Job secrets
Nothing like a glass of the vinolicious after a long day of teaching.
Zumba was outta control, I had a huge stretch class (over 40 ladies stretching!) and pool was surprisingly fun. They liked my playlist, which always helps things along, even when the particular class isn’t my forte.
Afternoon snacks:
(Broccoli slaw with hummus, balsamic and chicken, Sun Warrior in a shaker. After pool, it’s a frenzy to change for my next class, so the protein powder was something I could take with me. I mixed the protein powder with the orange sports drink we have, and it was pretty amazing)
When I got home, I fed and snuggled with miss Liv while madre and nana were putting the finishing touches on dinner.
Tri-tip steak, beans, salsa, salad and gorgeous grilled tilapia
Even though I had some crackers and an egg burrito a few minutes before, I still went back for seconds. It was perfection,
It’s been such a wonderful treat to eat meals cooked by other people (doesn’t food always taste better when someone else makes it?), and to be surrounded by family this past week. I’m going to be so bummed when my aunt, uncle and cousins go back to Key West- I love a full house. The exciting news is that we’ll be making a little family trip to Las Vegas next week. Liv’s first plane ride! Pray for me, haha.
Today, I was talking with one of my good friends at work and we were going over some secrets about our past jobs: little random things that no one really knows.
Here are some random tidbits about my current teaching job:
-One of the things we have to do for guests is offer and get them water, whether we’re in the weight room or assisting classes. This is NBD, but then of course you get the people who are like, “no thanks, but more ice, about 30% lemonade, 10% tea and 60% sports drink. That’s 60% sports drink, a little over half.” And then I punch them in the face in my mind. In reality, I happily take the bottle and make sure those ratios are dang perfect.
-We’re surrounded by treats, almost everyday. Sometimes I benefit from a little sugar buzz before teaching intense classes, but other times, I’ll just feel sick if I have more than a few bites. Today I was surprised to see that there were no treats in sight, and then cookies appeared. And then I ate one.
-Our Speedo swimsuits have a zipper in the back, and I haven’t met anyone yet that can contort their body to zip their own suit. We’re always running around zipping each other, but if no one is in the locker room, you spend your walk to the pool with one arm twisted up your back trying to grab said zipper. I’ve taught with mine half zipped, praying my hair will cover it.
Here’s something crazy about the Pilot’s job, that I didn’t know about until we’d been dating for a while and he showed me this video:
G-LOC = G-force Induced Loss of Consciousness, which can usually affect fighter pilots and astronauts. According to Wiki knows all:
Under increasing positive g-force, blood in the body will tend to move from the head toward the feet. For higher intensity or longer duration, this can manifest progressively as:
- Greyout – a loss of color vision
- Tunnel vision – loss of peripheral vision, retaining only the center vision
- Blackout – a complete loss of vision but retaining consciousness.
- G-LOC – where consciousness is lost.
As part of his pilot training, Tom had to go into one of the machines in the above video and withstand an intense amount of Gs, so he knew what to do and what it felt like if it ever started to happen in his jet. I’ve actually seen the video of the Pilot’s G-LOC from training school- crazy ish right there. A little more exciting than my water bottle ratios, but I do what I can, haha 😉
Spill one secret or little-known fact about your job! I won’t tell.
Hope you have a great night and I’ll see ya on TABATA THURSDAY. Get ready for it!
xoxo
Gina
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I worked in a group home for teenage mothers until it closed down a month ago. A lot of the girls were 15-16 years old, with criminal backgrounds and little to no family support.
Little known secret? Some of those girls were some of the best mothers I’ve ever seen in my life – Pretty much the definition of “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.”
Thanks for sharing that! I bet it meant so much to those young moms to hear this.
i loved reading this
I’m a nursing student and work as a nursing attendant at a hospital. Some people think the hospital is a hotel and we are there to cater to only them.
I work in a pretty corporate environment (PR) with a lot of attractive young people. We can IM internally…my girlfriend and I talk about who is best and worst dressed everyday!
I’m not spilling. They are secrets for a reason 🙂
I started a Bathroom Confessional white board in the single stall ladies bathroom!
We write secrets and confessions! It has really got people buzzing!
No job secrets to spill, except maybe that working at a library isn’t actually as fun as it sounds. (I never understood why my mom, and English major, said she hated working at a college library until I followed in her footsteps.)
But I’m hoping you will tell us about your schweaty hair secrets! I’m seriously struggling to find a balance between being able to was every 2-3 days but still getting my sweat on before work in the mornings. You hinted that you had some tricks figured out, could you share?
Caroline, Suave Dry Shampoo is amazing! I have tried all different types of dry shampoo, but this one seems to work the best! I get so many compliments on my dirtiest hair day now 😉
I’m definitely with Melodie…Dry Shampoo all the way! I workout 6-7 days/week and have cut down to washing 3-4 times a week. It took trying a couple of brands to find the one that worked best for my hair, so don’t get discouraged in trying to find the right one. I have tried the more expensive brands (Oscar Blandi, Psssssst, Batiste) and the drugstore brands (Tresame, Dove, Suave) and I personally prefer Batiste. They make different colors so you can find one to match your hair color and my boyfriend always comments that my hair smells good…that doesn’t even happen on days I wash my hair! LOL!
i should have it up next week! (i keep saying that, but for real)
I work at a children’s museum (probably similar to the one you visited!), and you wouldn’t BELIEVE the things people say in front of their children. On Saturday, staff-members were called “devil woman”, told to go to hell, and that “the museum could suck (a guest’s) you-know-what” – all because they were told that a meet-and-greet with a COMIC BOOK CHARACTER was full. Crazy.
I’m an athletic trainer and after we get done taking care of our athletes injuries- if they are at all cool or unique we beg for permission to take pictures of it for “educational purposes” when really its just so we can show fellow ATC’s for shock and awh value.
I work at a hotel running the children program and I can’t tell you how many times during the summer months we find lost children. It’s crazy! The worst is when the parents leave there little kids all alone at the hotel so they can go shopping at the outlets which is over an HOUR away!!! It boggles my mind, we just make sure they are safe, happy, and not scared until we can figure out what is going on. I tell my staff it’s more how NOT to be a parent then ever how to be a good parent.
I work at a bookstore, and since it is a “come and hang out” kinda place you can get some weird characters in there. I’ve had people expect me to follow them around the store for hours and tell them about each and every book. Sometimes they’ll even just sit in the cafe and have me fetch their books for them (one at a time, instead of telling me the whole list before I leave on the first run).
Don’t get me wrong I love talking with these people they make me laugh, but it’s a little strange.
professors close the door to their offices/labs to hide from you. knocking harder and louder will not help you…we will just type softer b/c we have to find time to WRITE just like one has to find time to workout.
this cracked me up
Haha! I love the- ‘there were no treats, then cookies appeared. Then I ate one’ 😛 Well, I don’t wear shoes at my job and if it’s cold usually walk around in socks- I take them off when I leave and re-wear them haha!
on my last OT placement in acute care, i learned that OTs and PTs don’t really care if the (old) men have underwear on under their hospital gowns when doing range of motion exercises. ohhh the indecencies i have seen assisting at the end of the bed.
Little known secret: If I don’t feel like “working”, I open up a research book or report and pretend that I’m looking something up.
I am finishing up my Master’s in Biology so my ‘job’ is studying animal behavior. In particular I work with rattlesnakes and I guess the biggest secret is that some rattlesnake species are social, which is what I’m working on documenting. I think when most people picture what life as a biologist would be like they see someone wearing khakis and sitting in a forest somewhere observing animals or maybe hanging out with chimps like Jane Goodall. Yeah, I do get to hang out with my snakes, but I don’t wear khakis and I spend most of my time (~75%?) at my computer, ugh. Biology is a ton of math of writing, but I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
And I never, NEVER, wear a lab coat.
Haha – I’m a biochemistry PhD candidate, and I do wear a lab coat – but you are totally right, I spend a ton of time in front of my computer! (That might explain how I never miss one of Gina’s posts!). I think people have a lot of misconceptions about scientists as people. Some of the sterotypes are sort of true (most people in my field are sort of introverted for example) but I wear makeup, nice clothes (when I’m not in lab) and can carry on a conversation with a non-scientist. Those three things seem to shock people!
Believe it or not, so is nutrition postgrad. Lots. of. maths. And here I thought it would be about, oh I don’t know.. food?
Have to say Psychology is as well!! Less working through the mind and people’s motivations/thought patterns, more which maths test is the right one to use. GAH! Least it gives me something to work through in my head when I am working out!
The one secret people are always suprised about when I mention I’m becoming a Psychologist? The fact that I CAN’T read their minds. Shocker!
I don’t have a secret but I can zip my speedo suit! Or at least I could when I was 18. I was a competitive swimmer and the secret is to zip it as far from the bottom up as you can then to come from the side up if that makes sense! lol…I think I might be uber flexible though so maybe that is why!
I work in the government/health insurance industry, and I think our biggest secret is that…if you are healthy, sorry, but you aren’t getting your money’s worth! Your monthly premiums pay for the sickest of the bunch. But that’s why it is insurance right–because one day when you are finally the sickest of the bunch, it’ll be there for you!
Oh and one more other secret: old people are REALLY EXPENSIVE and, as a population, REALLY SICK. It is hard to hear, especially when you think about it for your own grandparents, but old people are costing this nation billions and billions of dollars. It boggles my mind to think of the money we spend on them, and I don’t think all of us young people are going to get the same benefits when we are older (despite funding them now).
Didn’t mean to turn this into a political rant! Reading others’ responses was fun.
At my former employer I was on a health/wellness committee — we were informed by HR that 80% of the insurnace claims were made up of 10% of company’s workforce. Sad. Sad. Sad.
I worked at a pharmacy for 10 years… Oh, the secrets I could spill! One of my favorites- One guy pitched a fit because we told him it would be about 5 minutes to refill his nasal spray prescription (which we had recently returned to stock because he didn’t pick it up TWO WEEKS after he originally asked for it)- he flipped out, yelling “It’s JUST A BOX! Why does it take FIVE MINUTES to pick up a BOX and put it in a bag?!?!” I was really tempted to hand him a box of anal suppositories and when he returns complaining we gave him the wrong medication say “Oh, I’m SORRY… We didn’t want to make you wait by making sure we were giving you the RIGHT box.” I wish people understood that pharmacists don’t go to school for SIX YEARS just to learn how to pick up boxes/bottles and place them in bags…
I’m a pharmacist…and I couldn’t agree more. The other secret I would share is that the pharmacy/pharmacist/pharmacy technician has no say in what your copay is. We process the claim, which means we electronically send your prescription information to your insurance company and they come back and tell us how much to charge you.
I’m a barista at starbucks..
my secret is that I give decaf to the “problem” customers.
suckers!
Hahah love this!
haha i wish i could “like” this
So cruel, but I love it haha
that’s awful!!!!
I work at a coffee shop as well; I feel like us baristas have a lot of secrets! Hahah- if you specify your drink to the point where it’s ridiculous (think medium latte in a large cup with mixed milks (skim & 2% to make 1%), half a splenda, half an equal, a teaspoon of honey and one half scoop of dark chocolate chips) we really dislike you. You’d be surprised at how many people make such crazy requests though!
aaand just for that, I will NEVER be a problem customer. That would be horrible!!!
i know someone else who works at starbucks and does the same thing! she also always gives pregnant women decaf, no matter what
While you spend hundreds of hours on conference calls discussing what you’d like to see in this report, we’ve already written it. 🙂
one of my little “secrets” is that every year, at least once a summer, my boyfriend and I will play hooky and go do something sweet… i look forward to it every time!
I work at the student stores of my university and a secret we keep from customers is that when they ask if everything we have is out, we tell them it is even though we probably have more stock downstairs that we just don’t want to go down and get. Granted, the stock we keep on site is limited and would be close to impossible to track down, but we never bother, hehe. 🙂
I work at a technical college and “marks meetings” are our favourite part of the year. We all get together and discuss the marks and if a student is on the border of a pass/fail every single thing they have ever done comes in to play. Sometimes, it’s nice to get a little revenge on those students who act like we’re waiting THEIR time by trying to teach them.
when i hear a song i like at work, i hide in a special corner and listen to it. also i text in the bathroom haha
My company is internationally known, and has a VERY professional outward image. The truth is, that unless we have visitors coming to the office, 90% of us wear jeans and flip-flops to work every day – even the corporate execs!
that is AWESOME
My secrets are pretty much the same as yours…
WHenever someone comes to one of my Zumba classes for the first time proudly sporting their Zumbawear (so that everyone knows they take ZUmba classes elsewhere), I will size them up in the first couple minutes of the warm-up. If they seem happy and like they are having fun with the class I leave them be. However, if they appear to have an “air” about them like they think they are a Zumba know-it-all I will make it my mission to prove to them otherwise. I will haul out my most difficult routines (aerobic wise and choreography wise) and it make my evil little heart smile to see them struggle.
The other night I got an email from someone and the subject was “RUMBA” the body of the email consisted of “What time does your class start?” I deleted it without replying. If you don’t know what type of class I teach then I really just can’t be bothered…
I work for a police department as a dispatcher. I work 12 hour night shifts with guys who by all accounts look intimidating. I think of the times when I was pulled over before I worked here and I was SO nervous being around the police. Reality? Yes, they can bring the smack down but they are all goobers. Jamming out to dubstep before they pull you over. Arresting each other for fun. Taping each other to stuff. Dancing down hallways singing “my girl”. Blaring “I like big butts” on their PA system in the PD parking lot.
I work on a mental health ward in the UK:
Those ‘crazy patients’ people see on TV/avoid/think should be ‘locked up forever’? Yeah, 9/10 they’re normal people who’ve just had a reallly bad hand in life.
The staff are just as ‘weird’. If not more so. (I regularly get scolded by my patients for singing in public).
Everyone appreciates a good cup of coffee 🙂
I’m a programmer and I spend maybe 1% of my time actually writing code. About half of my time is spent figuring out, how does this work, why doesn’t this work, how should this work. About 30% is arguing with/laughing with people during meetings. The rest is doing documentation. You can’t breathe without documenting it.
Oh, and then there was our strike duty training where we learned how to climb telephone polls. <– not what I thought I was be doing at all
I am a teaching assistant at my college, and one of our ‘secrets’ is when we grade, we always call out terrible answers and try to find the worst ones to make fun of (so mean). But, when I grade homework, I would rather give you a 100 then find all of your mistakes
I work in a grocery store and do a bit of everything. Being a cashier, there are a few secrets I could tell… but what shocks me the most is when I see people who don’t put bags around there produce items. They think they are only putting it down for a moment and then taking it home but whatever you do, USE.THE.BAGS!!! I’ve seen too many unpleasant things that even lysol can’t clean. So many germs.
Please, please, please share your recipe for your broccoli slaw! It looks delish!