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.

How do I crumb the outside of a cake? I can do the top, but I can't work out how to do the sides...

Ooh cake decorating.. NeverKnowinglyUnderstood,do you know where can I get really, really cheap piping bags from?

Love this thread.

I'm a violinist in an orchestra if anyone has any questions for me.

I know the thread has moved on rather, but I just had to drop in to impart the news that not only is Mr Bloom a fake Northener, but THAT'S NOT HIS REAL HAIR

You ain't seen me, right?

Mrs Hoolie, how do you teach your arm to wobble for vibrato?

I have a question MissHoolie - as someone with I assume pretty good pitch, how do you cope with amateur singing attempts, from school shows to x factor? Is it physically painful?

Dawn, can you run us through a protocol for getting a guest room ready to hotel standards as quickly as possible, in say 15 minutes?

Dame, I trained as a professional singer. One tries to hear the good in amateur voices but ultimately it is often excruciating. For me, anyway. I would only admit that on MN

MrsHoolie and BoffinMum

My sister and me sound so awful when we sing that our old dog got scared and tried to eat us. Are there some people who are simply untrainable as singers and should never ever be allowed to sing in public?

I have huge admiration for people with beautiful voices and musicians and all the work that goes into transporting me to another place when I hear them.

You ask some interesting questions Mignonette but unfortunately I have no experience in those areas. Although we don't have any PFI contracts I am naturally suspicious about them just as a tax payer. I don't believe they represent value for money in any way, shape or form. Your example about the poor design of the building for it's initial purpose against it's long term potential would seem to indicate that.

However we do have 'people' risk as one of the areas we consider and I absolutely would and have included the risk of staff burn out. I would also look at adequacy of training, performance indicators and mangement, management support, resourcing levels, attrition rates, levels of sick leave, frequency of change that has to be learned/implemented etc. I'm not aware of any specific research into this area but it is something I always consider in every audit review I carry out. I work in the public sector so it is something I am very aware of.

As for how to improve liaison between A&E and other emergency assessment units I have found that having nominated liaison points and a defined network group to be the best way. Just getting one person from each unit together for an hour every couple of weeks to just sit down and learn about how each unit can help each other to work better together is worth a thousand process maps that are developed in isolation. Communication is the key. I have found that there is often and 'us and them' culture until you can get people to sit down together and talk about what is going on. And quite often that culture is down to a lack of understanding about the roles and responsibilities of others and that just by not communicating they are missing some very easy wins to improve things significantly.

Boffinmum It's been years since I learnt to do vibrato but I remember it being a real struggle!There are various different techniques and it's not a natural thing like it is for classical singers.

DameFanny yep bad singing when out of tune can be agonising to listen to. And it's hard to not cringe or make a face. This also happens in the profession .

mignonette I'm not sure if people are untrainable but some people are born with a naturally good ear. My DD always sings in tune but my DS hasn't sung anything in tune really (yet). When studying music seriously you have to do hours of aural training and it's amazing what you can be trained to do with good teaching.

Olympic

Thank you. We did develop GP liaison roles between our CMHTs and local surgeries a few years ago and would like to see this extended to all the wards and departments that deal w/ clients who are suicidal (A&E, EAU) and to help address lack of awareness and expertise of MH issues amongst other clinical staff. There most definitely is an us and them culture and this is when clients fall through the cracks. Sadly the only general nursing experience student mental health nurses get in many trusts is one 12 week placement early on in training and vice versa for MW's and general nurses. No wonder there are huge gaps in understanding and skills. I think Preceptorship post reg should be an ongoing process throughout nursing (and other HCP careers) where we spend some time in other areas w/ skilled nurses etc to maintain tandem skills.

Yes PFI is a dodgy path we have walked down sadly.

This is such an interesting thread, I have learned loads! I am a childminder myself.

MrsHoolie

Think I might be your only failure. I have a shocking voice and I practice wail horrifically a lot ad hoc of course.

Nowhere near professional status but I am fairly advanced string player and remember learning vibrato by gently running hand up and down the fingerboard and gradually increasing spead and tightening grip until your hand is wobbling. Which sounds massively rude. And I now realise why MrsHoolie avoided answering

Mignonette, 2% approx of people just can't manage to learn to sing in tune, in my experience. But 98% can!

What a great thread.

Hairdressers, I have a bit of a phobia about ears, and am always worried they are dirty/full of wax (they're actually not), but do you notice that sort of thing? If aomeone's ears were all waxed up, would you see? Would it revolt you?

I am that 2%. I sound proud of that but I am not. I would love to make a tuneful noise.

Shrinking

to mignonette. My mother is in the last stages of dementia and sadly her advocate, my father, wants life at all costs including resus because he wants the physical presence of his wife to be here for as long as possible.

He isn't in able to consider how she would feel, or to put himself in her shoes (he would loathe it) It's very distressing, but your posts have comforted me so much.

Most people who can't sing in tune actually pitch their singing a perfect 4th below where they are supposed to be. We call them 'growlers' in the trade. You can improve this pitching over time. It usually comes about because they missed the window of opportunity in early childhood to work it out alone.

I absolutely agree with you about preceptorship. To maintain my professional qualification I have to undertake so many hours each year in Continual Professional Development (CPD) where we are expected to undertake continual learning and development. Gaining our qualification just isn't enough, we have to demonstrate that we are continually learning and doing all we can to develop as professionals.

Are you in a position where you could drive forward the use of network groups? I can understand that it must be utterly frustrating if you're not and no one is listening to you.

Actually, I've noticed that DD's singing has got much better over the last couple of years. She used to sound like a bag of cats. Hopefully she'll keep getting better...

Anais That is so hard to bear I imagine and surprisingly common. All I can suggest is to keep liaising with the health and social care teams that you have involved and maybe as time passes he will slowly come round to another point of view. There are specialist counsellors who you may be able to access either through statutory services or voluntary ones. Age UK if you haven't already contacted them can help you. .

Olympic That would be a place to start. Although i am leaving direct patient care for a while in a couple of months I have been asked to keep a role in Clinical Governance and I will do some research into Network Groups and arm myself with some knowledge as to their application locally. I also want to work with a voluntary body in some capacity. Thank you.

Boffin That's me- A Growler.