Awkward (and other) questions about MNers jobs-following on from *Pinocchio's 1st thread.

[mignonette]

Following on from this thread by Pinocchio -

"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"

Pinocchio I hope you don't mind me C+Ping your original post but wanted you to have the credit for this follow on as is such a great thread!

Scientiss I owe my life to medical science and am grateful that animal experimentation has been done. I also worked for a research charity and learned a little more about what it entails. However, I know that there are many people against animal testing.

How much of an issue are anti-vivisection extremists for working researchers?

mignonette of course, but don't expect too much - it's been a long time!!!

Teachers Sorry if this has been asked already, I have skimmed some of this thread (feel a bit slackerish admitting that in view of who I'm asking!) : Do you like some children more than others? Does it make any difference to how you treat them? What kind of child do you prefer? Diligent and sensible, or loud and funny? Do you feel a bit guilty if there are children you don't really like but there's no obvious reason for it?

Scientiss Do you support the Medical Innovation Bill being tabled and championed by Maurice Saatchi and Sally Becker?

Sunshine - where I worked it wasn't much of an issue for the first few years, though they'd had to put high fences and security cameras in during the 80s. We mostly had rats and mice, which most people didn't care about so much - Huntington Life Sciences where they had dogs, and universities with monkeys, were the main targets, but it was drummed into you not to tell strangers where you worked, check under your car before getting in (I laughed - salary too low to afford a car!), etc.
But then a group decided to target our place, with regular 'vigils', ie a morose bunch shouting abuse for hours. We used to ask them if they really thought calling us fcking ngger/other racist term c*nts was really going to convince us to change our work. This bunch would try and engage us in conversation at the bus stop, claiming we did still have cats and dogs in a secret underground bunker that we didn't know about because it's secret (hadn't had any for years). Security had to ask us not to take the piss out of them after someone pointed at the nearby farm and said "yeah, right, I'm going to torture those cows and donkeys all day tomorrow" and head of security got 4 hours of being called a donkey-shagger through a megaphone...

All post was scanned in a separate building before being passed through - fake bombs were weekly, possibly active ones regular. One couple did get their car blown up outside their house, which was scary, though actually they were happy as it needed repairs - some people asked the activists to blow up their cars so they could claim on the insurance...

So on the whole activists were just annoying, though on the days they came we could get driven to the next-nearest station which made our commute a lot easier, so often we'd wait for them to arrive! Getting into arguments with uninformed people was more annoying - my mice were incredibly well looked after (much better than the staff...), and if there was any alternative to using them we would as their care cost a fortune (about 50p a day per mouse, and I'd have about 30). Spending money on security and staff means much less for the science, though.

Almost all 'procedures' were humane killings or breeding animals with a modified gene, ie putting a male and female into a cage to shag until the female got pregnant, so really not exactly suffering. Even less than for animals raised for meat in the UK - though I've been round a few slaughterhouses and was relieved by what I saw there. And tucked into ham sandwiches and sausages after. Interestingly, about 1/3 of the scientists I worked with were vegetarian on ethical grounds, but had no problem with a quick killing.

The charity I worked at had a letter bomb before I worked there. We once had a suspect package and the bomb squad turned up - it was just poorly addressed.

I'm glad they're more annoying than harmful :)

Mignonette - I've heard of this Bill and had a quick look - Saatchi believes that docs are scared to try novel treatment in cases where there is no good treatment. so has created this Bill to give rules that docs could follow and then be able to argue they weren't being reckless when the novel treatment doesn't help/has side effects etc.

I assume it's a Private Member's Bill, but probably what will happen is DH and senior NHS types will meet Saatchi and Becker and doctors, establish whether there really is a problem with docs being willing to go beyond the book in cases where there isn't good treathment, and probably improve some guidance, and the Bill will be tossed out at Second Reading. But I don't know details of NHS policy on treatments - if there's a real issue with docs worried about being done for malpractice, this could be useful?

Scientiss What an informative and funny post from you re your job. I did at blowing cars up for insurance although I do understand the threat level and response to it means you must always be vigilant.

Yes to many slaughterhouses being worse than humane kills after vivisection.

I imagine the bill won't get far. Are you involved in Alzheimers research if you can say on here? Some interesting developments there although the press do give the impression that a treatment is further along in development than it actually is. What kind of research (within the bounds of commercial confidentiality) are you involved in?

What is the pattern of your ME if that is not too personal? It's different for everyone but for me I wake up feeling exhausted. My energy can be okish in the morning but I absolutely slump at lunchtime and sometimes don't pick up for the rest of the day (have to lie staring at the ceiling). Sometimes if I get enough sleep in the afternoon I pick up again in the evening but generally any time I do anything - talking, eating, sitting, walking - it's like a clock ticking, with my energy dropping every minute that goes by. A lot of time is spent resting to get out of energy slumps.

If the workplace facilitated your working according to your illness what would you like to do? Hmm, that's a really hard question to answer because the original thing I was pursuing (don't want to out myself) was a high energy career. But I'd love to be an academic now, if I could be. I find it tremendously frustrating that I have a good brain, an interest in all sorts of things and yet my body fails me and no job or academic institution can offer me a way of contributing in my own small way. I had to leave university because my uni wouldn't make the kind of allowances I needed, but then I was very unwell and it would have taken a lot of allowances!

Are you involved in any support groups? Yes, one in particular which is just fantastic, full of positive, supportive, intelligent people. It has helped me tremendously.

Is there a 'Mentoring Scheme' for more 'experienced' people with ME to be in contact with newly diagnosed people to assist them with benefits, lifestyle modification, support and contact? I think this would really help others. Not that I know, but I agree it would be amazing. I think Action for M.E offers a lot of that support but it's not the same as being welcomed into the community which can provide friendship too.

Lorry drivers - how much time do you spend kipping in lay-bys / visiting nearby friends / drinking tea, and then blame it on the traffic. Also international lorry drivers - do you bring back vino?

Itstartshere I'm so sorry to hear of the extent of your illness. How frustrating for you. Maybe if it is not too much of an imposition on you, the mentoring thing might be something you could explore via an existing website or even a new venture? I think it would be valuable especially for older people who are perhaps not as clued up about online support and maybe at more risk of social isolation?

Have you thought about the OU? There are bursaries available now. Also maybe online mentoring of students w/ ME and other conditions that relapse/remit/are unpredictable and often invisible to the less observant? Maybe local institutions would be interested in this via an official ME support group?

What is DBT?

migonette cheers sorry was just having a shit day yesterday

Terror Here is the MIND link to Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). Sorry for not explaining it earlier.

Doctors/Surgeons etc
Every Dr and consultant that I have met always looks healthy and seems to be able to keep going and not get tired.

What is your secret?????? How do you maintain such good health and vitality?
I try and do all of the usual healthy eating, exercise and sleep properly but still get coughs, colds and looked knackered by the end of the week.

I have always wanted to ask most Dr's this question

mignonette - I did non-commercial basic scientific research - sort of 'how do these kinds of cells and these genes work?' Included neurons so I know a bit about Alzheimer's (and it runs in the family so I read up on it). The new developments are really exciting - even though it's very early and any drug would take a decade to get to market, probably two, it's a new pathway to look down at a time when people had run out of ideas of what even to try [overgeneralisation alert]

The slaughterhouses I've seen were actually fine (not all of them knew visitors were coming! Transport is probably the weak link in welfare) but the large scale is hard to get your head round - I was really glad I'd seen unnerving nervous twitches from headless mouse pups before (it's a reflex), because when a stunned ton-and-a-half bull gets a bolt through the head and does the same thing, it is rather freaky to see even though your head knows it's dead and feeling nothing. And then another, and another. I never had to kill more than three mice in a day so it wasn't an industrial process getting them into the right place - just pick up, bring to the lab in a cardboard box! Though lab mice are pretty much running-away biting machines... thankfully I never lost one as it would have been 'accidental release of a transgenic organism' and shedloads of paperwork etc. There was two hours once though with about 20 of us trying to catch a mouse that kept legging it under a freezer.

The biggest contrast between lab work and any other job I've had is in the lab you always have a cast-iron excuse for staying late (my experiment didn't work so I need to re-do it, or my experiment did work so I have to photograph and process everything), lots of small dark rooms with locks on the doors, and most strikingly an on-site cheap bar and social club. So people socialised loads with their workmates,often had moved abroad so knew few other people, and resulted in ridiculous levels of on-site shagging and affairs! Probably most of the scientists and students, though the technicians were local and less affected! Sometimes a problem if you needed a darkroom on a Friday night!

at Scientist

That sounds familiar (Insular in house socialising between oclleagues and is how I met my DH!) and very funny. Like the description of mice as 'running away biting machines'.

And YY to nervous impulses. I have seen it in humans too and a little unnerving even when intellectually you know what it is (not that I have beheaded any Humans) and it is more likely I find in sudden death rather than the peaceful fade that most people experience.

It's OK.

I have done a bit of CBT myself, but have only vaguely heard DBT mentioned.

Will take a look at the MIND link. I do think MIND is a great website and charity.

So glad TESCO and Asda are donating to them now re bad taste costumes.

MIND is great. They are invaluable as support, resource and campaginer.

mignonette What do you do? Ambulance or A&E?

Yes, inbred lab mice are very different to the fancy mice that get sold as pets - you need to mate siblings 30x to get a 'line' that is as near to identical as you are likely to get. The first mouse I had to kill must have smelt my nervousness when I went to fetch it from the room in the animal wing, as it bounced all over the walls and cages and finally embedded itself in my finger with its teeth, so I was swinging my arm round and round screaming untl it flew off (and I got the animal tech to catch it for me). So I really didn't feel bad about that one.

I actually met DP before working there for 5 years - no-one believed we'd stay together. He did come down and hang out in the bar quite a lot though, and was also a scientist, so pretty understanding. Just as well given the time we had to say to ILs "Good news! WhiteCoat can come for Christmas after all! We just need a shelf in the fridge and a bit of the workbench in the garage with a socket, and don't look at what's in the fridge..."

Return, it's interesting what you say about actors looking good on TV/in film as opposed to real life. I'm a magazine editor and have noticed the same with models on photoshoots - sometimes people who are very photogenic aren't particularly good looking in real life, or aren't beautiful, anyway. Occasionally you do get a model who is drop dead gorgeous and sparkles on camera. Lucky things! Sometimes the model is quite striking, rather than good looking, or walks in looking like Plain Jane but the camera loves them.

NB I don't work with top models - I'm not talking Vogue here! - so it may all be different at the high end.

What's it really like working in CID? It's probably not even called that anymore too much watching the Bill

I'm interested in the new rules which will allow non police to take senior roles. What skills are required? Is it as scary in a deserted warehouse as it looks?

Scientist I am a mental health nurse, a very incestuous career. Most of my colleagues have had carnal knowledge of at least one other and many are married and re married to people they met at work.

I won't tell you about the time my head dented a colleagues bin in a shared office after a Christmas party and she came in the next day asking what had happened to it . That was quite a while ago.

I'm so sorry to hear of the extent of your illness. Thank you! I think the mentoring thing is a great idea. I have one or two projects on the go at present which are taking up my energy but will mull it over for the future. At the very least at the moment the support group I'm a member of tries to reach out to new people and we work hard to welcome new people. It's hard to reach new sufferers because they're often not well enough to come online, or think a support group will be depressing, or they haven't been diagnosed

I have actually studied with the OU. Hoping to study further some time, but the degree utterly exhausted me so I need to get a bit better first. They are a great organisation.

Anyway, nice chatting with you, thank you for taking an interest.

I wish you luck, strength and remission from illness Itstartshere. .

edam It can be very much the same in high fashion models, I love the differences, I used to be a junior booker for an agency