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!

I've a question but don't know if it's already been asked or will be answered! Forum Moderators (MNHQ and/or any others) Do you sign up with a different username to post about regular topics? Do you generally enjoy lurking on threads in your downtime or only read during work hours? What are the hours actually like, I'm guessing some people could do it from home? Do you feel like a traitor if you sign up and post on a 'competitor' site? Not expecting an answer from MNHQ about the traitor one!

Thanks Sunshine

I was also a volunteer on the phone lines for Childline if anyone would like to know more

Doinmummy how do you and your colleagues cope with harrowing calls from children?

I don't do it now, but, harrowing calls? Hmmm sometimes I was ' ok' with them, in that I managed not to dwell on the call. Other times really really badly. We always had a debriefing with senior colleagues but sometimes the calls were so upsetting that nothing but the passage of time helped.

There were many many times that I wanted to ask where the child was in order to go and pick them up and take them home with me. If we thought the child was in immediate physical danger, we would call the police and they would attend.

RE: ear wax, I have a look but that's because I have a 'thing' for it. Can't really see much mostly

FamiliesShareGerms, are you actually a spy? Don't they all say they're "civil servants" when asked?

Wedding dress shop people, do you lie and tell brides they look fab when you think they look like a sack of shit? Are you on commission?

alcibiades In the English department we do pretty much everything on screen (PDFs and Word files), but nearly all the German proofreads (I work for a German company) are done by hand. Occasionally we're asked to do that, too. I only use one colour, but yes, it's lots of weird-looking scribbles.

Szeli You have a thing for ear wax?!

I like Namey's question!

SockQueen, no I'm not a spy, but spies do often say they are civil servants as part of their cover (even though they aren't actually civil servants!)

Sorry, I offered to answer questions then disappeared (I'm a missionary). So, in response

youretoastmildred you're the first person ever brave enough to ask me that and the answer is I hope not

itsn0tmeitsyou we are definitely very sensitive to our host culture's beliefs (although we are working in a broadly Christian context anyway). We did two years at a mission college before coming and there was a big emphasis on contextualisation. We see our role as demonstrating Jesus' love and living that out rather than counting how many 'conversions' we've managed .

Basically we run community projects and look for ways in which we can help to develop and improve the lives of people in the village where we live, which might be practical help like delivering food to the elderly or doing repairs on their homes, or running after school clubs to help children with homework/give them somewhere warm and safe to hang out. Some of it is thinking of ways of creating jobs so that young people don't have to leave for work (family breakdown is a massive problem here) and encouraging healthier lifestyles (high rates of alcoholism).

If people ask us what motivates us to be here we are happy to explain but we never push it on anyone and all our programmes are open to anyone who wants to access them. I don't really like using the term missionary (even though that it technically what we are) because for most people it has certain (negative) connotations.

We also have 3 DC so a lot of my time is taken up with them and with running a house in a very rural area (we're 20km from the nearest 'proper' road and 120km from a supermarket) where services are pretty unreliable (our water is pumped from a well, heating by wood fires and we have a lot of power cuts) and the weather in the winter is fairly extreme. We're in E Europe.

Families, yes they are civil servants

Hard core, that missionary stuff.

MI5 are crown servants, not civil servants

I work in the offices of an apprenticeship provider, admin & query line, if anyone has any question

OK, but you apply through Civil Service routes, and they use the Civil Service pay scale?

Baby Haha I'm just constantly cleaning mine and my sons ears, always inspecting his and wonder if mine are noticeably waxy so I look to see if other people's are, it's so very rare that I take comfort in the fact folk can't see wax hanging out of mine.
On another note I once had a big lump just fall out of my ear, my ear 'popped' and there was a lump on my pillow BEST FEELING EVER! (I feel I just shared too much)

I work on a mixed farm if anyone has any questions

Pollydon

Would you say apprenticeships are preferable to university and place the person at a greater advantage if they are not intent upon a graduate only profession?

What are the most unusual apprenticeships you know of?

Fidgety What do you think of 'farmers' like Alex James who once said in an interview that he regularly oversleeps? I imagine the animals awaiting milking whilst he slumbers on. I also imagine that what he really does is employ farmers to farm his land whilst he lives off of the fat of it.

Womban, does your DH mind you stripping/dancing for other men at all? Does he block it or is he okay with it? Has he ever seen you strip in a club? If so how did he react? If not, why not and if he did come by one day, how would he react do you think? Would you dance differently if he was there?

mignonette I think he does stuff other than farming too (heard him on a radio show the other day, seen him on telly things) so presume he must have people who help him out with the farming side of things when he's not there/ over sleeps! (Or if I'm being sceptical, he probably gets someone else to farm his land for him!)

With regards to animals "awaiting milking while he slumbers on", it depends what routine the animals are used to, as long as they're milked at about the same time every day they're fine. On most farms cows are milked twice a day, but some farms are worked around 3 times a day milking whilst others milk only once a day. It all depends on the type of system in place and the breed of cow.

thanksamillion that is really interesting. I am definitely of the Richard Dawkins/Christopher Hitchens school of thought, but I can see that what you are doing is a kindness, and not many people have the desire or wherewithal to make that kind of a practical difference to peoples' lives. I just also know from a historical perspective, missionaries' work has not always been a positive influence on radically different cultures and has actually caused a dramatic problem, which is why I think it carries that negative connotation to many.

So no one's interested in the world of magazine publishing then? Surprise :)

its what kind of magazine? Do you ever buy shoots in?

Such a fab thread! I've been a "publishing professional" as we like to say for 15+ years - all aspects of Editorial, from Editorial Assistant to Editorial Manager of a team of Editors; mostly in legal publishing, now in standards publishing, if anyone's got any questions?

Re the proofreading question above - it's actually easier to copy-edit/proofread if what you are working on isn't interesting, as if it is interesting you start to follow the narrative and not notice the things you should be looking for, like typos, grammar mistakes, formatting issues, etc. With an incredibly dry tome on, ooo, the laws of bills of lading, you would not be so likely to be distracted by the narrative!

I've got a few questions for the Police Officers amongst us:

1 what do you really think of PSCOs?
2 What do you think about the recent moves to have the head of several police forces now be voted for by the public?
3 And what do you think about the current plans to fast track new officers and have them skip the initial 2 years on the beat?

I personally think the last 2 are a terrible idea but would love to hear what those who actually do the job think!

NameyMcChangeface
I am a moderator on a small specific-interest forum - nowhere near the size and scope of MN so I tend to think of it as more a hobby than a job.

I tend to check the forum 5 or 6 times each evening to catch any spam, obvious trolls or (very occasionally) step in when a disagreement goes too far. This usually takes 5-10 minutes each time depending on what is there.

Our forum does not have a mechanism for changing names - I kind of wish it did as since becoming a mod, I've been much more guarded about revealing too much about myself so tend not to get involved in conversations too much these days. We do have a mods and admins forum however which is not publicly available where we can discuss potentially difficult situations and what action to take and many of us also use this to post personal things or requests for advice that we don't want on the main board - you do have to be careful in case a poster takes a dislike to a moderator and don't want to give them too much personal ammunition.

I also get email alerts throughout the day when someone reports a post. Depending what I am doing I will log in to have a look - or hope and assume that another one of the team will pick it up if really inconvenient at that moment and will check back later to make sure.

Within the mod team we also let each other know if we are going on holiday or have any other commitments that will reduce our time on the forum so that others know when specific people are unable to pick up issues.

Its

I will have plenty of questions for you later but here are some now. Am away on holiday for a few days. I have just started writing for commissions again. I used to write a few pieces for some now defunct gardening magazines and would appreciate some guidance and info . I am especially interested in how magazines see their future re digital media and blending the two.

Also interested/would love to see the uncorrected copy of some of our print journos. Giles Coren comes to mind seeing as he has such a high regard for his own writing and has been so vile to his subs/copy editors. (Who presumably are in their jobs because they have a good command of grammar!)

How much chance would a good unsolicited piece of editorial have of being published/commissioned by one of the Conde Naste or IPC magazines? Is it really worth submitting work? I know they say they accept unsolicited work with no responsibility for its safe keeping but is that just a legal disclaimer or do they actually read through unsolicited submissions?

What are of magazine publishing do you work in (if you can disclose this on here) and how did you arrive at it? Was it something you intended doing?

Do Interns stand a chance of employment or is it more a case of who you know? When you read the masthead of many Womens Magazines, the surnames definitely hint at having to be a part of the society that the magazines demographic is aimed at. For example US Vogue has a member of the German former aristocracy, a granddaughter of a major painter and offspring of major industriialists (Swansons/Rockefeller/Dupont/) on its staff as do British Vogue/Tatler/Harpers etc.