Awkward questions you've always wanted to ask someone who works in a specific job...

[PinocchiosLeftNostril]

I thought this would be a good way for us to get answers to those awkward questions we would never dream of asking someone to their face in their place of work.

These are questions relating to my life that i would love honest answers to.

Hairdressers - When someone with bad dandruff/psoriasis sits on your chair, do you shrug it off, or do you quickly have a look to make sure it's not lice? Are you able to tell the difference right away or does it need investigating? And do you really want to know what my plans are for the day, or would you rather work in silence?

Teachers - do you get annoyed when parents write in homework diaries that a specific piece of homework was too tricky for their child? Do you take it as an insult to your teaching skills?

Waiter/waitresses - do you expect people to offer to clean up their children's mess before they leave, or do you just shrug it off as part of the job? If you're busy and haven't had chance to clean a table yet, and a new customer came up and asked for a cloth to clean it, would you be offended?

I'm a trainee SLT so not quite sure if I'm qualified to answer any questions regarding that line of work yet.

But i have experience working in a Subway sandwich store, a library, a gym and as a cleaner. So i can answer any cleaning, book or sandwich questions that are burning away inside you all.

bottleofbeer he won't have thought you were mad!

He (and the midwife) will have seen these things a thousand times, but you haven't, and its his job to check and reassure you as appropriate.

mackerel Not as far as I know, but is does irritate me when midwives on PN wards refer to us as 'the paed'. Just sounds wrong somehow. Mind you, the alternative is often 'the baby doctor', to which I want to reply 'no, I'm definitely full grown'

One to the GPs here, i know you probably hate doctor Google, but if someone has researched her condition and knows that when x happens her dose of y will need to be increased... why wait and not do it straight away...

(and then send a blooming letter that gets lost in the post and good thing I called and get the dose of y upped on the phone and didn't waste too many days, but that will be a different story)

xaphania, would you consider teaching other docs to place IVs? I had emergency surgery while pregnant, so my post-op recovery was in the attached maternity hospital. 3 people tried to get a new IV into me - no success, I'm looking like a pincushion. So they called a doc. This enormous bloke comes in, hands like hams, I'm thinking 'Can't see this working'. He placed my IV in less than 30 seconds, least painful IV I've ever had. Turns out he was a NICU paed...

sashh it's to do with how the chemo drugs alter cellular structure & hair pigments, the chemo curls tend to grow out and sometimes the natural hair colour returns as the drugs leave the system or something

My job includes researching the conservation of canids. No one mention fox hunting

mildred Ah, NHS direct, or whatever it's called now. I don't blame the call operators, they follow a set script, and if any 'red flags' are triggered then they call an ambulance or whatever. I do worry about non medical people reassuring callers without at least eyeballing the child. The trouble with kids is they can get very sick, very quickly, so while they may have been 'ok' when the phone call was made, they can go downhill fast.

I can't think of any complications I've seen, it tends to be the other way really, we get hundreds of referrals that probably didn't need to be seen by a paediatrician. But I would rather it that way round (even if I don't get chance to eat, drink or wee all shift!).

My mantra is always listen to mum (or dad, carer etc), they know the child best, if they're worried I need to work out why and what's going on.

And definitely I always tell parents to seek further advice if things change after I've discharged the child, but the NHS is so ridiculously busy/understaffed etc etc its not always easy in practice.

Thanks xaphania, but I realised I missed a word out in my last question: I meant "do you think NHS Direct militates against this" - not the NHS itself! I do find that on the whole all HCPs will move heaven and earth to see a baby quickly

poledra Ha! Love that. I have to say, I am rather proud of my cannulating ability. I think once you've cannulated 23-24 week premmy babies who've had dozens of cannulas in their short lives, you can get a line in pretty much anything!

Workers on cosmetic counters: do you like wearing all that makeup? do you honestly think that all women look good wearing as much as possible, or is it part of the job to sell that idea and off duty you can see that a lot of women look great with just a bit of mascara and lip gloss? (not me, sadly, but some do)

No one got any food/drink/advertising research questions for me? Nope No one grows up wanting to be a market research manager!

FreeWee you either work where I work or for a competing company... I also work for a market research company

Xaphania You should come perform venepuncture on some of my substance misuse clients.
They are hell to get.

Oh I was also a part time manager in a charity shop which personally I think is more interesting

xaphania you're going to be bombarded :) i have several million questions.

Both my DDs were checked and tongue tie snipped before we even left hospital, so on day three. It's checked and done as routine here. Why in (some parts of?) the UK isn't tongue tie checked for and dealt with straight after birth?

Also, where I live abroad, children rarely go to see GPs. Their usual doctor is a paed, so are really specialised in their issues, including things like reflux and feeding. On threads on here I often read about parents being fobbed off by busy GPs or being dissatisfied with how little experience some gps have with certain common childhood issues (though not all of course). Do you think the uk could improve if they adopted some of the practices like this one from abroad? Or are there just not enough specialists?

Oh, and does a bad winter of chest infections and ear infections necessarily mean that they are weakened and this winter will be as bad or worse? I am dreading another winter of hospital stays etc... (They are 2.6 and 12mo)

Mortus

If an amazing designer piece came in that only you recognised (and wanted) would you buy it yourself and keep schtum? I wouldn't blame you.

Yes. I never got discount (paid staff didn't, only volunteers) and the higher price tag on designer stuff put people off if they didnt recognise the label. High street labels sold better. Win win

Oh but we never kept schtum. We bragged to each other. Lots

FreeWee how come when products reinvent themselves as new and improved is it never an improvement? Is it just because we don't like change?

Petite they sometimes need to change formulations because of supply or for cost reasons, also the 'new' label and reformulation means a new angle for advertising and keeping the product fresh in consumer's minds...

petite I actually agree. I think there is a gap in the NHS for a primary care/office paediatrician. In fact, it's what I would love to do. The job just doesn't exist here. GPs are generally great, but I find it scary that you can train to be a GP and have done no paediatrics at all outside of medical school. Kids are over represented in GP land, so I really don't understand that.

Tongue tie, again, I don't know why it's not looked for/snipped routinely here. I've worked in hospitals where they are keen on snipping tongue tie, and others where they don't believe it causes any problems (I beg to differ!). Often it depends on the staff in the hospital, if they've got someone with an interest in tongue tie, it becomes more routine to do something about it, if that makes sense.

Mortus I have taken designer goods to the tills in my local shops and suggested they re price at a higher sum because they aren't always recognised. It tends to be the smaller regional charity stores that run this risk. A lovely pair of Ferragamo pumps that didn't fit me (I'm not so altruistic as to volunteer to pay more myself ) were only £3,99 and they could have charged more for those.

petite Sorry, I missed your last question. A bad winter of chest infections last year does not necessarily mean another bad year this year. The kids won't have been 'weakened'' by last year, they might just be kids who are a bit more prone to chesty things. A lot depends on the viruses that are circulation in the season, and obviously they are a year older and hopefully stronger.

No crystal ball though I'm afraid! Hope it's not a winter of admissions for you.

xaphania - here is another one, although perhaps this is more of an obstetrics one: why is there such a disjunct between midwife led care and consultant led care of pregnant women? The line you are sold is that you are with the midwives until some risk factor invites the attention of a consultant. In fact they seem to be two separate, disparate, non-communicating and often contradictory systems. This is very confusing for the patient as they have to become the managers of their care when they move between them and this is not easy in a system which disempowers you and makes you feel untrained and unknowledgable

mignonette I'll bet! When working in adult A&E years ago, it always amused me how many of the IVDUs would tell
me they were scared of needles One of my seniors once suggested the way to get blood off them was to hand them the needle/butterfly and syringe and close the curtain behind you! I never did (of course), and am not aware if anyone that did, but I did wonder