Secrets of your trade.

[Confusedfornow]

I have worked in my current area of expertise for the last 20 years or so. It's in Aviation, can't say exactly what or for who as it's a relatively small community (for my role) and it would be VERY outing. Before this, my only other "job" that I did for a few years was dancing (yes, that kind ). So I don't have massive experience of the world of work.

But I was chatting with some people in a bar over the weekend and conversation turned to jobs and then to my role. I was telling them about some stuff which is perfectly normal to me, but was absolutely news to them.

For instance . .

When a plane is "parked" and everything is switched off, the aircraft is referred to as being "Cold and dark".

If a helicopter has engine failure, it won't just fall out of the sky. The pilots are trained in a procedure called "autorotation" and can usually land safely even if the engine isn't running at all.

All British Airways flights use the call sign "Speed Bird". It's unique and no other airline in the world uses it.

Last one . .

Pilots can't wear polarised sunglasses. They make the electronic displays on the flight deck appear black, and you can't read any information from them.

So, what do you know from your jobs that is mundane for you but which most people wouldn't have a clue/be surprised by?

@Babysharkdoodoodoodo

My friend was raised in a pub. Had several pubs of her own...I saw first hand what a tough life it was.
I was astonished when she got out of it, but get out she did...when she was at least 50.
Their lives were never their own. They lived above it. It was like living in a goldfish bowl.
Anyone could just go up the stairs and shout out to them and they did.
None of her brothers went into the pub owning business, in fact her brothers barely drank.

I'll never look at you wonderful NHS people the same way again.

That PPI claims story was crazy. Wow, not giving back to poor people!

bankroll

Now it all makes sense!

@Smotheroffive and @Hepzibar

Alright.....
Most sw work far above 37 hours a week. More like 45-50 on average. There's a national study on the shite working conditions right now so data quite soon I imagine.

We have all spent our own money on the children we work with - a meal/nappies/a change of clothes - we rarely get this back.

There are no perks except a parking permit if you're lucky.

Children's referrals are filtered through a multi agency hub which is sw and police. Referrals about children unknown to us/immobile babies cannot be knocked back.

Being a child protection social worker at nest is like being in an episode of shameless at all times. At worst a horror film.

When we remove a child we ask the rspca to remove the pets. They don't always and are quite useless.

Oh and the council don't provide sw with as much as a tea bag......

Chinese takeaways " recycle" the dirty oil to make the curry sauce so as to avoid having to pay for disposal 🤢

School safeguarding lead here - we get information from police that is not allowed to be shared with families (domestic violence). So sometimes I'll be talking a parent casually, knowing there was a serious incident in their house a few nights before, and they think I'm none the wiser. It's actually really sad. Or will telling me an account of something which is massively played down compared to the police report.

And we would eat home made cake brought in by parents! If a child has made something in food tech, will make a judgment on how likely they were to have good hygiene..

If you are taking yourself to A&E, I would always recommend going to an A&E where the hospital has inpatients/facilities of the specialism you need.

For example, my hospital had no impatient peads facilities, meaning
a) you're more likely to be put in the genetic queue and be seen by non paeds Dr
b) you will often go in the main adults queue and not a (usually much shorter) paeds specific queue which specialist hospitals often have
C) if we want a paeds opinion we have to get you to drive to another hospital and/or call an ambulance to take you there (which non emergency may mean waiting us with for several hours!)

The exception to this is if you are desperate for help and we are the nearest- we are still very happy to see you- just not the logical place most of the time.

We are not supposed to say this to patients though as it looks like us trying to get out of work 🤷‍♂️

Worked in a hotel for four years. A five star one in central London with Billionaire clientele and a highly regarded chef.
The kitchen was minging. The chefs and sous chefs would go out for a fag and come back stinking and not wash their hands. Ditto toilet. Food returned with a complaint was treated appallingly , zhushed up a bit and returned to the customer. Saw it with my own eyes. The chef was an arsehole who sat in his office writing cookery books and doing interviews while taking credit for the wonderful stuff his assistant and the Patisserie team were creating.
There was a sewage hatch in one of the kitchens, which was open almost constantly as the plumbing was 18th century in parts and some guests used to regularly flush the complimentary slippers down the loo. So service was regularly being done around an open pit of shit.
Champagne that went to a guests room and came back with only a glass drunk used to get swiped by the staff. Ditto chocolates.
Housekeeping had to deal with guests who wiped their shit on bedsheets, pissed on carpets and in plant pots, threw their used sanitary products on the floor and expected them to be unpaid sex workers as well. And these were the billionaires, Arab royalty and celebrities. "Normal" guests were absolutely no trouble at all.
Concierge were up to their elbows in dodgy stuff as well. The party line was that they could get you anything as long as it wasn't illegal. That wasn't quite true.
And front of house ABSOLUTELY has notes on returning guests. Lots of it in code, but it's all there.

summersB what you say about babies getting cold is so true. On my nnu we had a big drive to keep babies temp above 36.6 on admission. There was a rivalry with another local nnu and the consultants got very competitive we won
Also we put a purple butterfly on the doors if a baby is near end of life.

I used to work for a PR company before lots of rules came into force. We would choose competition winners based on how easy their public transport was to arrange to get to the winner’s event. Sorry.

Social worker. Each child placed for adoption costs the council £38k minimum - we don't get a bonus for every child snatched ;-)

Each child placed with an adoptive family saves the Council the £200k plus it would cost to keep that child in foster care. It will could be double that if the child ends up in residential care as a teenager, as many of them do.

Then add on the costs of being in prison or hospital or benefits for much of their lives as adults - which is a common outcome for children who have spent their lives in care ( and not adopted as babies or toddlers ) . The costs to society must be over a million pounds .

Adoptive families save the country a fortune.

Talking of finances - it costs £15k to permanently exclude a child from school (in our LA at least?)

Nurses get so much chocolate from thankful families. Its lovely and thoughtful but not great.

Coffee, tea etc better.

At christmas every store room had tins, boxes, packets piled and dhoved that one ward manager insisted any health professional stepping in the ward...to tske some. The amount was scarily shocking. Thry couldve stocked a mini Tesco

That was at two hospitals i know about.

If your finding it hard to get in touch with your consultant....contact their secretary instead.

We really have seen it all and its ok so please dont be worried or frightened to tell us or shows your worries. It wont phase us and if we dont know the answer or solution we know other health professionals who will.

When talking to families...its not the beginning questions or the middle ones that tell me whsts happening....its the one that i hear as im putting my coat on or my hand on the door handle...that ive found tells me the most and thats ok. Please never be scared or self conscious

Im very lucky with my job. Im a childrens cancer nurse and work with amazing people.

The lengths we all go to to provide care and comfort makes me so proud it brings me to tears at times.

One thing ive learned is that sometimes there ate no words, sometimes whats needed is to sit with someone or hold their hand.

I think deep down people just want to know theyre not alone.

So if you have a loved one going through ill health or life troubles and you dont know what to say. Tell them you dont know what to say, tell them its a wrotten thing thats happened and that theyre not alone

I'm an operating department practitioner and work in the operating theatre and recovery area and quite a lot of my job consists of hand holds and cuddles. I always talk to unconscious patients and tell them what I'm doing and I've found that human touch helps a lot when people are scared so I always offer a hand to hold if they look worried.

I spent a very uncomfortable hour in post anaesthetic recovery with a patient with significant LD who wanted to hold my ponytail for comfort - I had to bend right down and write my notes on the wonk and my back was killing me!

I don't think those are really secrets though... maybe that often there is music in theatre from someone phone and wireless speakers, or that kind colleagues wave their hands and make the 'T' sign and leave you a cup somewhere if you're super busy, or that wearing scrubs is great as you come to work in any old clothes and pick the right size of scrubs off a shelf in the staff room then chuck them in the hospital laundry bin at the end of the day.

@IM0GEN my post was in opposition to the John hemmings school of thought.

Also 200k is a gross underestimate. I worked out roughly how much a child I work with has cost the local authority. It's £550k on foster care alone I'll add up staffing transfer and other costs later

Fantastic thread!

Midwife here, I have worked both as an independent community midwife and a hospital midwives. Some things peopple may not know:
No matter how nice your midwife is to you, she really does not enjoy receiving texts from you at midnight.
Every woman in your caseload truly believes she is "a bit more special to you" than the others. Often the one who really is a bit more special to you has no idea :)
Please treat us respectfully. When you phoned us in labour, or with an emergency, we may have just had a fight with our DH, our DC may be sick, we may have top interrupt the only time I could see our mum in hospital to go to you. We do have lives that get constantly interrupted when we are on call. If you have not noticed, it's because we are good at our job and always put your needs before ours.
We do not appreciate photos of pooey nappies or your last bowel movement in an unsolicited text message. if it is absolutely necessary for you to show us, please warn us first. The fact that we deal with bodily fluids often does not mean we love seeing them at dinner time.
"I have a cold" or "my baby does not want to go to sleep" is not a genuine reason to call us on a Saturday night.
During most of labour, the pain of contractions means the uterus is pulling up, not pushing down.
Pushing will not make you tear. the baby's head position is the main responsible. Most tears during spontaneous labour are impossible to prevent. If you "tore badly" please don't blame us, most likely we were trying to minimise the damage. Tears caused by instrumental birth, though, are often preventable/able to be minimised... if the obstetrician really cares about your perineum, which is not always the case.
Most women do not poo during birth. I would say perhaps 40% do, and it's mostly a very small amount during the last stages of pushing. We not only don't mind, but we actually get very excited if we see a bit of poo, because it normally means the baby is successfully descending and close to being born.
Epidurals do significantly increase many obstetric risks both for mums and babies. That's why midwives don't like them, not because they want you to feel pain.
Every midwife hears "I'm not doing this ever again", "I'm going to die", "kill me!", "I don't want to do this anymore" and similar platitudes several times a day. We smile to ourselves and continue supporting you.
It is not true that midwives believe that every baby is beautiful. However, we will agree with you if you think so.
Midwives remember the names, faces and smell of every single baby who has passed away under our care. We think of them often. We wonder how their parents are, what they are doing, whether they are happy. Even if there is nothing we could have done, we feel responsible. Every. Single. Time. We mourn for your babies, no matter how big or small, how young, how sick. We live them and cry for them. We never forget.
The cervix is the only organ in the human body that is able to completely disappear during labour and then reappear again shortly after.
The placenta is 96% formed by the baby's cells, not the mother's. So it is not a maternal organ, but the baby's.
Many people believe that the mother's blood gets into the baby through the placenta and umbilical cord. The truth is, the bloods do not mic. They are separated by the placental barrier, that only lets specific molecules go through. Blood cells do not pass through. The bloods only mix if there's a haemorrhage, and it's not a good thing to happen.
If your midwife/obstetrician cuts the cord immediately after birth, the baby will miss out on about 20% of its blood. Please insist in delayed cord clamping. This is even more important in babies who are in distress, and hence cannot deal with a blood loss. Immediate cord clamping increases chances of neonatal mortality by 30% in distressed babies. this has been recently discovered and many obstetricians and paediatricians refuse to update their knowledge and skills and refuse to delay cord clamping. Please insist on this! It can also be done in a cesarean section.

(sorry for typos, I wish MN had an edit option)

I don't think that is a standard for all care homes @flowersinthebedroom.

I've worked with the same company in various homes for the last 13 years. I can say this hasn't happened in any of them!

Currently I work in a good home with good staff and yes we are short staffed too. All our residents are given the care they are assessed as needing which is updated constantly. Yes each individuals care needs will be different so their level of care and input may differ. But if the families complain or visit more it doesn't mean they get more "quality care" compared to anyone else..... the complaint is taken on board and care needs adjusted if required. We work with the individual and their family.
We will advocate for the residents with no family, and we are lucky that our management team will listen and want the best for the individual too.

It's horrible to think that happens. And I'm not doubting it does.

Care homes always get the negative coverage, never the praise!

princessmum1 If you’re nice to the crew, you will get treated better. We can go really out of our way if we want to. The job is harder than it looks.

I fly longhaul to one place once or twice a year min.

I always take a tin of nice biscuits/shortbread etc for the crew, which I take up to the galley after the first meal service is done.

It's not for any better treatment (I fly BC so it's fab anyway!), I just realise they have a hard job and I like to appreciate that.