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!!!!!

That some blue collar workers actually earn more than white collar workers, and the white collar workers have no idea 😂

I do dog boarding and doggy daycare in my home. Most of my customers think I do it for pocket money. In reality, I earn more than they do in their Corporate office jobs. And I have none of the associated pressures.

Where is/was this please?
I think that’s really interesting.

Many years ago I worked with some food retailers, I'm not a food expert but it was an insurance job and I needed to check staff training and that the work system met industry standards etc. Mostly paper work but i always got a walk around and detailed hands on exposure to the work practices. I did some work with McDonald's, some local franchises and I was so impressed by their systems. It was all hands off where possible, things were programmed and timed to avoid human error, everything was ship shape.

I currently work with children, in a private nursery. Every item we have is donated and despite standards and guidelines about carefully selecting resources and adapting to the children's needs, we just make the best of whatever we are landed with. I spent last weekend rummaging through my friends toys as she was doing a clear out and sanitising at home. I sometimes find bits in charity shops and buy them myself.

I know through work that the benefit system in this country is totally broken, totally abused, totally unfair and a massive trap. I would assume that anyone who comes into contact with it in work would agree with me.Have not got any answers on how to improve it but to read here constantly that it's abuse proof and not easy or not enough is baffling.

People with loads of money can be just as miserably unhappy with their life as people with nothing, and they can't even blame their anxiety and depression or their children's failures on a lack of cash.

I can completely believe this as some of my not so great students have gone on to teacher training, at one point, even getting a 2:2 wasn't a bar and that's in the days now it's hard to get a 2:2, and nearly everyone does better!

Yep and despite not being busy, by any stretch of the imagination, many (not all) are still spectacularly inefficient

The fungating breast cancer I saw early in my career will stay with me forever.

This. As my boss says it has ruined police dramas for him (and presumably his family)because he spends the time muttering "but that's not right..."

That a lot of ill health (specifically cardiovascular and vascular (lower limb circulation) issues are mostly self inflicted by smoking, inactivity and obesity.
The state of some people's legs is shocking (OK, diabetics have a reason).

Regarding hygiene in food prep. It sounds grim, but we're not all getting ill all the time are we?

We're not dead because we are built to survive non-meticulous hygiene.

I wouldn't eat soup if I knew the peas had been in someone's mouth, but I am fairly relaxed with it as are most of my family. All in good health including the octogenarians.

I have nothing from my past occupation that I haven't already divulged and nothing new/interesting but I will say that married men fall in love with strippers on a regular basis. A lot of men with prestigious, respected occupations do cocaine. Some clubs in the UK are operating without a license and take measures to ensure that they are not caught.

yes I was a student nurse in 80s and that stuck with me

mine would be that many well known singer songwriters are no such thing at all - the stuff is all written by others and an NDA signed and a fixed fee paid and the publishing registered to the artists.

outside of my job sphere and quite why I was looking I can’t remember but I was very suprised to see a lot of our major banks had a whole pile of CCJs- I am presuming they just were not keeping on top of this rather than couldn’t pay! Good job they don’t need to borrow money !!!

I don't think they can refuse TTO's (small amounts of drugs given to tide the patient over until they can get a prescription filled) although they can delay providing them and the prescription "because the pharmacy is closed" or "they can't get hold of a doctor"

I wish! But they definitely dont, unfortunately!

I used to have Maccies cos everything is deep fried so the chance of getting ill is negligible I imagine. I developed a sensitivity to seed oil so that stopped that caper.

I'm glad to hear that though. The bigger the enterprise, the better the hygiene broadly.

That is so very true -

😂

One of the largest employers in London made up the rules as they went along plus, when most of the world was shut down during Covid they pretended it wasn’t happening and treated their staff appallingly

Oh I know this well. DH and i are Catholic and every lent he makes a big thing of going off biscuits then starts buying boxes of Jaffa Cakes and eating them on the basis that they don't count. Talk about missing the point!!

Back to my job, most parents would be horrified at how their children don't attend lectures. Most parents think it's the lecturers who aren't present enough. This is rarely the case. Many students have very poor attendance, and some don't attend the whole module at our institution, and just churn out an assignment at the end. Some watch the catch-up. About a third are engaged, great and motivated, the rest not so.

The uni doesn't want to make attendance compulsory as students wouldn't like it.

We are changing our assessments to make students attend more, test more relevant things and encourage real-world skills, but it's hard to do this as we are under anti-discrimination legislation, which means we cannot force students to, say, do a presentation; we have to offer alternatives for everything. This means the students often don't get the rigorous tests or opportunities to improve around basic skills.

I'd love to make it compulsory for attendance and to do particular skills because to me, they are basic requirements for work and if students go into work without them, they can just be got rid of in the first two years.

And yet the millions of customers who eat a Greggs product every day seem to somehow survive.

That ai chats can get read by humans, it shouldn’t be a surprise as every major company has a warning that it can be reviewed etc but people just give all sorts of private info over.

I’d love to learn more about this.

Having worked in a private school until just 2 years ago, it was entirely the norm for teachers to have lots of lovely qualifications but zero teacher training. Being super clever doesn’t mean you can teach! Similarly the preference is to recruit head teachers who will be first-timers.

What you’re paying for is selective entry - that’s why the results are higher - and small class sizes.

@Thundertoastthanks for that. I too would like to see an information campaign. I don't know the half of it but I know the whole thing only exists to serve a few very rich people yet has had huge negative impact on society and nothing is done about it