Someone Asked “What’s A Dirty Little Secret You Know Because You Work In The Industry?” (30 Answers)
Everyone has secrets, right from the average Joe to the biggest business tycoons. Each job comes with its own set of dirty little secrets. Although the public has a right to know what’s going on right under their noses, maybe some things are best left to the imagination.
It’s up to you to decide which dirty revelations you can stomach. A Reddit poster asked people to share the secrets of their industry that outsiders don’t know. Some of the responses were particularly juicy, while others would make you question your sanity.
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
There isn't a "larger than normal call volume." We just don't have enough staff.
Also, your call is not important to us. We actually want you to go away.
I own a sign shop, and I can tell you with 100% certainly that almost all businesses fail within the first year. If you think you are going to open a restaurant or a boutique, you are about to lose a bunch of money. Also, no matter what business you want to start, go talk to your local sign guy and ask how many businesses have been in that location and failed. Trust me, we know which locations are cursed.
I work in the medical field. This isn't really about my field exactly but an adjacent field: health insurance. There is a guy reviewing our notes looking for reasons to deny a claim. The guy reviewing generally has no clinical knowledge whatsoever, but they are looking for certain key works so they can stamp the "denial" on the claim. For this reason, I will omit certain things on the clinical notes if it isn't directly applicable to what I am treating because I know from experience that they will use that word as in indication that the proposed treatment is "inappropriate" and therefore denied.
Bored Panda compiled this list of insane industry secrets to give people a glimpse into the dark underbelly of different companies. The most common and often shocking tales are usually found in the food industry. Research has shown that this industry creates ultra-processed food, which accounts for nearly 25–60% of people’s daily energy intake.
Many food companies also produce meals that are injected with lots of preservatives. This type of food then lasts for an unnaturally long time. For example, a man called Hjortur Smarason did an experiment with a McDonald’s burger to see how long it would take to decompose. More than 10 years have passed, and it still hasn’t decayed!
I worked weddings for a few years, the fact that people would pay upwards of 100-150 dollars a plate is crazy. That food is not worth that much money. In fact the wedding industry as a whole is an insane cash grab and I never knew until I was in it.
Always wash your new clothing before you wear it. Even if it looks fresh and new. It’s been thrown on the floor, moved around a dusty warehouse, tried on by a sweaty post-gym person, and probably sat in a stinky, humid shipping container for 2 months. Plus, you wanna wash off all the starching / finishing products which make it look so “new.”.
I have to. I'm allergic to so many detergents that I always wash them first. Some of the detergents companies use bring me up in blisters, god knows what's in there.
IT staff even highly paid ones Google most problems. We are just better at it than you.
Given we also understand how to apply what we found but still.
We were taught a version of this in one of our first lectures doing Pharmacy at uni. You don't need to know everything, you just need to know where to look and how to phrase the question (and if relevant, how to evaluate the source's reliability).
You might assume that certain industries are off-limits or above the secrets mentioned in the list, but you’re wrong. It’s interesting to note that IT teams hold a lot more power than you ever could imagine. They can monitor most people’s search histories, messages, and all of the things they do online. It’s only their ethics that keep them from causing complete chaos.
According to David Gibson, VP of Varonis, around 50% of admins are often able to access data they shouldn’t without even being noticed. He also says that it’s not just the admins but even regular users who have access to far more data than they need to do their jobs.
I worked at a Marriott for several years. I learned the following:
Bed bugs happen more often than you would think. There's not much we can do about it. A hotel with frequent international traveler's is bound to end up with someone who brought something with them in their luggage every now and then(every now and again? I forget which is the proper saying). All we can do is quarantine and clean the room when the problem is discovered.
Those sheets are probably not as clean as you think.
People in the hallway can hear you having sex in your room. Or you watching porn if you don't wear headphones.
Always flip the bolt-lock on your door. People make mistakes in booking/blocking rooms. I can't count how many times a room has been double booked which leads to very awkward/angry interactions.
If you had something bad happen to you, or are angry at something you booked not working out, make a bit of a fuss. You can usually get free food/drinks or a free nights stay. Don't be a d**k about it, accidents happen and its often not the fault of the person you will be interacting with. But hotels bend over backwards in order to not get a bad review. At the hotel I worked at, every review lower than a 9 or 10 was considered a 0. So, get your money's worth.
Lastly, we can smell the smoke/weed coming from your room. We can also smell it when you leave. We might not be able to do anything about it when it happens. But, you will absolutely be charged for the 1-2 extra nights that the room is unavailable while we clean the stench out. Please stop smoking in the rooms. You're the only one who can't smell it. Everyone else can. We know you're lying. Stop being childish.
I worked at a Courtyard by Marriott. If people smoked in the rooms, we would charge them $250 and that was it.
This one is fairly well known, but I'm just confirming its truth as some one that used to work in a factory.
The brand you buy doesn't always matter. Sometimes it's all the same stuff that comes out of the same vats, but just labelled differently and sold at different price ranges.
I'm no longer shocked by the vast amount of software we all use on a daily basis that is rushed into production, shoddy, insecure, held together with spit and band-aids, etc, etc. I'm amazed everything hasn't just collapsed into dust already.
When it comes to health, wellness, and fitness, most people believe in everything that trainers and health freaks have to say. But, as it turns out, the fitness industry has been finding creative ways to lie to people. With supplements being a growing industry, many companies try to push their products.
Many fitness influencers are paid a lot of money to endorse supplements and health brands. But they secretly also take steroids to enhance their bodies. According to Christian Boeving, a fitness model, he has been using steroids since age 16 while also being paid to endorse brands like Hydroxycut and Nitro-Tech.
The education system in America is f****d because of contracted employees.
I work for an organization called Soliant. They own 4 different staffing companies in Special Education. We place special education teachers, speech pathologist, school psychologist, paraprofessionals and such.
We pay our employees 60% of what we charge the schools. On an hourly basis, it’s a bit more than what a government employee could make, and we keep that margin razor thin.
Our executives act like we are doing good work but we are pulling HUNDREDS on millions of dollars out of educator’s pockets and out of schools. We pay lobbying firms to keep it this way as special ed is federally funded.
We aren’t the only firm that does this, but our org is specifically bad because we have 4 sister companies that work together to drive prices up. Our parent company doesn’t care where which of our companies makes the money so we constantly bid up work against our own.
This is why I am so against these "public/private" partnerships the US has been pushing for decades. Rather than hire employees direct they subcontract staffing or projects. There's less oversight and less accountability.
I used to work in radio and we totally didn’t take caller 10. We maybe counted 1-6 and then sorted through the callers until we found an excited sounding voice that fit the target demographic.
I'm not sure I believe this one. I used to call into radio contests all the time. When you're trying to be a specific caller, they don't even let you talk when you call. I'm sitting there with the phone ringing, and someone comes on and before I can say anything, that someone says, "Sorry, you're caller number 7," then click--they hang up. They don't take time to talk to the people who aren't caller number 10. When you are the appropriate caller, they talk to you but it isn't live. What everyone hears on the radio was the call recorded a few minutes before.
- People cleaning their underwear in kettles is a huge problem in hotels. We find so many forgotten underpants in the kettels, that I can't even assume how many we didn't catch. Don't use them.
- If you want a nicer room in a hotel, book under Prof. Dr. /your name/. That makes you way more likely to be bumped up.
- When you're travelling privately, take a card from any hotel testing company with you and give it to the reception when you arrive to enter as the "address for your bill". Staff will be extra nice to you.
- If you want to steal towels from your hotel, don't steal them on the day you're leaving. Just put one in your suitcase day after day and throw the remaining towels on a stack on the floor. Housekeeping will most likely not count them because they don't have the time and put a full amount of new towels in your room. As long as a full set is there when you're leaving, you'll be fine.
- We keep records about who was nice and who wasn't in our system. If you were nice, you're more likely to be bumped up.
The kettle thing is frankly unbelievable. Why wouldn't they just use the bathroom sink? Anyway, boiling water in a kettle is going to sterilise it, so although it sounds gross it's not really very much of a health risk. Do make sure the kettle has been emptied before use though, and rinse it well even if it has.
As you can see in this list, all of the industries around us have something to hide. Either because it may interfere with their profits or the way people perceive the brands. Fashion is no less. Although it produces beautiful and artistic clothes, it’s also the second largest polluter of water globally. Fast fashion can end up using a quarter of the world’s carbon budget by 2050. They are also responsible for 2-8% of all global carbon emissions.
I worked in the Casino business, nothing is fixed or shady…you’re just going to lose over time. That’s why there are no clocks in a casino. Longer playing time is the goal. If you win big, they want to keep you there.
Mental health workers are often berated and treated poorly by their employer for having mental health issues.
Your loved one looks at peace in their casket but what you don’t know is they have plastic eye caps under their eyelids that are (sometimes, not always) glued shut. There are either wires or sutures holding their mouth together and usually some cotton and a bit of wax on the inside to form that subtle smile. There might be a styrofoam block under their back to make the positioning look more natural and comfortable, there might be styrofoam blocks under the padding to help hold their arms in position. Depending on the case, they’re probably wrapped in plastic garments underneath the clothing provided. There is a LOT of smoke and mirrors in preparation of a decedent.
Anyone who has seen a recently deceased person will know that there is nothing "natural" about the condition of the body. Muscles relax, color changes etc, and the bereaved often expect their loved ones to look like they are headed to the prom when they are prepared for viewing before the final "disposition". The expectations are often unrealistic and call for these measures to be taken.
You can actually have that done. Check out "body farms" - they're used for forensics training/research.
Load More Replies... 
I will never again go to a viewing. Trust me. You will remember how they looked in their coffin for the rest of your life. You will struggle to bring to mind how they looked in life. And if the makeup job is bad, you won't think of anything else. No more viewings.
This is why I won't do it. Thankfully it's rare in my culture.
Load More Replies...
Traditional Jewish burial. No embalming, simple cotton garment, simple wooden box or not. You are supposed to decompose, not stay pickled with chemicals, poisoning the environment, so your relatives can see you corpse dressed up to look like you are living. As for cremation - that is a huge waste of resources, as well as a having an enormous carbon footprint. We are mostly water, so you're paying to boil 16-17 gallons of water, which would evaporate anyways, and to burn stuff that would decompose. You're also spending energy on reducing calcium to dust. A waste of fuel, production of needless greenhouse gasses, all for something that will happen naturally if you don't shove toxic chemicals in the dead body.
So what? If you want to be able to see your loved one a last time, it's best if they can look as good as they can so you have a memory you can hold on to rather than one that haunts your dreams. The work this takes is an act of kindness and respect for both living and dead. It's not a dirty secret.
I completely agree plus it takes a lot for us to calculate the amount of formaldehyde needed. It needs to be enough to preserve the body in an acceptable state to be viewed but not enough to poison the earth for decades.
Load More Replies...
Plus their bodily fluids will have been removed and replaced with an embalming agent.
My funeral is preplanned and paid for. No embalming or that, just put in the fridge for a few days till the casket from Costco is delivered (Every bit as good and nice as what they try to sell you for thousands more). No open casket (people saw me enough when I was alive).The plot is already paid for so graveside service and done! Takes a big load off the family and it's infinitely cheaper.
I just want my remains to be scattered. Not cremated, just scattered...
I like the Zoroastrian approach, which is designed to avoid polluting the soil, water, or air. (There was a great episode about it on Radio Lab.) Apparently one of the few ways to destroy the pathogens in a corpse is to run them through the digestive tract of a vulture. So it turns out vultures are ecologically critical, destroying pathogens that would otherwise mess up all sorts of critters. Look up Tower of Silence.
So glad I’m Jewish! Put me in a plain, pine box, don’t show anyone, and no chemicals. Just let nature do its thing!
I'd prefer aquamation over ground burial or cremation ANY day. No smoke into the air, no ashes, just water used to melt me away.
My sister passed away suddenly a month ago and had a viewing the day before her funeral. Looking at her bare arms you could see she had passed away, but her face looked like she was just laying there asleep, I was expecting her to open her eyes. I think some funeral homes can do a better job than others with this process.
I suppose all that is to make the bereaved less unhappy and as such I applaud it. Luckily in my family cremation is the norm.
It always amuses/irritates me when you see someone die on TV and they just gently close the eyes of the corpse. That doesn't work, they just open again. Muscles tend to stay in whatever position they were in at the moment of death.
Not burial or cremation -- both are horrible waste and poisoning of the earth and all who live on it.
Prob unusual, but the funeral director I used for my mother actually told me a lot of this, I guess so I'd be aware of what would happen in the process
The meat industry has always been under the scanner for different reasons, whether it be the inhumane treatment of animals or the terrible conditions they are kept in. But another shocking fact about this industry is that meat is often injected with saline solution to make it look juicer and plumper.
According to Beck & Bulow: “Studies have shown that injected saline can account for the weight of anywhere from 15-30% of the chicken meat you buy.” What’s even more concerning is that the meat can be called organic as long as the injected saline is considered natural.
Work in large scale construction. Large developers effectively borrow on the credit of all of the smaller players who are their subcontractors. You have billion dollar companies asking smaller companies to pay for them with a promise to pay later. The larger the developer, the slower the process is to get paid. If a project goes bust, it's these small guys that get hit because all of the developers have LLC's that are project specific. No assets to speak of.
When you send your food back to the kitchen...we fix/remake it and make it right and typically feel bad if it's our mistake. If it's the server's mistake who put it in the ticket, it's okay if she makes up with it with a round of ice waters, sodas or later on beer. If the customer didn't understand that a BLT had bacon on it, we still fix it, but call you an idiot.
Side note...servers talking to the kitchen will blame the customers ("They said then knew it had bacon in it!"). Servers talking to the customers blame the kitchen ("Ugh, I told the chef no bacon! I aplogize...") We don't care, you work for tips, we get paid either way. Here's your ~~B~~LT.
Engagement ring business here! Oh so many. Most natural diamonds have been in like 2-3 rings before they end up in yours. Rings are made with more fragile designs than they used to be, because after you get tired of it breaking/needing repairs all the time you will buy a new ring, thus giving us more $$$. This is also why the trends nowadays lean towards dainty & minimalistic with a massive stone, bc it's a ticking time bomb. This is also why a lot of jewelry stores won't stop you from getting stones that are too soft for daily wear (looking at you, opal). The largest diamond distributor is Walmart. Diamonds that jewelry suppliers discard for being "ugly" end up on JamesAllen and Brilliant Earth. Platinum isn't necessarily a better metal than gold it actually has just as many (but very different) flaws. We sell it like it's better bc it's much more expensive. It's against the law for a jewelry store to say something is made of diamonds & gold if it's not, but these laws do not apply to etsy sellers. The average woman's ring size is a 6, so we sell rings at a 6.5-7 so we can say "oh wow you're smaller than average teehee". The people who beat up their rings the most are nurses, teachers, and office workers.
I hate diamonds! Most screwed up (and successful) marketing campaign in history!
What all these industries seem to have in common is that they share a portion of information with the public, and the rest is kept hidden for better PR. Unfortunately for them, their workers don’t feel the need to keep any of these secrets hidden any longer.
This post received 16k upvotes and 15k comments with people sharing the nastiest and most interesting hidden gems from the industry they work in. What’s something that you’ve come across in your industry that you feel the public needs to know? Spill the beans in the comments!
[Medicaments] don't turn into poison the second they expire - most medications are going to be effective for YEARS after they expire. Manufacturers put expiry dates on their stuff to cover their assets - they have to garuntee 95% effectiveness until that date. As long as it isn't an antiviral or antibiotic, you can probably use it for years after it expires with no issues.
Doctors often end up collecting random medication related to their specialisation. The odd time I've been staying with my parents and have forgotten my meds (very rare) mum has scrounged up some of her random collection for me, some of which has been 12+ years out of date. Antibiotics/virals no, liquid meds no (except for gaviscon/peptobismol, nothing will happen to that), but tablets/capsules should be stable enough for years. They certainly won't do you harm.
As a cybersecurity consultant I can tell you many, many companies I have worked with are a “when” they are hacked, not a “if” they are hacked.
Some orgs have people in charge of cybersecurity that barely know how basic protocols and technologies work.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car buys their cars straight from the manufacturers at a price lower than dealerships get. After they rent them for a year, they sell them to the public at a price higher than they originally paid.
It's called a fleet discount. Fleet cars are bought in huge lots (100+ in many cases), and their status as fleet vehicles affects their value on insurance claims for a fair few years after their sale to the public. Why? Because fleet vehicles are usually driven a lot of miles in the year they're used as rentals and usually get subpar maintenance.
Don't want to name names but I used to refurbish phones for a living. The industry is very green-washed, and a lot of the repairs were done shoddily to sell as many phones as possible. I only buy new phones or outlet phones that only have box damage instead of any grade B,C, D phone now. Even grade A can have everything changed to look new but it's actually worse than B or lower.
Everyone knows gyms are dirty, but no one knows *HOW* dirty.
When you finish a workout, scrub your hands with hot soapy water. Get between your fingers, under your nails, your palms, as if you’ve been touching raw chicken.
Printers aren’t smart enough to know the amount of ink / toner is left in the cartridge. They guess based on usage percentages and only know when they are empty. “Low toner” doesn’t mean replacement, it means have one on hand.
I have a Masters degree in Exercise Science and have worked in the industry for 25 years. 90% of what trainers say and do is fluff and just used to keep you interested and make it sound like they are worth their price.
The real reason to hire a trainer is so you're accountable and someone is pushing you to work out
Medical debt under $500 doesnt affect your credit score.
If You can also ignore a debt for 7 years. Don’t acknowledge that it’s yours, don’t make a payment, don’t even answer the call from collections. That falls off eventually as well.
Not hard really, just don’t answer unknown numbers. Never answer the phone with “this is (your name)”
Hello?
I’m calling to speak with so/so.
Who is this and what are you calling about?
If they decline to give you that info, hang up. Block the number.
Medical debt under $500? That's how much my hospital charges for a Tylenol.
Stagehand here: most famous musicians are **TOTAL DOUCHEBAGS** back / off stage. I've worked with a few good apples, and they're the ones that have been touring for decades usually.
Depends, mate of mine did monitors for a band supporting Henry Rollins on tour, he told all the support and their crew to never talk to him for any reason. Everyone thought he was a bit of a douche but at the end of the tour he went round, gave everyone a bottle of JD and thanked them for respecting his wishes. He just doesn't want to be disturbed.
I’m in insurance
If you call to request an estimate for a claim, they will count it as a 0 dollar claim on your file when they deem the damage not enough to repair. That means when another company pulls your information it will not only impact your future rates, but might make you ineligible for future policies
Don’t ever call insurance for an estimate first, get a third party inspector to tell you whether you should file with insurance.
Will writer in the UK here. If you have £325k in assets or less, and you don't intend to exclude anyone from your will, you need a bog standard will. You don't need a solicitor to write it, and if it costs you more than £150+vat then it's a rip off. It takes me about an hours worth of work to gather information and write that will.
I would recommend getting power of attorney though. It's a pain in the a*s if you lose capacity without it!!! .
I am working at a sports club with way over 2000 members and I can tell you, you might sign some paper about data security and how we handle data, but believe me, your data will go places you dont want it to go.
And that differs from other applications just how? Folks accuse those of us over 50 of being paranoid about data sharing. Every time I see or hear about a breech of Sally and Bill's Necktie Shop exposing the personal data of of the Kids at Play preschool place across the country I laugh. We have no idea about the amount of data sharing and just how badly it's safeguarded.
Note: this post originally had 43 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
I work in tourism. At the end of the day "bull session", we often compare notes for the 'stupid question of the day'. Don't be that guy. Conversely, when WE travel, we're all trying really hard NOT to be 'that guy'.
Any examples of the stupid question of the day? I'm intrigued!
Load More Replies...
I've seen life insurance companies adjust client birth dates to get the best rates. I've seen mortgage companies give loans to those who can't possibly pay them back. I've seen more abuse in p0rn than I care to remember. I worked in many other industries but those are the standouts.
There are fewer printer companies than names. You will often see a printer with a different case and name but the engine or inner workings are from. Another brand. Example smalll desktop Konica minolta b&w printers are Lexmark printers Dell laser printers were also lLexmark. Canon used to make (they still may be) making Hp laser printers.
And somehow Trump still lost money and went backrupt with a Casino. Great business man...
I work in tourism. At the end of the day "bull session", we often compare notes for the 'stupid question of the day'. Don't be that guy. Conversely, when WE travel, we're all trying really hard NOT to be 'that guy'.
Any examples of the stupid question of the day? I'm intrigued!
Load More Replies... I've seen life insurance companies adjust client birth dates to get the best rates. I've seen mortgage companies give loans to those who can't possibly pay them back. I've seen more abuse in p0rn than I care to remember. I worked in many other industries but those are the standouts.
There are fewer printer companies than names. You will often see a printer with a different case and name but the engine or inner workings are from. Another brand. Example smalll desktop Konica minolta b&w printers are Lexmark printers Dell laser printers were also lLexmark. Canon used to make (they still may be) making Hp laser printers.
And somehow Trump still lost money and went backrupt with a Casino. Great business man...
