stated was "known" - particularly what you say was "known" in March 2020 - was not known at all.

I don't know how to state it more clearly tbh - I was involved in decision making that was not directly related to messaging. The decision making was knee-jerk and often made no sense. The messaging was built around scaring people.

Again, you don't have to believe me. I'm stating my knowledge and experience. You seem to know more than I do about it, somehow. That's fine.

You wrote, as something you know because of your job:

That a lot of the decision making around healthcare during Covid was ad hoc and panic-based rather than based on any data or scientific reasoning. I know this because I was involved in some of that decision making when I absolutely should not have been.

Then you wrote:

By the end of March 2020 it was 100% verifiably true that if you were between 20 and 50 and in good general health you had almost no chance of dying from covid. That is not what was communicated to the public and there were many people in that age group who believed they were personally in severe danger if they interacted with anybody.

The data was definitely not in "by the end of March 2020", and it has never been the case that it is "100% verifiably true that if you were between 20 and 50 and in good general health you had almost no chance of dying from covid". Tell that to all the people of all ages who did die, and are still dying of covid.

Ok.

NHS - staff toilets are often left in a disgusting state. I mean shit/blood on seats, walls or floors.

We'd have a 'book-man' come in every few weeks and leave books and little items that could be ordered. Nearly every time he'd have to report that something had been stolen. Same with cake sales or other snacks where people were supposed to leave payment in a jar - always came up short.

Start of covid - several emails went round about missing PPE, toilet paper and paracetamol. Staff threatened with disciplinary and criminal action as it was clear staff were stealing stuff.

Covid - before the vaccination, all staff who had any potential symptoms which were quite vague early on told they had to take 14 days off which would not count towards their sickness record. I knew several people do that several times while posting pics on social media drinking wine in their gardens. I jokingly asked someone I respected if he was going to take his 'free two weeks off 'and he said no, he was waiting to do so when things got busy because at the time, the hospital was dead and staff were just sitting around watching TV on their 'phones and carrying home bags of takeaways and easter egg donations from local businesses who mistakenly thought due to scenes from hospitals that were swamped, that that was the case everywhere when it wasn't.

This happened a couple of times at the private school where I worked. Two years’ fees paid in cash in advance.
There was also a rumour that some of the Russian children had parents in the Russian Mafia, and their status with the others depended on their father’s position within it.

Quite quickly the school stopped taking Russians altogether.

There are private schools and private schools. All the academic staff at that school had degrees, and further training (eg specialist teaching courses and Master’s degrees) was encouraged and subsidised if not completely funded. Some of the sports staff, who coached a sport but did not teach GCSE or A level PE, might not have degrees but would have lots of experience with their sport probably at a professional level.

I have read that Academies, which are state schools, can recruit people without degrees or other teaching qualifications as teachers, but I don’t know if that’s true.

Wow !
And we all stood outside and clapped for this. 🙄

A friend of mine worked for the Samaritans and that was the same...