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!!!!!

There was a very sad case of a student who unalived herself at Bristol after being asked to do a presentation when she had severe anxiety and since then, the idea has solidified that there should always be alternative modes of testing and assessment consonant with disability. The problem is that a large number of students come into this category. We still do assess by presentation, or at least I am but it's much harder than asking everyone to write a boring (and probably AI ridden) paper.

Universities are very much more flexible about attendance and how students can be assessed and this isn't then matched in the workplace which is a horrid shock for many students.

I suppose it was the use of the word wards but it’s been quite a while since I lived in London. Actually I do remember reading something about the most and least expensive Tesco Metros being a mile or so apart. I can’t remember the details but maybe the city of London and the Isle of Dogs?

I worked as a cleaner for a long time. Dentists and doctors are the worst. Soiled period pads in a drawer and changing a tampon in the kitchen when they knew I was in the next room and walking about are two examples of two different people.

I worked in a bakery and was through the back scrubbing pans. Behind me were several large trays of danish pastries waiting to go onto shop front.

Sitting right in the middle of said pastries were several mice tucking in.

And yes, the pastries were put out for sale

Agree with this - the public sector is hard work and many people who joined from the private sector were rather surprised by both this and the level of professionalism required.

I worked in the NHS in Health Authority/CCG/back office type organisations and everyone worked really hard. Many managers don't really like managing people as it takes up so much time but you can't get higher salary grades if you don't manage staff as its built into the grading system. Almost everyone was doing unpaid overtime, often equivalent to several extra days a week. The NHS runs on unpaid work and staff goodwill. extra staff needed a robust business case including identified funding from savings etc

During covid many NHS and other related staff staff worked 7 days a week for months at a time. I saw this especially with GPs and practice managers.

There is a lot of rubbish talked about 'too many managers' when the NHS has one of the lowest management overheads of any nations health system and most private sector organisations.

My 'gold plated' NHS pension is much less than the minimum wage and I don't get full state pension as I was 'opted out' by the government.

The vast majority of working age people on benefits are hardworking decent people who are just trying to make the best of a rubbish situation.

I believe Kensington is the borough with the biggest discrepancies. Holland Park vs Ladbroke Grove or Latimer Road

Many moons ago I worked at the coop deli, was 13 years old. The manager would fish out the meat I'd thrown in the bin because it either went all curly or was out of date and put the slices in between the fresher looking ones. Told mum never to buy from there again.
And we loved new blocks of brawn, would bounce it on the floor to see how high it went. It was wrapped though! Never even changed shape, weird stuff.

The only place I ever worked at food wise which was spotless and sticklers for food hygiene was Uncle Sams burgers in Sussex. The place looked scruffy and worn out but it was spotless in the kitchen.

Your 'solicitor' might not actually be qualified. Whilst "solicitor" is a protected term, lawyer isn't so people can call themselves lawyers and have ZERO quals, this kind of bleeds over into the use of the word "solicitor" and the people who are acting (the unqualifieds) don't dissuade the person who is mistaken, they just let them think it and that they are qualified sols.

Want to know why conveyancing takes so long? Because in every chain there's one of these (or more) involved and we can only move as swiftly as the slowest link (invariably them).

It's like PAs taking over from Doctors. Awful, just awful. Thank Clementi reforms - it's way more expensive, takes way longer, everyone fucking hates it. Yay.

This is absolutely true, we even see diabetics with circulation issues because they don’t take their sugar control seriously, and either skip their insulin or just take more. I’ve seen patients that had black legs and feet with all kinds of junk food in their bags, obese because they over eat and then use insulin to manage their blood sugar, when they could actually just eat better. Patients with COPD smoking (or vaping), patients with chronic bowel issues eating pot noodles or macdonalds brought into wards by family, etc etc. A scary and frustrating percentage of the public take absolutely no responsibility for their health.

Because there is more money to be made in writing what you're told to write, that already has a publishing deal, marketing etc and will sell...

Than in coming up with your own plot, own characters, getting an agent, a publisher, then selling all that to the public ..

And many ghostwriters are also writers who publish under their own name.

I can't really be arsed to write a novel. I have co-written a reference/non-fiction book and was a lot of work - always makes me laugh when people think self-publishing is easy (or not a real book, ours is still after four years, in the top 5 in its section on Amazon, and still making all of us a nice chunk of change each month!)

I have done a lot of copy-writing for other people and would gladly ghost write, its a more more reliable income (once you get the contract)!

Dearie me. I haven’t handled these bloody things through a checkout since 2007 and I will never forget that number

I worked for a "large energy supplier" in debt recovery and collection and had central London as my patch.
You'd be surprised how many "famous" people and members of the aristocracy including the top family... thought they were above paying their fuel bills same as everyone else...

@secretrocker the foil is usually scrunched up so the barcode doesn’t scan and you have to type it in manually. On the run up to Easter, doing it hundreds of times per day is annoying

Having been involved from the start up of a venture, backed by a multi-million pound global company... the amount of guesswork and estimation involved, and the amount of 'we've done 20% of the content necessary, lets launch and wing it whilst we build the rest' that involves MILLIONS of dollars/pounds being lobbed around... is shocking!

I mean it was a good idea and it is working extremely well, smashing forecast targets and goals year on year -but the 'wing and a prayer' nature behind it all is eye-opening.

Probably very normal but I am a lowly minion, in the great scheme of things, those early zoom meetings with the corporate suits were somewhat mind-blowing!

Adds to my general understanding though that many things in life that look slick, huge, polished etc are actually held together behind the scenes with some sticky tape and a few people running around very very frazzled!

I suppose for some there is no going back and they don't have the will-power or inclination to change?
I'll never forget seeing the massive smoking/games room that was at the Marsden when my brother was having chemo. Was a long time ago now but these folk were not going to give up when they were feeling so crap (which I kind of understood) and it was safer to not go outdoors with their immune systems and chemo.

That some kids can sit in shit all day and do nothing about it. Secondary teacher.

I worked in the press industry for a long time. Some of the huge 'exclusives' on famous people were given by said famous people in order to bury more harmful stories. Deals are being made all the time.

Plus of course, the 'tip-off's from minor celebs trying to get more exposed tend to come from their own family.

This is second hand knowledge, but I heard from someone who works in a hotel that recently had a norovirus outbreak that it was spread mainly by sloppy practice by the cleaners like that.

My father in law did 25 years in the Navy and it's impossible to watch any war film with him due to his constant complaints about accuracy.
"That's a 1950 battledress jacket so he wouldn't have worn that on D-Day"
"That's Mark 9 Spitfire, they weren't in service until 1942" etc. etc.

I used to work for a company that made household chemicals. The sales team always said that they'd happily only sell to ALDI and Lidl. Apparently other supermarkets and vendors were complicated, always wanting price promotions, rebates, special marketing events (with accompanying free display collateral), sale or return deals etc. But ALDI and Lidl were "we want X quantity of product at Y price." Very straightforward and predictable.

There is SO much more to Ocado than simply goods being delivered by a driver to your door 😉.

Every time I say I work for this company…”Oh, you drive for them?”

How does the stock get on site?
Who is there to accept, check, go through the security of that stock, allocate it to the appropriate bay?
How does the stock get into the grid to be picked?
How is the stock loaded onto vans?
How is the stock ordered from the supplier?
Who is in charge of HR…for all/each site/UK/ global?
No-one is in charge of on site H&S then?
There are no security guards?
No technicians for the robots?
Who does the Welfare meetings/ disciplinaries/ planning of rosters/ employee reviews?
Who maintains the vans?
Cleans the site, inside and out?
Sets the targets of each shift?
Interviews and Recruits staff?
Liaises with other sites about what they are doing differently and how it’s (not?) working for them?
In-house training?

And that’s just at base level….

Now waiting for the next question 😆

See also my post below about ‘singer songwriters’ same reasons apply

I don’t work in the industry but saw a video only yesterday of a coffin being loaded into the fuselage of a plane, it goes in with all the luggage. It was loaded first and then the cases were stacked around it. I assumed it would have a separate section.

I was asked to teach maths at a very famous boys' public school. I was at a garden party near the school and the Head of Maths was there. I had a B in Statistics at A Level. I didn't have a degree at that point and he said none of that mattered.

I declined.