I'm a science undergrad
and I actually study. I don't get the cardiovascular stuff though.
(ToysForBigBoys would spread her legs for Nick Clegg., Thu 27 Sep 2007, 19:15, Reply)

b1ta
What would be the DBI of Amy Winehouse then?...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 27 Sep 2007, 19:15, Reply)

Dodgy Doctor Death Debacle
I would absolutely love to answer this question but am far too scared of the repercussions. What I will say is that if Harold Shipman was doing now what he got done for a few years ago, he'd be getting away with it.

If by any chance the overmods could ask this question again in six months, I'll have been made redundant, all evidence gathering for serious malpractice and criminal investigations will be being handled by one person on minimum wage, the NHS will be in the process of being heavily sued and I'll be free to put the boot in.

Thanks.
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Thu 27 Sep 2007, 18:46, Reply)

Call centres
Ok, for a few years now I've done call centre work, I find it easy and I've enough experience not to do the shit jobs.

Over the years I've worked for a large motoring organisation (3 letters, not 2)

When you've had a cheaper quote from another company and we try and legally slag them off by reading specific clauses in their t's & c's, just read ours, we do the same!

Don't keep paying the same company every year, budgets for new sales is about twice the size of budgets for renewals, just swap every year, you're not losing out, there's no loyalty.

But quite simply the best thing to do is flirt! Just remember ladies, the guys there are young and horny, the girls in the office are never hot (sorry guys, they may sound hot on the phone, they're not!) so they're bored looking at them, so if you chat, giggle etc we're likely to do more for you and save you money!!!
(Laxly, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 18:44, Reply)

IT manager
As an IT manager, the big dirty secret is you spend all day arguing with Telco's (not Tesco's, Tel Co's, Telecommunication Companies. Or more specifically, wankers). Its a giant metaphor for BT. The most incompetent, lazy, half-arsed, incompetent, idiotic wanking bunch of incompetent fuckers to walk this planet.

Dont think for one second they dont have a monopoly. Yes they fucking do and jesus christ do they know it. "ooh but we have openreach now, they're independant of us". Yes, they are, but why then, does the installation of a DSL line ordered through Verizon, require 2 jobs to be submitted to BT, whereas BT can submit it as one job direct to openreach. Dont get me fucking started.

Excuses from BT this month, and these are real.

1. Manhole covers had the wrong type of locks. (6 week delay so they can get the council to find the right fucking key).
2. "I havent got my coat and its raining." Seriously, I am now going to actually have you fired if i can.
3. "But that means we will have to dig up the road". Right. Thats what you do. I'm fairly fucking positive you can pretty much dig up the road anywhere and at any time. Whats the problem now?
3. "Its the MPSL. Its not us. Call your provider." YOU. ARE. MY. FUCKING. PROVIDER.

Jesus christ i'm angry now grrr
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 18:42, Reply)

The Resident Loon
That's only the tip of the iceberg.

My personal favourites are:

GPO - Good for Parts Only
TEETH - Tried Everything Else, Try Homeopathy
APTFRAN - Apply Pillow To Face, Repeat As Necessary
PRATFO - Patient Reassured And Told to Fuck Off

and my all time favourite the DBI:

Dirt Bag Index = number of missing teeth x number of tattoos = numbers of days since patient washed.

I was was also very flattered to see DILF written by a very friendly nurse under my notes on a patient last year.

Not that I would ever use any of these of course, I am a highly professional and ethical medical practitioner.
(quantum raspberry quizzically quashing Quebecans, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 18:35, Reply)

I worked in a French shop that sold music and video
The only things that actually had proper security tags in the whole time were the Rap and Hip-hop CDs.

Fair play. French hoodies are no different to their English counterparts.

Also, if there's an album we liked, we pulled it out the package, stuck in in the stereo and listened to it to our hearts' content. When done we'd make a new label and shrink-wrap the case again. Chances are if you buy a decent album from there, we'd already listened to the exact same CD.
(I have a face also had a sig on, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 18:18, Reply)

medical shorthand
the doctor I used to work with always used NFN or Normal For Norfolk - i.e. retarded or in bred. having been to Norfolk I can safely say fair cop guv' got 'em bang to rights (to septics for Norfolk think Alabama)
(The kneeling rifleman Is slowly getting there.., Thu 27 Sep 2007, 18:13, Reply)

Im a seasoned veteren lifeguard
Any conversation about my job, is guaranteed to take a direction towards poo after about 3 and half minutes of chit chat.

What happens when somebody shits in the pool?

We go fishing! With a big net. its quite an art form being able to bag any sort of poo, sick or bodily excrement. No the pool doesnt get cleared, and yes the chemicals do kill the bacteria.

But you're still swimming in shit. regardless of the fact that the top layer of a poorly turned over pool is just human fat and grease.

DONT SWIM WITH YOUR MOUTH OPEN
(Staffs Giraffe, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 18:07, Reply)

A warning to those in the medical field...
I've read about the use of acronyms in here such as T.U.B.E. and F.L.K., and I can tell you that this can come back to bite you in the arse.

My dad's a doctor, and some of the doctors he knows have patients who get sick a lot, and have been known to use the abbreviation P.P.P. in their charts. This stands for "Piss-Poor Protoplasm". All this is well and good, until they're involved in a malpractice suit and the prosecuting attorney asks, in front of the judge, what that abbreviation stands for...

You have been warned.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:58, Reply)

I work as an IT Consultant
I make it up as I go along with documents involving big words taken from the dictionary and thesaurus and charge people a large amount of money for stuff they could of (and normally have) worked out for themselves.
But I don't think this counts as a trade secret?

Used to work as a Chef - will not repeat anything I used to do as you would never eat out again. No.1 rule - never send your food back. No.2 If your waiter/tress looks stressed be very very nice to them
(nutttywings is living on the edge until, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:58, Reply)

I'll only buy chicken from tesco
Many moons ago, I used to work in a chicken processing factory in between uni terms. This was a fun and rewarding job and I had many a happy time there...

Every so often one of the customers (a*da, w*itrose, sa*nsburys etc) would send a health inspector round to see how the factory was run and how clean it was. They usually gave between 2 and 4 weeks notice. Whether or not they realised, this gave the managers ample time to clean up and ensure that certain people were "on holiday" or "off sick".

All apart from t*sco. Who sent round a 16 year old kid who "wanted a job". He systematically went round every section of the factory, claiming that each department in turn was not to his liking. After 2 weeks he "decided" that a career in hacking chickens to bits was not for him. So he left. Taking 2 weeks incriminating notes with him. T*sco cancelled their orders soon after (whether this is because he was in the fridges when we found one of the retards fucking a dead chicken (ready for packing) I don't know).

Oh, and don't belive the "organic" or "free range" stickers on poultry. Even though all the chicken was off one lorry/from one farm, a*da would label it as free range where s*insburys would label it as bargain bin stuff. Lovely.

And this is why I will only buy chicken from tesco.
(animal252 last activated his kitten hammer on, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:53, Reply)

In response to thomasthetankengine's post
one of my lecturers at uni worked (or used to, I'm not sure) as a child psychologist. He informed us that if a diagnosis (e.g. autism, ADHD, spoilt little brat) couldn't be given but the child was not quite right, their treatment notes would contain the abbreviation FLK - Funny Little Kid.
(sanity challenged, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:47, Reply)

The Child Support Agency (*)
The reason the phones were never answered between 10am and 10.30am (**) when you called to find out why your scum sucking cheating ex husband hadn't paid this month's money; or your fat slag of an ex girlfriend was sticking you for 2 grand a week for a kid that wasn't yours?

We were all in the smoking room, watching Tellytubbies. Sorry.


(*) Specifically the branch I had a summer job at, but I'm sure it's endemic.
(**) the phones were never answered for the rest of the day either.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:41, Reply)

Where to begin...
I used to work for the Benefits Agency, and part of the counter/'reception' staff's job (unofficially) was to scrutinise the daily local paper and then advise us when to stop claimant's benefit based on said claimant appearing in the paper. This was generally for when they'd been detained by police, hospitalised, actually sent down or in one actual case - dead.

I now work for a very large international arts festival, and if you're a performer who has just spent August with us then the chances are your venue ripped you off. We charge commission on the tickets we sell for you, but not actually us much as your venue probably told you. Robbing cunts.

I'd love to go into more detail about certain venue managers who are on our board of directors and their conflict of interest with a ticketing company...but you never know who is reading this.
(Zutroy started without you, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:35, Reply)

Dole Office
I had a short term contract working for the Dole Ofice back in the days when Thatch was Prime Minister.

Despite all the official denials, I know for a fact that the unemployment figures at the time were completely made up.

I know this, because it was my job to do the count, and was instructed to knock off a few thousand claims here and there of people who were "ineligible" for the dole for reasons of the govt's own devising.

Then, just before I handed the sheet in to the big boss, I would add a few thousand back on to teach the scheming bastards a lesson.

On the last day of my contract, natch, I got as pissed as a little beetle added on an extra one, for luck.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:34, Reply)

Supermarkets are frauds
I work in the produce dept. of a fairly large chain of supermarkets in Denmark. And i can onfirm your suspicions that we rip you off or try to kill you on a daily basis.

For instance, it is not uncommon for us to mark up an item, and then offer it on sale at its now "cheap" standard price.
Ok, so this mainly goes on in the produce dept...fresh goods and everything, with prices changing daily. But still. It's illegal and I feel bad doing it.

Or bread from our bakery dept. that gets dropped on the floor. If nobody is looking...back on the shelf. This practice was started by our manager one morning when he was in a hurry and dropped a few trays of bread...now everyone does it.

And don't get me started on the state of our bakery out back...suffice to say that we've just been fined a fair bit of cash because of the state of the cleanliness there...granted, our baker stopped and we've just gotten a new one, but still...you should've seen the brown goo they had to wash off the ceiling with a high pressure water jet.

The worst part...i've been trained as a chef, i know hygiene, storage temps, everything...and still i turn a blind eye. But when you're permanently understaffed like we are, and the ppl that actually DO come to work are spotty 17 yr olds that call in sick 2 days out of 5, you simply don't have the time for these "minor" things...as if the 60 hr weeks weren't enough as it is.

Sigh...ok...might be a bit off topic there at the end,and a little ranty...feels better getting this off my chest tho

length? about 10 hrs every day, for 6 days...
(Jindrak, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:29, Reply)

oh, alright
Following on from what mr wittyname says

If a company resells a product and you have problem, guess what they're going to supply you. The *good* companies will tell you their product won't work in your environment.

Sod the best technical solution - the one that mostly works with minimum support load wins every time. If a high tech solution is used, you have to have multiple expensive people that know how to create and use it. Support is a killer as it gathers no revenue.

We'll sell you products to assess and monitor your users, at the same time as not wanting to be monitored ourselves.

Operating systems, service packs and drivers are released in beta prior to being formally released. Companies are supposed to test against these, so that their product works on release to consumers. Practically no one ever does, even the big companies.

Yes, we do call you names when you want changes from the specification at short notice, or no cost.

We will occasionally ask you for information we probably already know the answer to, just to give us breathing space.

Take the piss with your requirements, and watch your support charges rise the following year.

Year 2000 compliance was, surprisingly, not a scam except at the bottom end of the market.

No one optimises software any more, because hardware is becoming faster. Only the worst issues are fixed. If you 'upgrade' on the same hardware, it will normally be slower.

Never, ever, believe promises about support unless you have a signed contract.

Buying higher priced hardware and software (usually) provides better ongoing support. Don't buy a 5 quid chinese copy and expect the hardware to work after the next service pack, let alone the operating system.

Lots of hardware is produced by one manufacturer and rebadged by other companies. You pay for service and embedded software. It may be possibly to move embedded software from one device to another and save yourself cash..

Most overclocking talk is utter crap. It's all situation dependent and tall talk, and if you get it wrong, it will shorten component lifespan.

Don't, FFS, buy from PC World unless it's an emergency. It's cheaper to buy from Scan/Dabs/insight/whoever.

Oh, and we don't like being asked about which PC to buy because a) we have a life and don't always follow the market and b) even when we do tell people, they go out and buy a cheap piece of crap instead.
(EssY, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:27, Reply)

Dirty Medical Secret
My doctor friends tell me all sorts they get up to with patient notes.

If you're an attractive woman, and especially if you're a regular visitor, you may well end up with T.U.B.E. written in your notes. It stands for 'Totally Unnecessary Breast Examination'.

And if you're a regular Friday/Saturday night attention-seeker/time-waster in A&E (where by law the staff have to see you eventually) the diagnosis T.T.F.O. means 'Told To Fuck Off'.

Some paediatricians also use the acronym F.L.K. to mean Funny Looking Kid.
(Thomas_The_Spankengine, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:27, Reply)

Telephone Recorders
Stalked the boards for long enough - time to rid my guilt.

When you call a company, and during their recorded message state "this call may be recorded for training purposes" it is being recorded. Not for training mind you. Just for nosey bosses who don't like members of staff who can't ask the right things or do their jobs properly.

The recording technology is primarily used for financial dealers so that they can ensure they put the tickets through at the right prices and rates, and the firm they work for won't get into trouble or go bust. Works fine, except for if you work for a national paper who offer tips on shares then get busted because you're insider dealing (I still have a copy of the conversations that got 2 certain journalists that worked for a 'reflective' newspaper ... they make me smile every so often).
(Marky Mark, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:19, Reply)

photo lab perks
since digital kicked off no bastard hands in pron anymore but before the dawn of digital it was at least 3 times a day scud. and we made copies of all of it. every branch had a scud album that u could browse if u got sent there to cover.

the best pic id ever seen was one of a couple who had taken a disposable camera along to a romp in a seedy hotel and the guy had managed to take a picture of his dick in her vag and his thumb up her ass while she looked over her shoulder straight in to the lens with an expression of deep joy on her face.

i made sure that was the top photo in the packet when i handed them back so they knew i had seen it.

ah good times.

fuck you digital.
(Raol Duke, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:07, Reply)

Maths/English
In my current job, I write articles on law, accountancy, insurance and medicine for magazines read by experts in the field. At school, I failed all science GCSEs and maths. I know nothing about any of these areas... Or rather, I know an advertiser will pay my employer £1000 for a page if he thinks someone is reading my page.
(frankspencer, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:04, Reply)

Call Centers and Crematoriums
This QOTW is so good that i'll suspend my 3 year long b3ta uber-lurk.

1. There is no point ever calling a BT call center after 5pm as that is when all the management go home leaving only the woefully under-trained phone-monkeys who have absolutely no idea how to resolve your problem, so your call will just be transfered from one inept department to another til 8pm when everyone gets to go home and they'll just hang up on you. Also its worth never being rude to call center staff because they will just transfer your call to the Indian call center department and it will take days to sort your problem rather than hours. (or at least i used to)

2. Friend of mine used to work in a crematorium and told me that they will burn anywhere between 5 and 10 bodies in a day, pile all the ashes together and then just divide them out to the relatives. So grandmas ashes are really 1/5th grandma, 1/5th over-dose victim, 1/5th former motorbike rider etc etc

*1x length joke*
(Dean, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:03, Reply)

Those old music charts you used to spend so much time
looking at?

yes they were rigged.

It goes like this, certain record shops had little computers with bar-code readers, and every time a record was sold, its bar-code went through the machine. This was later downloaded late at night via its little built in modem, to the chart compiling people.

so far so good.

except the reps that left records into the shops would also leave a certain amount of "freebies" and certain staff members who got those "freebies" also had a little bit of paper (hidden out of site beside the computer) with bar-codes on it, and every now and again, a "sale" would be recorded. So whoever was getting "plugged" that week, "sold" more copies.

And you know those "bargain bins" you used to see? yes, they were full of all the copies they did not actually sell.

I dare say this practise still goes on even today, I don't know though as I have not been in a record shop for 3 years.
( TBL I posted this on, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 17:03, Reply)

I used to work for the NHS
and I can confirm that mobile telephones do not interfere with equipment at all. They never have and never will.
(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 16:59, Reply)

I work
as a house painter.

Nevermind.
(abignumber, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 16:46, Reply)

racetraitor reminds me
I worked at a language school in Greece. At the end of the year, my whole class failed the exam to move to the next year. So we changed the pass mark to 13% and everyone paid up for another year's 'learning'.

During the really big exams - run by Cambridge University and the British Council - all the students cheat blatantly and everyone turns a blind eye because they're all making money. And still some of the kids fail.

That's why people in callcentres abroad can't speak a feckin word of English.
(frankspencer, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 16:42, Reply)

Teachers
We've all suspected these for years, but I can now confirm the following are all true:

1. Teachers hate kids
2. Teachers have favourites. especially the speccy kids who do their homework and put their hands up in lessons.
3. Teachers have been known to make up their lessons on the spot.
4. Teachers who have hangovers or simply can't be arsed have lessons where you spend all your time copying off the board, or writing essays.
5. Teachers who make you look it up yourself in dictionaries or textbooks don't know the answer.

I am no longer a teacher.
( b3th Not shit. Not mod., Thu 27 Sep 2007, 16:36, Reply)

I used to work in advertising
as a strategist, for what's consistently judged as the top "creative" agency in the UK, writing briefs for creatives and researching advertising effectiveness.

it is a fact that a lot of the most effective "creative" advertising works in a very similar way to hypnosis; basically, in the way it refers to a person's/demographic's extant impressions then laterally suggests new ones on the back of this.

what the company particularly enjoyed doing was working together to use said technique to induce heightened states of awareness (trance) in fledgling co-workers, thus maintaining the status quo while identifying the willing and able.

in my early twenties, starting out on my own for the first time, working long hours and unsuspecting, it fucked me up paranoid-wise for quite a while. today i'm merely bitter, cognitive therapy sorted out the paranoia. nowadays i work with people with learning difficulties, a useful job involving much more well-adjusted individuals.

and in case you're thinking "i wouldn't fall for it", this is a well understood marker of high suggestibility (it makes you more engageable and suggests a tendency to reason by induction)
( octopus footwear raaa, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 16:35, Reply)

Premium Rate telphone lines....
To my shame I worked for a company that supplied these "services".

There were quite a few competitions where "A winner will be randomly selected by computer", bollocks it will, 'twas me stopping the tape recorder at a random point.

One of the tabloids (The mirror I think) had a phone in for racing tips. He was meant to ring in and update the line every morning - one day he didn't so I had to do the mirror racing tips for the day (know bugger all about it!)

The company also produced a mens magazine, well you can guess the sort of content....

I wrote a telephone system so you could call the featured ladies and leave a message on their answer phone.

Of course the pictures in the mag had nothing to do with the people who'd reply to the voicemail....

20 stone chain smoking slappers the lot of them...


length? about 8 months before I had a fit of ethics.
( Jonoton, Thu 27 Sep 2007, 16:35, Reply)