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?

Oh and also
Core rising crime....yes it is ., but for years pressure was put on forces to play down rising or violent crimes - so much so that robbery was often recorded as a theft and an assault rather than what it really was. - a robbery.

Thankfully forces realised they were doing no one a favour in down playing the statistics and now the reality is being portrayed factually....and shows violence is in the up.
And yet there are fewer police than ever to try and tackle it.

Also
Police are only paired up For night shifts. The rest of the time police are "single crewed " meaning we work alone and go to all jobs alone. Back up is preferable at violent jobs but not always available.

I went to one job last June alone and got a gun pointed at me from a bedroom window. I then got shot at.

I remained on duty. I worked overtime as fun man arrested and lots of work to do. I didn't even get asked if I was ok.

🤷🏻‍♀️

...

In hospital when a dr certified a death its know as ash cash as they get payedxfor certification

ChanklyBore Aurynne, your post is very strange to me. Are you an independent midwife?

Erm... have you tried reading the first line of my post?

How fortunate that I never let ‘gallows’ humour come in to my line of work, and even under the greatest of pressures, would never allow anything as hideous to rear it’s head when faced with the death of somebody’s loved one

Sometimes you either laugh or cry. I once got a call at home from someone who did my job at a different hospital. We were friends who had met through work.

A heart had been 'harvested' at 'my' hospital and matched to a patient at 'her' hospital. But the patient who received the transplant was the second choice. This is in the days of transplant patients having a bleep.

The original patient had responded to the bleep but had gone into shock and once at the hospital died before receiving the transplant.

It was obviously a horrendous situation for the two patients who died, but at the same time it was like some black comedy sketch.

We laughed and we cried, how else do you get up the next day and do it again?

in hospital when a dr certified a death its know as ash cash as they get payedxfor certification

Not quite, it's the form that needs to be filled in if the person is going to be cremated.

Nine is really boring.
I worked on a scientific study carried out by a well known mobile phone manufacturer.
Rice does bugger all for a liquid ingresses phone.
If liquid has not got under the chip shields it's more likely to work, if it has its knackered.
That's why some people insist that rice works.
Also if rice did work for drawing moisture out they would replace the Sillica sachets with rice as it's cheaper.

All the massive grinning over killing animals is just fuxjibg gross. Go and om each other or something so others don't have to be subjected to your ohsofunny , not, jolly japes.

Hellenback
I can't even imagine how you keep going after something like that, and unsupported, totally. God, I'm sure your salary can't be enough.

I know that nurses and other hcps been getting lots of recognition and respect on here, but blimey, thank god there are those who want to protect communities in this way.

I always wondered what makes people want to be police,but I guess it's individual.

Been in HR for 20 years.
People are weird. I should write a book!

@Purplecatshopaholic lets do it together! The stuff we see and hear still fascinates me; after so long you’d think I’d get bored

Trying to write some down without coming across bitter (I’m really not) devoid of all sentiment:

payroll cut off will be a few days after the communicated cut off. We can pull your pay up to the day before (leavers, unauthorised absence).

when employees say they’ve got a solicitor, I know that you’ve been talking to your mates brothers’ wife, whose likely told you, you’re in the wrong. Remember, HR normally have access to a real solicitors and the HR person giving advice is experienced (normally) in what they’re saying because they’ve seen it before.

don’t get arsey with HR when your pay is wrong because YOU didn’t clock in and out correctly. If you’re nice to us, we might actually help you and pay you the money owed. If you’re not, you may have to wait until next month.

when management change something and say “following a review” that normally means it’s been talked to death and whoever was most senior has made the decision (either individually or collectively)

I normally know when people are lying. It is very rare I’m wrong. And when I have pages of investigation reports, witness statements and other things, pointing towards an employee doing something wrong, the crying sob story rarely gets to me. You see it too many times and become hardened to it but that has taken me years to get to this stage (I was very drawn in emotionally if we needed to dismiss in my early stages of my career).

if you’re a manager, tell HR all the facts and information, leave nothing out. We will find out if you’ve done something later on, so best to be up front and honest if you’ve ballsed up and a good HR person will work with you to resolve it.

10 page grievance letters rarely get read from start to finish. A grievance meeting is called to ask you what you’d like us to do to reach a resolution. Saying “it’s all in the letter” just tells us examples of what we need to investigate. Employees need to think of what the resolution is.

quoting employment law from Acts makes me laugh. I don’t know the definitions off by heart. The legislation is translated into policies. The policy can be legal and above and beyond the legislative requirements. Telling HR we’ve breached the law is a common thing I used to hear (not so much in my workplace today as it’s awesome); we wouldn’t be breaching any law, but might be doing things right on the law and not by our own policy.

if we ask length of service of someone, we’re asking to establish the risk. Less than 2 years service means there is slightly less risk of litigation if the end result is dismissal. We will also likely ask if there are any characteristics we need to be aware of (disability, age, sex, religion, race). This is also to establish risk and rule out any fowl play on why a manager wants to remove someone (is it because they’re crap at their job / hit Jonny in accounts, or is it because they’re 67, Indian man with one arm?)

If you die during routine surgery and you don’t have a relative/family friend waiting in the hospital, they’ll get a phone call from the surgeon telling them that there’s been a ‘complication’. They’ll never be told over the phone.

Mortuaries aren’t cold.

Dead people often fart when turned.

If you donate skin, it gets shaved off your body in strips, looks like a big beard trimmer.

I used to work in a shoe shop as a Saturday job. If shoes were often a little tight, we'd offer to take them round the back and 'just give them a gentle stretch with the machine'. In reality, we squeezed them on our sweaty feet ourselves and stamped around in them for a few minutes.

Former Immigration Officer. If you go through the non-EU channel and you are a frequent visitor or have indefinite leave to remain and the IO spends a long time chatting to you, it is not because they are interested in you. It’s more that they have spotted someone with “Refusal Shoes” in the queue and if they spend more time with you then another IO will get them.

What are refusal shoes?

You can usually pick people out of the queue who are going to be refused entry. I guess sometimes they are overdressed, maybe with interesting shoes that don’t go with the rest of the outfit/profile. It’s an expression- one IO wrote a book called Refusal Shoes.

How interesting!!!

@SnuggleSnuggleBlanket and @Purplecatshopaholic what are the worst and most common things you have to deal with staff in trouble? I think HR sounds fascinating!

I guess sometimes they are overdressed, maybe with interesting shoes that don’t go with the rest of the outfit/profile. It’s an expression- one IO wrote a book called Refusal Shoes.

I still don’t get that! Why would they deliberately wear shoes that don’t go with their outfit?!

Because shoes are often the more expensive and more personal part of an outfit? I’d stick on my mate’s T-shirt to sneak in somewhere or present a different appearance but I’d be happier in my own shoes or you can get a cheap shirt anywhere but might not want to sacrifice your nice shoes.

@ASauvignonADay first time I’ve ever heard anyone say HR sounds fascinating so I’m jumping on the bandwagon (obviously I like it enough to do it for a living!)

A few things from me.

There are swathes of HR that don’t deal directly/daily with employment law, policy and pay. Like D&I, Talent, Leadership etc. Many people working in these areas may be familiar, D&I people will know the laws and policies relating to discrimination. But a lot of them like working in their area and specialise in it, they aren’t HR generalists (just like Employee Relations specialists won’t deal with the ins and outs of Talent etc). So basically, if someone works in HR don’t assume they are an expert in all things employment law or pay! A number of people will specialise in a particular HR discipline, or spend their time between two or three.

Like others have said above, don’t assume everything is legally required. Especially in large and/or good companies, many company policies tend to go a bit beyond the law. So you might not be happy, but it might not be a legal issue. Often the company’s own grievance process is your main route for resolution. Often, in my sector anyway, you grieve against the process (eg you think selection for a role was not managed properly) rather than the outcome (eg but I didn’t get the job and I think I deserved it).

When a grievance is upheld, not much may change. It depends on the nature of the grievance. If it is that a bit of process hasn’t been followed but ultimately the outcome would have been the same (eg perhaps there is a rule about interview notes that wasn’t followed precisely), it might just be that it’s acknowledged as upheld and you get an apology, if a training need is identified then that gets acted on etc. We get a lot of grievances like this, where ultimately there isn’t much material difference to the employee - some people appreciate the apology, but some people think there might be some great outcome (like a compensation payment or a new job) and there just isn’t.

You can’t just claim discrimination. There is law that defines discrimination. If you get dismissed for gross misconduct (ie you did something really bad!) you can’t just say “It’s discrimination!” and expect to win at an employment tribunal (we see way more of this than we should...).

Managers are really important. They really need to follow our policies. On the flip side of the above, we lose more employment tribunals than we should because of managers not following our policies (and like PPs said above, it’s better to tell HR upfront and not let it come out through various means; at the very least we can then offer a settlement and try to avoid tribunal). We’ve had employees act very much in breach of policy (eg gross misconduct, serious issues), but because the manager that dismissed them hasn’t followed the correct procedures we’ve had to then settle with the employee... the employee we were perfectly entitled to dismiss...

So think a suit... probably a cheap polyester one, but still an attempt to look respectable. But paired with gold trainers. Or a track suit and snakeskin brothel creepers. Scantily clad women with no luggage, travelling with an older man also get the spidey senses going - is she really having a weekend in London with her Dad or is she being trafficked into prostitution? Someone who looks more nervous and sweaty than usual, coming for a three month “holiday” to stay with a distant relative who runs a restaurant.

@hellenback

She is south. Big force though. She's on "mids" today, but I'll get her to myself tomorrow

@hellenback @confused... any experience of Athena?

I used to work in a donut factory, let's just say there was no wastage, if a donut fell to the floor it would simply be picked up brushed off and used for sale

Animum2 why are donuts 'doughnuts' any more?