Just how little it seems people in my role seem to actually do or know about their role.
Also how it seems that every time I try to make requests based on facts, figures and numbers it always ends up being more of a we’ll do things based on the vibe because they don’t need to see the data as they already " know " the data.
Basically, I make a request for more budget, but I get pushed back your budget should be like Y budget as we have looked at the numbers and deem it so. I have data that proves our budget can’t be like Y budget due to 2 to 3x the workload. Surprised Pikachu face.
It’s happened to me 3-4 times now and it makes me think maybe I take my job too seriously.
I work in 911 dispatch, I already had a pretty dim view of humanity coming into it and being prepared for the unexpected is basically the job description, so not too much has truly surprised me, caught me momentarily off-guard, sure, but not really surprised
Probably my biggest surprise is how few calls I get about foreign objects stuck in various orifices. I definitely thought that would be a bigger thing, but I guess most people choose to suck it up (phrasing?) and drive themselves to the ER out of embarrassment.
Also, overall, little kids tend to be pretty great 911 callers. I don’t particularly like kids in pretty much any other situation, so that was surprising to me, but kids listen to me, answer my questions, don’t beat around the bush and just blurt things out, and overall tend to be respectful. There’s outliers and exceptions of course, but overall some of my favorite callers are little kids.
I’ve had to take someone to the ER after losing a toy in her. An ambulance ride seems like an unnecessary expense unless there’s like something broken in there.
I work in X-ray. Get a foreign object like once every two weeks. Good times.
@Redditgee @Sir_Kevin is… Is this usually kids or adults? 👀
Probably both - kids swallow a LOT of coins.
Sorry, I meant those foreign bodies. Adults. Toys, cucumbers, etc.
@Redditgee Hah, I figured as much, but wasn’t gonna rule out the ole ear-lego or nose-bean. Gotta wonder what the ratio of accidentally-stuck-stuff in kids:adults is 🤔 and if there’s a correlation. Maybe one grows up into the other?
Don’t get me wrong, personally I’m not taking an ambulance unless I’m actively dying, or physically incapable of driving or getting into a car with help from whoever’s around me
But I’ve had people call for EMS because of stuff like a highish fever, nausea/vomiting, minor broken bones, strains, sprains, depression/anxiety or other fairly minor mental/emotional/psychological issues with no suicidal ideation or anything else presenting any immediate physical threat, food poisoning, head lice, and my personal favorite “just not feeling right” but unable to describe any actual symptoms.
And that’s not counting the people who don’t want an ambulance and just want to ask what they should do or if I think they should go to the hospital (and the answer is pretty much always something like “if you’re concerned about it, you should probably be seen by a doctor,” I can’t really treat or diagnose or give medical advice, what we give are “pre-arrival instructions” which are basically “here’s how to avoid dying until the ambulance arrives, and then you’re their problem”) or just want the ambulance to come check them out and see what they think (and again, that’s not really their role either, they have more medical training than I do but their job is basically to keep you alive until you get to the hospital)
Couple personal favorite dumb medical calls are the guy who accidentally ate a pretty decent quantity of raw ground beef (his wife premade some cabbage rolls or stuffed peppers or something, put them in the fridge, and was going to cook them the next day, then he had a couple for a midnight snack) he wasn’t feeling sick (at least not yet,) didn’t want an ambulance, just kind of wanted me to tell him what to do, ended up connecting him with poison control who basically said (in much kinder words) “you’re either going to get food poisoning and throw up for a couple days, or be perfectly fine, nothing you can really do either way, so suck it up.” He then wanted to know if he could get prophylactic antibiotics.
There was the little kid who got kool-aid in their eye
The one who wanted an ambulance for head lice
The person who was sitting on the toilet, saw a mouse run past, lost sight of it, and was absolutely certain that it crawled up their butt
Now that I’m thinking of all my medical calls, another thing that surprised me a little, is just how clueless a lot of people apparently are about even very basic medical questions. I don’t really expect people to have even basic first aid knowledge, but I get stuff like this every night
“Are they conscious?” No “Who’s that talking in the background?” That’s them. Unconscious people don’t talk.
“Are they breathing normally?” I don’t know. “Look at them, is their chest rising and falling?” Well they’re laying on their side. Really?
“What’s not normal about their breathing?” I don’t know “Are they breathing at all?” Yes “Ok, try to describe it to me” I don’t know “Is it shallow? Is it heavy? Are they gasping? Coughing? Making weird noises? …” I end up having to list just about everything that could possibly be wrong with someone’s breathing to figure out what’s going on
How incredibly stupid the customers are.
I guess anybody who works in any sort of customer service gets this, but I swear to god, 90% of our customers can’t even fucking read - which is really bad when you work for an online retailer and most of your interactions with them are through email.
How much time I spend not actually doing any work. I’m in IT as a computer technician and I work public sector.
A lot of the time, I’m kinda just sitting at my desk wasting time. If things aren’t broken and no projects currently need me to work on them, then yeah. Not much to do but wait for something to break.
Firefighters do basically the same thing
I often describe large chunks of my job as “Fire duty”. If I’ve done the initial bit right, I’ve got nothing to do for a large chunk. If I’m running around looking busy, it likely means I’ve screwed up somehow.
Where’s the best place for a fireman (fire person?)? It’s not out putting out fires. It’s sat, bored, in the fire station because there’s nothing left to do, and no fires to put out.
- Honestly, the most surprising thing is that most people hate it. I’m an accountant because I love numbers and organization, but didn’t want to go into engineering. Every company I’ve worked for has an accounting department of very sad people. They talk about how they wasted their lives going into this career, “but at least it’s a stable paycheck, y’know?”.
- The pay! I had a few different careers I was considering, but went with accounting because at the time it was one of the only careers with legitimate online degrees. I’ve been in the field 4 years now and make $100k. That puts me at the top 5% of household incomes where I live.
- The lack of actual work. I’m here for opening the books at the beginning of the month, closing at the end, and not much else. 75% of my days are a whole lotta nothing. At my current job we bring in video games on Fridays and play at the office.
Older me kinda wishes younger me had considered accounting, but younger me was hung up on your first point. Younger me didn’t want a boring job. Older me is like “I don’t have to love my job, I just have to not hate it. I can do the things I love during my time.” And a low key, low stress, high autonomy job kinda nails that. I’m kind of accounting adjacent (data analyst) and it’s working out so far, but there’s probably more salary stability in your career vs mine. The February to May crunch kinda scares me tho.
How toxic corporate environment is.
I had only worked for small businesses before. Obviously they had a lot of problems and I don’t miss a single thing. But now I’m in a huge IT company that outsourced part of its operation to the another huge IT company I’m actually in.
Both suck, but still I gotta learn to “play the game”.
