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?

@ballsdeep
It varies. One guy I know went on to have a LTR with his former student (they've been together about 15 years now). Another one left his wife and children for his PhD student.
Others just jump into bed with the next young woman they have power over.

I don't always know when students are sleeping with staff until afterwards (like after they've graduated), unless they're particularly vocal in class (and you overhear their conversations), or unless there's some kind of drama like a complaint. Usually it's just a bit of a "vibe" you get. So, generally, I don't know which students are sleeping with staff.
But, yes, it can be very difficult to deal with colleagues who I know are/have been sleeping with junior women (students or colleagues). The problem is that it's not easy to just refuse to work with someone and because the junior students/staff are adults and there's not a caring relationship (like there would be with teachers), it's a bit of a grey area in terms of power abuse/consent/coercion etc. If you make a point about abuse of power, it's turned around to look like you're just a massive prude.

I am also suspicious on tours in other countries when the bus driver stops at a shop/restaurant Because he is probably getting money from the business owner

I'd say there's no "probably" about it and sometimes you don't even have to wait for it to stop. While on a cruise I took a ship-organised trip to the pyramids, and they let the blasted sellers on the bus with us ... two and a half hours of incessant pestering and they weren't even discreet about handing the driver his cut when we stopped

used to work for a water/air treatment company.

I would advise you not to drink the tap water in any hotel, even if they tell you its safe. It may well have come from a tank and will have been sat there for god knows how long. It may also be filthy, and occasionally have a dead animal or two in it.

An easy way to tell if a tap is tank fed is to hold your thumb over it. If there's pressure, its probably mains. If not don't drink it.

If there Is pressure, and its mains fed, I still wouldn't necessarily drink it as often (especially large chain hotels!) the cold water was deemed to warm to be safe to drink. We would advise them on what they needed to do to lower this but they never did it.

Sometimes its unavoidable like in the height of summer, generally they can make changes to help,

Other places that were bad were, primary schools, hospitals and council buildings.

Also, duct work is restaurants is sometimes FILTHY. I had to write reports up on pictures and Christ on a bike it makes you never want to leave the comfort of your own home again!

Don't most get their scripts sent straight to a pharmacy now? It's much safer especially when prescribing restricted drugs I would have thought?

Although I totally agree with the waits.despite electronic delivery. It seems to be a regular excuse that it gets sent somewhere else before being sent down to local branch and I've had more go missing than handing over a piece of paper!

they weren't even discreet about handing the driver his cut when we stopped I have no problem with this and I think it's common and quite reassuring, in theory. A tour guide gets a cut, but it's in his interest to therefore be confident that the people he's introducing his clients to are going to be professional and provide a good service. Because if not, a) sales will be down for his partners, impacting his cut and b) if his partners piss his customers off, he's likely to lose out on tips, recommendations etc. So this mutual back scratching concept should work, done right.

I've been on the receivingg end of staff in travel and tourism who have no skin the game as it were and as such not only is service bad, but there's no interest in making good recommendations.

I work in PR and Media (in the corporate world). When you read a story with lots of details attributed to a "source" while the company is declining to comment, there's an extremely high chance the source is the company itself but they can't be even to publicly comment or provide that information.

(I have been that source 1000s of times...? )

A tour guide gets a cut, but it's in his interest to therefore be confident that the people he's introducing his clients to are going to be professional and provide a good service

I agree in principle, Bling, especially with the point about ensuring good service, but IME there's a time and place for introducing yet more "sales opportunities"

And trust me, a tour which already included plenty of them on arrival definitely wasn't it

bling. Would that source ever be Buckingham Palace?

Rhubarb - it's a good question. I'm not sure. I would imagine that at times, yes, it would be. But... a big problem I think they would have is that part of the reason the internal source thing works is a basic trust between the reporter and, at the very least, the PR person who is acting as source. And I'm not entirely sure that would be present between the royal family's PR people and the tabloid media.

In the corporate world, a big part of my ability to get the job done is a combination of being trusted by both the company and the journalist. It doesn't mean the journalist takes whatever I say as the gospel truth (not if they're a good reporter anyway - we all know that even if I believe I'm telling the truth, I might not have all the facts) but it is a starting point. My professional sense of how things work between the RF and media is that there is none of that trust there. I suspect (but obviously don't know) it's also why even if individual members of the RF try to apply strategies that might have worked for others (or i Meghan's case, her personal experience as an actor), it doesn't work in this context.

At its simplest, the reason I love and stick to corporate PR is I wouldn't have a clue how to navigate the tabloids.

A note on foster carers - i’m a social worker working with long term Looked After children. Most of them in foster care rather than alternative care provisions.

I am constantly humbled by carers, who give their homes, energy & frequently years when they would be winding down and retiring to our children.

However, there is a national shortage of foster carers and especially where we live in the SE but semi-rural, not many people can afford to have spare rooms and one person not working to be able to foster.
We have carers we know are not the standard we expect, and no amount of training is going to improve. Those who won’t or can’t accept and work with children who have complex and mixed behaviours. In our team we might try and avoid using them but they probably do short term care. Our team is focussed on matching children to carers who we feel are likely to meet their specific needs, but it’s subjective and an inexact science. We do not use someone just because they have a spare room at that time but occasionally there might be an emergency that does require that: funnily enough sometimes that works out serendipitously!

I have removed a child from a placement at least twice because the carers weren’t meeting the children's needs - mostly we try not to as just like removing children from families, we know it’s damaging in itself. We work hard to train and support carers but often people are stuck in their ways: as much as they might have successfully parented their own children those methods aren’t necessarily going to work with children who have experienced loss, trauma & abuse.

We care deeply about our children, we are invested in them and the outcomes we can try and achieve for them. It is always distressing when we realise carers are not offering them the home we’d expect them to.

ladyfuschia that's a very moving inside account of such desperate situations. That how failed some DC are is so sad and I can't imagine how hard a job it is to work in, and also hopefully rewarding, like you mentioned serendipity.

Long time nurse here
We aren't embarrassed about performing intimate examinations and don't even register how well "groomed" you are. But we do recognise you get embarrassed and compensate for it.
Generally we love the face to face aspect of patients- the politics wear us down
We dislike rudeness and they're the worst sort of patients
If you are worried about something your appointment will be better if you tell us succinctly what, how long for, affect on you then we work from there
And the majority aren't shagging the doctors (there is a minority though )

@smotheroffive Thanks! I love my job and actually many of our kids will end up in a lovely home where they feel accepted, cared for, and safe: they may go on to to well in life and be great humans! But it is frustrating when carers are crap.

On the subject of the thread I have little to offer, no exciting tricks in my trade! Certainly no bonuses for removing children!!

The back up computer systems for banks at Canary Wharf are not actually located at the Wharf. Some are located in a very unassuming location, think, above a Mac Donald's somewhere!

Canary Wharf is within one big faraday cage. It's well known, from experience, to mess with your cars electronics.

Thames House (MI5) there is more underground that what is built above.

You really cannot go for a wee in GCHQ without being accompanied, everywhere!

Oh and there is an Avro Arrow that does still exist. The Americans didn't destroy them all.......

Not supposed to go for a wee alone at the BBC either, annoying when I visited while pregnant. (This is for Visitors, stay with the person who endorsed you pass)

Oh and even little babies in prams get a pass (no photo though)

love this thread.

I work with lawyers herd cats so could be seen as pretty boring but nope. IME those with the highest level of education have the least amount of sense. Literally. I had to have a bag of socks at the ready for one particular genius who regularly forgot to put his on. Yep. He was a key inventor on a very key part of the heat shield for a very famous space vehicle. Others I have shown the same flipping spreadsheet to every year for 9 years, and they actually cannot follow along as I talk through it. Can. Not. I color code, highlight, move my finger down, use a pointer, but nope. Nothing. Very, very smart people who just clam up at numbers. This is not unusual. I think it has a lot to do with their heads being filled with information for which they can cite actual laws/code. Outside of that, it is a blur. Or too risky to say they get it.

In the old days they had couches in their offices. Trust me, never ever sat down. They were used for other than sitting. The bad old days.

Started out working behind the bar in social clubs in the early 80's. Regular thing then to have the bar manager secretly fill the bottles with generic spirits instead of the real thing. It made all the claims of "Oh I can only drink X or I get sick" quite scary to hear. I didn't keep that secret. Nor the jobs.

The back up computer systems for banks at Canary Wharf are not actually located at the Wharf. Some are located in a very unassuming location, think, above a Mac Donald's somewhere!

This is the case with every financial institution. It’s called disaster recovery. Core systems duplicated in a separate location.

There are empty offices in major city’s owned by large government organisations and corporations like the BBC that in even of an emergency in the capital they can all be moved to this office to carry on working. I know of one in Cardiff that is literally a ghost office that is owned by a news corp incase of emergency

@IDrinkAndISewThings
Can you get on to occupational therapy?
They provide aids for deaf people such as a
flashing light instead of doorbell.

Ooh, I have one! Opticians have worse handwriting than doctors.

There’s a tunnel under the A4/M4 elevated section in Brentford that used to link Beecham/SmithKline Beecham plc head office to the then landmark Lucozade building on the other side of the road.

It was used by staff to go between the buildings and it also contained locked large paper storage archives/cages. It was very, very wide, well lit and the floor painted with that kind of vinyl paint, red I think.

It always gave me the heebeejeebies and if I was on my own I constantly looked over my shoulders freaking out at what may be lurking in the cage shadows. I may have run through it a few times when I was on my own.

There are empty offices in major city’s owned by large government organisations and corporations like the BBC that in even of an emergency in the capital they can all be moved to this office to carry on working. I know of one in Cardiff that is literally a ghost office that is owned by a news corp incase of emergency

Standard for a lot of firms, I work in the City and we have two backup sites. One is located just over the river in South London and is tested monthly. The other is outside the M25 and has one major test a year.

But they sit empty and dormant otherwise. In my 20 years in banking across different firms and countries I've used backup sites in anger probably 8-10 times, but only one of those was for an issue that lasted longer than a day

‘Ghost’ offices are known as hot back up sites (if all the IT equipment, phones etc are plugged in and ready to go) or cold back up if the space is there but not the networks. Only big companies tend to use hot back up sites because it is costly.