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?

@TescoValue How long does it take between a repeat slip getting sent to you, it being sent to Dr, being sent back, sent to robot dispensing and then finally being sent back to you to hand out?
Are you in a large city?

I work in a small town and there have been talks of robot dispensing at some point in the future. Currently our customers still grumble about having to wait 48hrs between dropping the repeat at our pharmacy and collecting their prescription (it used to be 24 hour turnaround!)...

Oh and the robot is a bizzare thing being rolled out at the moment. A robot picks stock from a huge warehouse (I think) then gets sent to us in plastic bags with your name on. Not sure it's the time saving trick it's meant to be, though.

Oo that's weird but kinda cool. So different from pharmacies where I am (not the UK), the doctor writes the prescription (electronic prescription) go to the pharmacy and show ID and they check from the computer system what your prescriptions are and there's a big wall of drawers behind them, labelled with the different medicines, and they pull open the drawer and grab a box ready packaged by the manufacturers so it's always standard size packs which means sometimes you have left over meds that you need to return to the pharmacy to be disposed of. Silliest thing is often a doctor will prescribe paracetemol for a painkiller, instead of telling you to just buy some over the counter, and the prescription always is a big bottle of 100 1g paracetamol because they don't have any smaller packs for the prescriptions. Way cheaper than buying it OTC though so I'm always glad when I get one of those prescriptions.

And repeat prescriptions we can renew online ourselves, and then any doctor at the specific health centre looks at it and approves it or not (will for chronic condition meds, won't for opiates as I discovered when I thought I'd chance it because I didn't want to have to go back to the doctor but nope, did not renew the panacod!)

@britnay we ask patients to put their repeats in 7-10 days before medication is due. The electronic prescription is usually back within a couple of days and we can dispense on site if needs be, but try to send the majority to the robot otherwise the company rings and asks why you haven't sent anything! It's absolutely not quicker, but is meant to be safer and ease up time in the pharmacy for paperwork etc.

@Natsku it's very similar here in the UK accept all boxes are labelled with patient name and dosage info. We also split packs, if we gave even one too many we have to report it! So if it's a box of 30 and your doctor prescribed 28, we'd put 28 in a plain white box and label it. Repeats can also be done online!

@britnay oh and small town, majority of patients wouldn't even know how to turn on a computer, so explaining their medication is off site with a robot isn't ideal

@TescoValue Do you deal mostly in EPS then? Our local surgeries are still on paper and will hold out until they absolutely have to! It seems like the robot will mean quite a long turnaround :S

I see how it could be seen as safer, but won't necessarily always meet patient needs.

Does the robot dispense whatever is available generically or will can it dispense specific brands of generic tablets if necessary? I presume you would have to get the surgery to prescribe a specific brand first?
I guess some scripts you can just pull out and dispense yourself if they might be a bit tricky?

How does a robot deal with broken bulk, or do scripts need amending depending on box size?

@britnay majority are EPS but still get maybe 50 green scripts a day, some locum doctors won't do EPS. It is a long turn around, robot won't do fridge lines, split boxes, specific chosen brands or anything too big like laxido/gaviscon etc. They come in as exceptions and you have to dispense yourself, match it up with the bag that's been sent in and the script, it's a pain!

Feel I've highjacked this thread now!

What a fascinating read, I've not loaded the dishwasher or put washing on because I've read 27 pages of enlightenment!

I now know that the reason the window was shut before delivering my eldest son -despite the fact I thought I was going to pass out from the heat and was begging the midwives to open the window and turn the fan back on-- was to help my son not become too cold and not so the entire town could hear my yells and swearing.

That when the time comes for my elderly dog to be pets, if I really can't cope with it, she will be treated with compassion.

Thatejen iwas in acoma in icu it's likely you nurses were nattering away to me. That's excellent because I'm an awful chatterbox

That there are foster careers that are only in it for the money, that's awful. Any foster carers out there, if you have a child that refuses to eat anything other than chicken nuggets and oven chips, do you have a duty to try to feed them a healthier diet or do you just serve what you know they'll eat?

@TescoValue I was a pharmacy tech in a previous life for a busy pharmacy in Glasgow. One pharmacist and myself. I know we provided great fast service. Nobody left waiting for lengthy periods of time. We also dispensed for several local nursing homes. Never once do I recall any errors (and this was in the days when GP's handwrote all scripts.
But yet every single time I go to my local chain pharmacy I cannot believe how long a simple script takes. Coupled with the cast of a thousand working in the dispensary. We're not talking high street branch but sleepy backwater! They also make you feel like your a massive inconvenience!! Frustrates the hell out of me!!

Does the robot chemist look like this:

I wish we had 1000s of staff! In reality its usually one pharmacist and two dispensers all day. We do about 250 items a day from our local surgeries. We don't do many walk-ins, but they usually only take 5 minutes to process.
However we are also all serving on the shop floor, putting out stock, taking orders in the shop, doing rebuilds in the shop and cleaning the shop (small stores have no cleaners). Not to mention MURs, NMS, 10 DDS a week, ringing other pharmacies about stock, ringing doctors, ringing patients, arranging medicine deliveries (sometimes we end up delivering on foot). And all the paperwork too. And trying to fit in lunch breaks for everyone. Oh and dealing with shop thefts that tend to occur because we are short staffed ..

Yes the pharmacist I had been going to for years became slower and slower at dispensing scripts and asked you to order at least a week before medicine was needed. I changed pharmacy, and now it is so quick, and it is ready the day after I ordered it online.

it's very similar here in the UK accept all boxes are labelled with patient name and dosage info. We also split packs, if we gave even one too many we have to report it! So if it's a box of 30 and your doctor prescribed 28, we'd put 28 in a plain white box and label it. Repeats can also be done online!

What happens to the leftovers, do they get put in someone else's prescription? The way here seems so wasteful but it does make the pharmacist job much quicker!

I work in higher education:

Most academics are stressed out their boxes and on the verge of a breakdown

We have favourite students that we'll go above and beyond for but we also have those we absolutely hate that we'll do the bare minimum for

The amount of flings that happen at conferences is astonishing and so too are the number of senior male academics who've shagged their female students and junior colleagues

Parents who contact the university on their kids' behalf are universally hated and thought of as absolute pricks

Universities are pushing towards collaborative grants where the government puts in the bulk of the money, private companies put in 5-10% and the private companies get all the intellectual property and future profits

There is a huge layer of fat at universities which is just senior administrators sitting around in offices making jobs for themselves

@Natsku

Sometimes we get sent prescriptions for just a few days worth of tablet (for example, if someone is on holiday and has forgotten their medication).
Sometime a person might just be prescribed an odd quantity of something, specific to their own needs (for example taking 17 tablets a week, instead of the usual multiples of 7).
"split" boxes (ie those that don't contain the full quantity) are pretty common in a pharmacy. They will get used to fulfill another prescription. Sometimes they get combined with another brand of the same item to fulfill a prescription.

We don't have a huge amount of wastage in terms of our commonly prescribed lines. Wastage is usually in the form of items that have been especially ordered for a particular patient, but either the doctor or the patient has changed their mind and not taken it - we can't usually return goods to our warehouse after a few working days.

That's interesting, much less waste. I did once get someone else's specially ordered item (not prescription, just special thickening powder for reflux baby) because they had changed their mind and didn't bother to get it but by coincidence I came in asking about the same thing so they sold it to me

crosser you've made me well up describing what you do when patients die.

There is a huge layer of fat at universities which is just senior administrators sitting around in offices making jobs for themselves

Interesting! I suppose they are the same people who decide on which people (is not them!) should be made redundant!?

We have favourite students that we'll go above and beyond for but we also have those we absolutely hate that we'll do the bare minimum for

What would lead you to hate a student?

I work in insurance. If you threaten to go to the press and cancel your policy, we actually don't care.

@babyno5, @britnay has hit the nail on the head. If we weren't given so much paperwork, so little hours etc we could get prescriptions done in a few minutes really. There's just way too much going on! A pharmacist needs to do "services" each day, usually 4 or 5 so will spend half an hour or so with those patients, in which time, nothing can be checked!

@Dirtydenis
Has anything happened to the senior lecturers who have slept with their students? How did you find out? I find these types of relationships fascinating after reading Gabriel's inferno 😂

@holidayshopping
I suppose they are the same people who decide on which people (is not them!) should be made redundant!?
Ha, yes exactly!! This layer of people enjoy doing "strategy" things and reviewing policies which seems to keep them busy for most of their time.

@Wordle
What would lead you to hate a student?
I've only hated a few students to be fair. One of them had sexually assaulted another student but was let off because his family had connections. Another one called me "ugly fat slut" on social media. Another one that I'm currently teaching is constantly undermining me, being disruptive, and laughing at me in class.
The others I don't hate but they annoy me immensely and I'll do the bare minimum for them. For example, emailing me at 6pm on Friday night then getting in a piss when I don't email back until Monday lunchtime; or not showing up to any classes them expecting very close support right before deadline day.

@ballsdeep
Has anything happened to the senior lecturers who have slept with their students? How did you find out? I find these types of relationships fascinating after reading Gabriel's inferno
I found out because it's just common knowledge, it can be the women or the men who say it - it's no particularly big secret.
These instances are often not reported.
PhD students or junior staff are too worried about the effect it might have on their careers to report it as being problematic. Undergraduate students have a mistaken belief that it'll somehow improve their grades and so don't report. Even when it has been reported and investigated, lecturers have been placed "on sabbatical" which is basically a year off teaching. I don't know of a single person who's been disciplined or fired. There's a reluctance on the part of senior management to come down too hard on these men because, well, senior management is mostly comprised of men who've most likely done similar

@britnay honestly I'm not exaggerating about staffing levels in our local pharmacy-pharmacist, 2 more senior dispensers and 2 junior ones. Only one non-dispensing staff member who is handing out scripts and covering the other till for otc and toiletries purchases. In a village with a population of 4,500!!

@dirtydennis I wonder of any of them actually continue with their relationships or if they are just seedy older men lookinh for an easy time.
Do you find it difficult working and teaching people who you know have slept with lecturers /students?