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!

A missionary, thanksamillion? Where do you do it? I actually didn't realise people still did that. What is the current stance then, on sensitivity to the existing culture's beliefs? Why do you want to/how do you try to change their mind?

Namey, not really annoying. The policy was clear. That was why I was wondering what exactly people thought I could do about it.

To TV people: why is Bruce still on TV? He was always crap, and now he's even crapper.

Norbert I take it it's just the last few degrees of straight that he lacks? the elbow is particularly unhappy at being broken. It stiffens up really quickly and a slight reduction in range of movement is not unexpected (particularly straightening it out). So long as he can use it well and it's not impacting his function then it's absolutely fine.

youretoast you're right in the case of a legitimate technicality, it couldn't be contested. My guess is that the people who suggested taking it further were probably annoyed on your behalf. It does get frustrating when people think that 'something should be done' when all our hands are tied in policy and no amount of phone calls and ranting could change things. And some people think their little John or Jane take priority over everybody else's little John's and Jane's, so trying to remain empathetic but unwavering is a bit tough sometimes.

Moosey On the helplines, you hear of stories of people calling in distress and in some really sad cases pass away/take their own life while on the phone. I understand that the helpline phone operator must get counselling and time off following these situations, but I wondered what the training is for them to deal with this if it's actually happening?

I'm thinking in terms of say The Samaritans and someone's called up to say they've taken an overdose, how can a helpline person deal with that?

Sorry if that's distressing to anyone, I'm genuinely curious but not been able to ask in RL.

thanksamillion how neat, my grandparents were missionaries. But they were the kind that were sent over from a church to provide services, not to preach (GM was a nurse, GF a carpenter). What are your days like?

My background's in marketing and teaching (university students) and online education. I'm American if that makes the jobs more interesting

Re: actors playing baddies having mistaken identities, yes is the answer - we lived next door to someone who played a rapist on popular tv and we had people knocking on our door asking if 'the rapist' lived next door (to which we answered, no, an actor lives there...). Very sad.

I'm a managing agent for freehold blocks if anyone wants to ask anything!

Grandpa I don't get teary, I get bemused and bashful - it surprises me loads as I usually don't feel I've done much

Foamy Who makes up primary school governors? It's something I'd be interested in before my son goes to school but would a 26 year old makeup artist be of any use?

jux i think it's because he's damn sexy

All sorts of people can be governors Szeli. The most common types are Community, Authority, Parent, and Staff. If your child wasn't a pupil at the school at the time, you could be either Community or Authority. Community governors are appointed by the Governing Body to represent local community interests. IME these are often local independent business people with connections that could be an asset to the school, however there is no definitive criteria. Authority Governors have to be appointed by the Local Authority.

It is absolutely possible for a 26 year old make-up artist to become a governor. People's professions are only one aspect to the role. Many Governing Bodies carry out skills audits to identify the strengths and gaps within the group, so even if you felt your job has little relevance, it could be your people skills and book-keeping which make you a good candidate for example.

Only the school could say exactly what they were looking for in a governor, but in my view the most important thing is enthusiasm and a genuine desire to be involved in the improvement and effecient running of the school.

doin

that's new! thanks for that!

Namey I volunteer for the Samaritans - in the case of difficult calls it's not so much the (excellent) training that helps 'prepare' you as the support that is available. There is a lot of focus on volunteer care, and a big emphasis on debriefing both during and after the shift (to another Samaritan obviously, either colleague or supervisor). There is a volunteer support team too who will get In touch afterwards to check up if they think you might need it.

The point is, like many jobs, not to take your 'work' home, both for your emotional health and callers' confidentiality. If I couldn't separate whatever happened on shifts from everything else in my life I wouldn't do it. Difficult to go into more details as obviously different people will cope/react differently, I guess you'd just assume that anyone volunteering for this kind of position should feel that they could cope with it or are quite resilient. Training helps draw out those who realise they wouldn't. Trying not to minimise or generalise though!

Thank you for that insight wicked. I was asking mainly because I had considered volunteering for the phone line myself, having known and been close to many people with various emotional and MH problems, I thought I would be able to empathise and have been told I'm a good listener. I was just worried that perhaps because I've heard and know so much already, it would be really for me to detach after hearing distressing things, but then again I do feel that due to experience, nothing much 'shocks' me anymore so I don't know if this would be an asset. I think you're right about the training though and you can only really know once you're in that situation.

really hard for me, that should say.

terror I am a short term foster carer and the longest I have had a child is 3.5 yrs and still counting

What a brilliant thread!!

Delayingtactic I have a complicated one for you! My hip was injured with forceps while giving birth to DD1. Ortho consultant wiggled me about a bit and diagnosed torn cartilage, which can't be fixed and means I'm unable to do high impact exercise. GP disagrees and has sent me back to same doctor for another opinion. I feel a bit awkward about that! GP wants me to ask for a MRI scan. Will the ortho consulant be ok with this do you think? It's NHS not private so I'm so aware of wasting time and money!

I'm a boring office worker so doubt anyone will have questions for me! But DH is police so I will ask him anything if it helps!

Kate

It is possible to 'train' your urinary bladder to be less responsive to being full. There are stretch receptors in the bladder wall (which is a muscular bag) that feedback to the brain allowing messages to be 'sent' to you to empty it. If you persistently override these messages at an early stage, you can lose some sensitivity in the same way that you can train them to be overly sensitive. Other people get faulty feedback where they have to void even small amounts of urine because they have an oversensitive/active bladder. The specialist in Urodynamics within GenitoUrinary Medicine is the person to ask for. I would advise you to make great efforts to empty your bladder regularly asking for classroom cover if necessary. It also helps mitigate bladder infections too. Gussie will provide further info, better than mine I am sure.

RE the other symptoms you have I would encourage you to go see your GP. Not that I am suggesting that you have anything to worry about but it would be a good idea bearing in mind your history (possibility of a little Hernia forming) and to get a clean bill of abdo 'health' prior to conceiving if that is a future plan.

RE Medical and Counselling Records, 7 years is the legal minimum although ours are kept on site (in the CMHT) whilst the patients care spell is active. That is, they are receiving active treatment and have not been discharged from nursing or consultant care. When they are discharged the records go back to Central Psychiatric Records but they are never destroyed until 7 years after a patients death and even then not always. They have teaching, longitudinal research value too.

RE what happens if we witness/participate in a distressing event-

I am meant to have a rigorous and protective programme of supervision. Managerial w/ my line Manager; Clinical with a more experienced colleague; Peer Supervision with a colleague of my choosing. We can request peer supervision any time and the other types are timetabled once a month although they do get cancelled. If something happens such as a client committing suicide or us being caught up in a traumatic incident such as aggression we also see the Team Psychologist for a debrief and supervision to examine and learn from what has happened. We can request this too. We are expected to seek supervision for tricky cases such as problems w/ transference and counter transference (Transference happens in psychotherapy when a client places an emotional reaction that is related to someone in his or her personal life onto the therapist and counter transference is the therapist responding to this).

Sadly many of my colleagues still achieve the parlous state of burn out for all kinds of reasons. Psychiatry has a natural shelf life I feel.

Choc Thanks for answering and like the idea of you 'rewriting' particular passages that you enjoyed. I too get transported by particular writings.

Didi I am sure you are not a 'boring office' worker. What do you do? what kind of work? Do you like it? What would you like to move up to or are you working at the level that suits you most at this stage of your life? Do you have to adapt constantly to new I.T systems (something I can struggle with)?

Thanks! Babies are definitely in the plans for the near ish future hence these thoughts being on my mind!

:) aww mignonette thank you. I work as admin for a mental health team! It's not my ideal job at all, I've fallen into it and in this economy I'm glad of the job to be honest. The job doesn't overly stretch me mentally but my workmates are (mostly) nice and we have a laugh and the job is so flexible which is great with a 1 year old pfb!

We don't have many computer systems to use but if there are new ones I normally get trained as I am the youngest in the office - I just read the manuals a lot to help myself! I also find that I am quite pleasant to the IT people who train me, they don't seem used to that so are always extra happy to help me if I'm stuck! It pays to be nice :)

Thank you Edam and CakesOnaPlane

Actually writing my last post has made me wonder...

I work in NHS admin and I often find the long term staff, ones who have worked in NHS for over 10 years are worn out, grumpy and unhelpful if not downright rude! Now our health board has been through loads and loads of changes of how it's run and I know I people get worn down by that but I wondered if others have the same experience of staff in NHS or if it's just the people I work with!

I am naturally happy and helpful at work but sometimes it's hard when people are so unhelpful always.

Didi

Changes are too frequent for most trusts and certainly make staff feel less in control. Loads of redundancies, restructuring of trusts/teams/geographical areas that cause nothing but harm to patient care and a fasttrack to burn out in staff.

Yes there can be a lot of grumpiness in the teams and admin staff can bear the brunt of that . Our Admin team are very much part of the whole team and they have saved me from myself, keeping my diary and I.T straightened out. They are also the first line when it comes to drop in visits by clients. They greet them and that requires support from us because drop in visits are usually made by clients that are fraught. They rarely drop by because they just want to say Hi!

Don't tolerate rudeness. Often people slowly slip into a state of surly grumpiness/shortness with staff and don't realise how rude they are being (bit bad in a MH prof really) and a firm pulling up 'Did you get out of the wrong side etc' can help nudge them along the smiley path. Or at least the pleasant path.

Where are you a missionary, thanksamillion?

I'm a personnel administrator in the RAF.

I'm hoping to go into NVQ assessing when I've served my time, does anyone know any good or bad points of the job?