Dirty secret about an industry that you have worked in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sibley Drs, nurses, staff are gossips. It is not uncommon to hear Drs trash patients or their colleagues. Major unprofessional culture.

Oh, I can back this one up. It's part of why I avoided specific pediatricians when my kids needed one. Lots of gossip about the kids and their parents.

Yes. A relative works there and is a total busybody. Talks to me about work people and I don't even know who they are!

That would be HIPAA violation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sibley Drs, nurses, staff are gossips. It is not uncommon to hear Drs trash patients or their colleagues. Major unprofessional culture.

Oh, I can back this one up. It's part of why I avoided specific pediatricians when my kids needed one. Lots of gossip about the kids and their parents.

Yes. A relative works there and is a total busybody. Talks to me about work people and I don't even know who they are!

That would be HIPAA violation

Not exactly. In my case I'm referring to talking about non-patients. Seems the environment there tends toward a more chatty work culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a zookeeper in many zoos, and you would not believe the amount of animal mistreatment and neglect. I finally had to quit when animals were being euthanized for reasons like "it's the end of our shift and we don't want to deal with this, just put it down and lets go home". A lot of people who works in zoos really don't like their animals all that much, and they HATE the public.

Zoos also don't do nearly as much for wildlife conservation as they lead you to believe. 99+% of animals bred in zoos go live in other zoos. Only a handful of facilities actually release animals back into the wild. But they make it appear like they are saving all these endangered species to raise $$.

I don't know much about zoos. I would think the people who have the authority to put an animal down would at least be a veterinary technician of some sort right? It's not the people who clean the cages or a keeper? I wouldn't think its a field you'd go into if you didn't love them - vet degrees are expensive and I read that the suicide rates are high.

Also whats the deal with the escaped bobcat last month?

Yes, vets are the ones who euthanize animals. I've seen vets euthanize them because it was the end of the day and they wanted to go home. I've also seen keepers/curators tell vets that certain animals were sicker than they actually were to get them euthanized. The big, personable animals (big cats, elephants, apes) get rock star medical treatment. Smaller animals often don't. The public will notice if a lion dies, they don't notice if a small monkey or a bird does. Euthanasia is also sometimes used to control population size, especially with hoofstock.

A lot of vets are fantastic, but some aren't. Kind of like doctors- some got into the field because they actually care about people and want to help them. Others do it for money/prestige/etc.

Ha, animals escape all the time. Sometimes it's due to human error- leaving a door open, not checking enclosures regularly for holes. Sometimes it's because animals have nothing to do all day but figure out ways to get out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is probably not a secret BUT I worked in a retail store and we all pretty much had sex all over the place in there.

+1 in restaurants. Also, lots of drinking & drugs.

Journalism--probably 50% of the stories you read are advertisements in disguise.

Child care--oh, Lord. Let's just say parents only see a TINY sliver of what goes on.

I know someone that worked at a Montessori and I kid you not she's the dumbest person I know. Very sweet and means well but I mean DIM. We are talking lacking both intelligence and common sense. Cannot spell common words. Scary that she was an assistant teacher. She worked for a long time at a school out-of-state and could not keep a job at the schools here so at least she was weeded out. Bless her heart.

She may not be smart but, not knowing how to spell even common words is not a sign to me. Some brains are better spellers is all.

[Anonymous]

I love this post but I'm pretty bored by the posts related to teaching. It's an old story and too often the subject of posts on all forums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sibley Drs, nurses, staff are gossips. It is not uncommon to hear Drs trash patients or their colleagues. Major unprofessional culture.

Oh, I can back this one up. It's part of why I avoided specific pediatricians when my kids needed one. Lots of gossip about the kids and their parents.

Yes. A relative works there and is a total busybody. Talks to me about work people and I don't even know who they are!

That would be HIPAA violation

Not exactly. In my case I'm referring to talking about non-patients. Seems the environment there tends toward a more chatty work culture.

You have busy bodies and chatty nurses and gossip in any office environment. Doctors and nurses are no exception.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College professors are some of the least talented ego-inflated hacks around, administrators are evil, & HR is stupid.

But I don't think that's a dirty secret.

It's also not true. I did my PhD from Harvard. Only the best in my class (not me) had the chance to go on to faculty positions. One of them spent ten years as a postdoc. The ones who made it are some of the most brilliant people in the world and also the most dedicated. If they have an ego, it's because they have earned the right to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For many years I worked in the Entertainment Industry - TV and film. There are too many secrets and they aren't worth spilling on this forum. i wouldn't even tell them if you were offering money.

I expect most people in truly interesting industries would feel the same.

+1

I have heard this from my California friends.Juicy stuff about who does what.

Yawn, secrets of the entertainment industry have been spilled all over the internet.

[Anonymous]

Spent years in non-profit fundraising. Yep, that 18% overhead is BS. So much of our mailings were classified as "educational" or "communication." I'd represent the organization at things like CFC events and it would be coded as "public outreach."

I hated the acquisition mailings we did; often they would include language like "renew your membership now!" or "membership has expired!" And these were people who had never donated to the organization before. It preyed on them. Though these mailings were not my responsibility, it always made me feel dirty when I saw them.

Most people in fundraising are ass-kissing idiots. That goes double for major gift officers. Just dumb. Not a single original thought in their heads and zero capacity for critical thinking. And because they spend so much time fawning over rich, self-important people and massaging those considerable egos, they think they too are incredibly important and expect everyone else to fawn over them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sibley Drs, nurses, staff are gossips. It is not uncommon to hear Drs trash patients or their colleagues. Major unprofessional culture.

Oh, I can back this one up. It's part of why I avoided specific pediatricians when my kids needed one. Lots of gossip about the kids and their parents.

Yes. A relative works there and is a total busybody. Talks to me about work people and I don't even know who they are!

That would be HIPAA violation

Not exactly. In my case I'm referring to talking about non-patients. Seems the environment there tends toward a more chatty work culture.

Between medical "professionals", HIPAA is a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College professors are some of the least talented ego-inflated hacks around, administrators are evil, & HR is stupid.

But I don't think that's a dirty secret.

It's also not true. I did my PhD from Harvard. Only the best in my class (not me) had the chance to go on to faculty positions. One of them spent ten years as a postdoc. The ones who made it are some of the most brilliant people in the world and also the most dedicated. If they have an ego, it's because they have earned the right to.

In my field, the ones who made it (attained faculty positions) were just the ones who were willing to put up with the BS for the longest. They weren't actually the smartest. The smartest people I met in grad school and during my postdoc all left science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College professors are some of the least talented ego-inflated hacks around, administrators are evil, & HR is stupid.

But I don't think that's a dirty secret.

It's also not true. I did my PhD from Harvard. Only the best in my class (not me) had the chance to go on to faculty positions. One of them spent ten years as a postdoc. The ones who made it are some of the most brilliant people in the world and also the most dedicated. If they have an ego, it's because they have earned the right to.

In my field, the ones who made it (attained faculty positions) were just the ones who were willing to put up with the BS for the longest. They weren't actually the smartest. The smartest people I met in grad school and during my postdoc all left science.

+1. The professors in my field were also (not so) closet racists.

[Anonymous]

Mental health worker - we all talk about all the interesting patients and their families all day long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Nonsense like that, by the way, is why teachers are leaving the profession in record numbers.

I don't understand why you'd work at a preschool whose philosophy you didn't agree with. There are schools that aren't like this--

Because I like working with the children. Because I like some of my coworkers. Because I love my room. Because I get paid very well. Because of the health insurance. There are lots of reasons why people work in places whose philosophies they disagree with.

Also, I've worked in a number of preschools. The only ones I've worked in that didn't have an obsessive assessment culture are the ones that weren't part of the public school system, which meant the pay was very, very, very low. Been there, done that, not going back.

O.k. you might check off the box that a kid CAN hold a 3" ball with his/her non-dominate hand (without really knowing if that is true or not). But obviously you can't give every kid the exact same assessment. Do you ever check off the NO the kid CAN NOT hold a 3"ball box on a kid (without knowing if that is really true or not)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Nonsense like that, by the way, is why teachers are leaving the profession in record numbers.

I don't understand why you'd work at a preschool whose philosophy you didn't agree with. There are schools that aren't like this--

Because I like working with the children. Because I like some of my coworkers. Because I love my room. Because I get paid very well. Because of the health insurance. There are lots of reasons why people work in places whose philosophies they disagree with.

Also, I've worked in a number of preschools. The only ones I've worked in that didn't have an obsessive assessment culture are the ones that weren't part of the public school system, which meant the pay was very, very, very low. Been there, done that, not going back.

O.k. you might check off the box that a kid CAN hold a 3" ball with his/her non-dominate hand (without really knowing if that is true or not). But obviously you can't give every kid the exact same assessment. Do you ever check off the NO the kid CAN NOT hold a 3"ball box on a kid (without knowing if that is really true or not)?

I do! They tell us we're supposed to be more conservative and not estimate up if we don't see something, but then they also tell us that the kids' scores are supposed to be improving over time, and that kids should ideally be at the 3 mark (1-3 scale) before moving onto kindergarten. This leads to lots / most / all teachers giving 1s at the start of the year, 2s in the middle, and 3s at the end, no matter what the kids are doing. Why? Because our annual evaluations are impacted by the kids' scores (what could possibly be a bad idea in that?). Oh, and there's a chance our pay will also be tied to kids' scores soon. It's a horror show.

Of course, there are lots of questions that most kids won't be anywhere close to because they aren't developmentally appropriate (e.g., questions on whether children explore topics in depth by conducting their own research on the Internet...in preschool). Meanwhile, I'm working on silly things like teaching kids to speak instead of just stare at me when other kids take their toys.