To think that these people have got it all wrong!

[Yesornono]

Two ppl today!!
Person 1 on Facebook: oh I am just so happy to have started my new teaching job!#officiallyateacher

Me (to myself) eeehhhh... you are not a teacher you are a teaching assistant (not putting down TA’s (as I know they are a godsend) but... there is a difference between teacher training and TA training 🤔

Person 2: in the supermarket, I bumped into an old friend. Having a catch up and she tells me her daughter is in college, I say fantastic etc what is she studying? Answer: Law, ooh fantastic etc etc then she says “ I know just think in 3 and a half years (she’s half way through 1st year) she will be a solicitor!! Me (to myself) eeeehhh NO in 3 and a half years she will have a law degree 🤦‍♀️

AIBU to think these ladies have got it all wrong!!??

There are non-solicitors who work in legal offices who would be perfectly entitled to call themselves lawyers. CILEX lawyers, experienced Paralegals and so on.

YANBU! My SIL claimed she was a head chef, she waited tables. She then left and three weeks announced she was a nurse?! I’m a nurse so had a few questions on which university offered a three week nursing degree! She’s actually a carer in a residential home, nothing wrong with either job role and very much needed and valued roles but I agree it is annoying

@Roomba 😂😂 that is one of the best!!

Also, lots of people call themselves an “engineer” when they are not. If I was an engineer that would really bug me.

^My friend is an engineer and they hate this

You'd be surprised what actually happens to cover supervisors when there are teacher absences. They frequently end up having to teach - ie, explain the concepts, explain how to do them for kids who haven't been shown them before, come up with extension work for the more able and differentiate for those with lower attainment levels.

They are often effectively working as unqualified teachers working from scratch, not reading out what somebody else has set. But if a parent asked, they'd be 'skilled Cover Supervisors' and not 'people paid far, far less, with next to no employment protection, but expected to plan, teach and assess classes even on a long term basis because they're cheaper and more likely to do as they're told than a member of a teaching union because they are completely unaware of their rights'.

They could also be graduates doing the assessment based method of qualification. Two years teaching for just above NMW and then they can apply for QTS. Like Teach First, but less posh.

I work for the same schools trust as this person. It’s a small school and she doesn’t do long term cover (policy is not to). She does the odd lesson. She does a lot of TA work to fill her time.
I have worked in other schools where cover teachers have covered a teacher for months (and paid as an unqualified teacher). She certainly isn’t in this category. I think putting ‘I’ve got a job as a teacher’ on FB is pushing it a bit.

I'm a TA. I would never pass myself off as a teacher, or want to be one, but I have often had to rephrase or reframe something a teacher has said so that the child or children I am working with can understand. I've had teachers leave the room and an entire class turn to me and say, "What the fuck was she on about?" (secondary school, not Infants with dreadful language 😂). After I've tackled said dreadful language I've either hastily rephrased the inaccessible teaching or been the stooge to ask the teacher to explain it again.
But I am not the teacher and certainly wouldn't describe myself as one.

DH's aunt constantly rattles on about her son who's "Studying law at university". He's doing a course in Insurance with legal studies in a Mickey Mouse college.

@MitziK yes a lot more goes into being a supply teacher than ppl think. Here in Ireland a supply teacher is actually paid at a higher daily rate essentially (I currently earn 180€ a day) so I walk in for 9.00, the children finish at 2.40 and I am gone by 3. I know I don’t get the benefits as such but I still pay into a pension and it suits me to do it this way as I don’t “need job security” right now.
Teaching is quite different here (I also worked in the UK) primary teachers are very highly thought of and you would never really find a teacher at a school past 4oclock unless they had a meeting.

Same with accountants. When someone says that, I reply "chartered or certified" - that usually shuts them up! Usually turns out they just work as an accounts clerk or are qualified as a book-keeper or accounting technician - nothing wrong with that, but, no, they're not an accountant!

Some just need to be bigger and better than the rest of us. When your DS who you had such high hopes for ends up as a burger flipper, and all your friends are full od the exciting uni degrees their offspring are doing, there is a temptation to stretch the truth, not to be bigger and better, but just to try to keep up.

Though the examples given here are downright lies.

He's doing a course in Insurance with legal studies in a Mickey Mouse college. it's attitudes like this that tempt people to lie.

I thought in the The UK “lawyer” was just a catch-all term for paralegals, solicitors, barristers etc?

I'm a dental nurse and I hate it when people ask me and then see "ooh you're a dentist can you look at my teeth?" Like NO. I studied for 2 years, not 5! I'd love to be a dentist but I am not that academic and it's really embarrassing having to correct them and explain I do the suction and assist the dentist chairside ect. Cue the "oh so you don't really do anything" "You have a lazy job" "you're a glorified cleaner then"

Absolute pet hate!

I've had loads of ads popping up on my phone inviting me to have a great new job as a colorectal surgeon in Aberystwyth. They must know that I worked for the British Association of Urological Surgeons for a few years - ergo very well qualified!

I was an ‘engineer,’ It was part of my job title. A quality engineer. I have a degree and everything, but not in engineering. I never tried to pass myself off as a real engineer, though.

these stories made me laugh as I work in a go surgery and for the last 10 years our health care assistant insists on calling herself the" nurse" lol I keep telling her she's not a bloody nurse

Cue the "oh so you don't really do anything" "You have a lazy job" "you're a glorified cleaner then

Do people actually say these things to you?! How rude.

The worst I ever witnessed was when the GP system was changed and the GP needed to wait for the local programmer to come help. When they turned up they took one look at me and went "oh" blushed and asked me to sort it as I knew more about it than they did as I'd trained them and more importantly was actually one of the original programmers!

When I left I asked her about her programming expertise. Literally her reply was she'd changed the colour of the desktop program!!

She was applying for a technician post in a local school and begged me not to tell anyone she wasn't the expert they all thought she was. I didn't, but she never got the job - they actually had a practical interview which she failed.

I worked with someone with a first aid certificate who would say they were a trainee doctor..

@MereDintofPandiculation I'm sure my mother much exaggerates my role to her friends and family. Meh whatever keeps her going.

@kaytee87 yes! And it's usually people that have jobs that don't need qualifications, like receptionist or warehouse worker, not bashing their jobs at all as I've been in similar roles before I qualified, but jeez. Throw me a bone I worked hard!

I'm a TV critic.

I sit in my sofa Evey night watching TV and making notes, in my head about what I am viewing 🤣🤣

I have this with a neighbour about her adult child. Sadly for her she came a cropper when telling me her child worked at the same City Firm I did. I was very pleased, expressed interest etc. He works for a contractor who had a contract at my firm. Why lie. It never ends well. Especially as her DC cant stick a job for more than a few months.

I have also had this with my aunt about my cousins. I love my family - I dont care what they do BUT PLEASE DONT LIE TO ME. It drives me nuts!

I cannot speak to every profession, but in my area in Canada, the term "nurse" is legally protected. One can only state they are a nurse if they are licensed as a registered nurse, licensed practical nurse (SEN equivalent), or registered psychiatric nurse (similar scope of practice to an RN but works mainly in psychiatric settings). So a care aide or support worker can't call themself a nurse, although sometimes the general public doesn't get the distinction. Legal protection of titles helps to ensure public protection.

I thought in the The UK “lawyer” was just a catch-all term for paralegals, solicitors, barristers etc?

It is a catch all term for solicitors, barristers and legal executives, but not paralegals- they aren’t lawyers.