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?

whisky industry :

When people tell you what you should/shouldn't taste they don't always tell the truth. Sometimes we forgot or would bullshit what was in the whisky/what it was made of. This happened more when in the presence of a pompous arse.

Also tried a £20,000 bottle of whisky which was just as good as the £60 one.

gunpowdertea ...having lived in London for years, and visited often since leaving I actually heard the "inspector sands to the main concourse please" announcement last time we were there...heading to the depths of KingsCross station

we all carried on about our business, but I noticed lots of people seeming to be extra vigilant

Dh and I figured we'd be better off carrying on and getting the next tube out rather than trying to get back out...but tbh I think someone had just leaned on the wrong button!

beekey i can quite beieve that.

the lidl one won the world whiskey awards at £30....it beat the £2k ones.

am having a wee dram now as it happens.

I work in a hospital lab. For anyone sending us a poo sample: we don’t need the whole tube filled to the brim with your shit. There is a reason for that tiny spatula. A little scoop is enough.

We can work with as little as 1ml of blood, so don’t worry if your doctor thinks you’re not good at giving blood. Again, we don’t need the tubes filled up, apart from the blue tubes.

Same with urine. Don’t fill the fricking tube to the top, we can work with a small amount.

Some sales reps can be loose with their interpretations of drugs and I can tell a newbie from an experienced rep based on their call logs.

Can you explain-I don’t understand either of those things?

I work in examining. Some years an exam paper might get an A. Other years an identical response might get a B.

Grading is not always straightforward.

Placemarking ❤️

Some sales reps will promise that their company's drug will provide the moon on a stick, regardless of the fact that a) it's not in the indications of use for the drug b) the drug does the exact same thing as the rival company's drug and has the same mechanism of action/formulation and c) they're not allowed to comment on off book use (eg Metformin being used for PCOS because it addresses the insulin resistance but it's not indicated for it).

I audit sales reps call logs (logs of their visits with Drs) and you can tell who has done the research and who is just rote learning the sales patter. Some of the best sales reps know the product inside out and are honest if they don't know something. They are the ones who'll have researched what they don't know and actually read the research papers.

Code for the mortuary in hospital is Rose Cottage, so we ring the porters to say we have” a patient for Rose Cottage.” We also tell colleagues that “Mrs Brown needs to see them,” that means there is a brew ready in the staff room!!

Thank you very much for replying, hunibuni. It's lovely to know the patients really aren't alone, and interesting too to hear about windows still being opened - I'd often wondered if that was still done

Have name changed for this. I spent a short spell in a role in an abbatoir. Absolutely 100% the animals know within their final few minutes they are going to die. The lambs more than others.

I work in a pharmacy dispensing medication and am generally quite geekishly fascinated by the drugs I dish out on a daily basis!
I think my favourite has to be Ropinirole, for few reasons! Firstly, it's an awesome shape - not round, or oval, or oblong like any other tablet, oh no, ropinirole is pentagonal with little pyramids sticking out top and bottom! Very snazzy for a tablet!
Secondly, it's primarily used for treating Parkinson's, but you might be given it at low doses if you suffer from restless leg syndrome.
But the BEST thing about it is it's list of side effects! It's a dopamine agonist, it helps to reduce Parkinson's tremors by reducing the 'stop' impulse that creates the juddery movements, it lowers inhibitions of movement. However it has also been found to properly lower your inhibitions in terms of decision making, so as well as the usual drowsiness, nausea etc etc it also lists binge eating, hyper sexuality, compulsive gambling and compulsive spending! 😁 bit more exciting a prospect that the usual list of ailments!
I trot out this little factoid every time someone new joins the team, it brightens my wee day :)

I worked in a library for a few years after maternity leave.

We had customers / members of the public who would connect to the WiFi & use the public toilet for a wank. (We could hear porn on phones / noises etc). One in particular 'gentleman' I remember would leave his mess behind.
This toilet was mixed gender and used by kids etc .. I would often stick an out of order sign after one of these customers had been in.

After what I saw in that library, I now never use public loos.

Also, on a slightly less jolly note, we might appear to just be the people who put the sticker on the box of your medication, but in reality the role is much larger. So much happens between the doctor writing the prescription and the medicine reaching the patient, especially when the elderly are involved. I recently had a situation where an elderly patient repeatedly failed to get her meds because she was too deaf to hear the doorbell, resulting in my very frustrated driver returning with the undelivered medicines almost daily. Having alerted the GP to this, his answer was to stop writing her prescriptions as she 'obviously wasn't really needing them' and wait til she reached 'crisis point'. We weren't even to inform the patient her medication would be stopping. I was dumbfounded, my driver was devastated, and the GP's receptionist who was my main contact recognised our disgust and is helping us to find a way to help this woman simply be able to receive the medication that will slow her dementia. The GP and the Pharmacist are always seen as the major players, but more often than you think the people providing the genuine care are the wee guys in between

newsername I have a serious needle phobia and I've asked mid panic attack if they could please do the test from a smaller sample taken from a finger (never done it but I thought it might be easier) and I've always been told they need the whole bloody vile from a vein. Antenatal tests and allergy tests this was for.

Also how do you not full the urine sample cup? I can't control my pee all or nothing

Mrspotter, that makes me feel sad :(

I’m a chef and I could tell you about kitchens I have worked in that would make you never want to eat out again.

I actually walked out of a job not that long ago when the manager was insisting I use the raw defrosted cod that had been sitting in the fridge for a week. It was the final straw and I simply picked up my knives , threw my apron in the dirty washing bucket and got in my car.

Also train driver told me inspector sands means British transport police

Archaeologist. 99% of the collections in museum stores and finds on site are actually not treasure but in reality quite dull (think boxes on boxes of old bricks and little bits of pottery. Once I had 15 crates of snail shells). At least, they're dull if you're not an archaeologist. Lots of people would turn up for our behind the scenes tours bursting with enthusiasm and leave looking like they'd vomit if they had to listen to me rabbit on about sheep metatarsals or greyware for 10 more seconds.

I used to talk to the skeletons and gave them names.

We all break something eventually. You just hope it's not something rare when it happens to you.

We all illicitly try on the very ancient jewellery whenever the opportunity presents itself.

We will use assorted pottery and stone tools as paperweights when necessary.

older unfortunately taking blood from a finger wouldn’t work as it needs to come from the vein. But the whole vial doesn’t need to be filled apart from coagulation tests using blue top tubes. For the antenatal tests they can get away with a small amount of blood but usually need 2 tubes for booking in bloods. The allergy tests need a minute amount. Doctors often send millions of tubes because they can’t remember which test is done on which tube, and it’s really sad knowing someone has been bled unnecessarily.

Brilliant thread.

Thanks for starting it.

Loving this thread.

@crosser62 your post was very comforting as in recently lost my Mum. Thank you.

Amazing responses, fascinating.

Trying to think of more . . .

Hospitality - I can say 90% of our food is made on site. And I always have a rule that if a new staff member drops or smashes something I will take over the cleanup so they can flee because the customers think it is hilarious to whoop and clap

We waste so much food. We try and take it to the shelters but they will only take boxed food - even if it has been freshly prepared and cooked a few hours previously.

Tech - yes, i will judge that you cannot do the simplest things that we have talked you through a million times. And yes, we charge by the package because it means as we get faster we can get more done and therefore our hours drop and we would get paid less. A package just means we can charge more and take more work on.

A lot of theatres use Mr Sands for a fire, but there are also a lot of different code words in use by different venues, which makes life difficult if you're touring to a different venue every couple of days. (Inspector Sands on a station announcement is 'There may be going to be an evacuation, staff please remain alert'. If you hear an Inspector Sands announcement, it's wise to get on your train as normal, and hope that you depart before the possible evacuation!).

Secrets of working backstage in theatre : we know when you're on your mobile during a performance, actors will tell us, we tell Front of House, or the lighting op or sound op will call it in. Depending on how complicated the show is, we may be having a good old chat while it's going on. The Show Must Go On is a real thing - the bigger the show, the more difficult it is to stop and restart - pantos in particular are like a juggarnaut to stop. We'd sooner keep going if at all possible and fix things at the same time.

Whisky on stage is either apple juice, soda stream cola concentrate in water, or cold tea. White wine is very watered down apple juice. Red wine is much harder to fake, due to the depth of colour - Ribena doesn't look right. One of the biggest brands of stage blood tastes of strawberries. You can make many stage foods with mashed potato and food colouring. Radio mic packs that are worn on the body are often placed inside unlubricated condoms to stop sweat from the wearer's body getting into the electronics. It's bad luck to whistle on stage.