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1week left
33 Employees Reveal The Dark, Dirty Truths About Their Industries That Are Usually Hidden
Interview With Expert
It’s funny how we are so naive before getting experience in any industry, but once we start working, all the dirty secrets come tumbling out. What’s more surprising is how normalized these things are at work, because apart from the newbies, nobody is really bothered about them.
No matter which field you work in, all of them have such nasty little secrets. So, when a Reddit user asked employees to spill the tea about their industry, they didn’t hold back. From bizarre to shocking, we have compiled the best ones for you. Just scroll down to check them out!
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Aviation. Mental issues will invalidate your licence. But disclosing mental issues is voluntary. So guess what. Zero people in aviation have mental issues.
RELATED:
#2
Work in call center software administration. When they say the call is being recorded, they mean even on hold, you are being recorded. The software picks up everything you say and a lot of what anyone in the background may say. Just cuz you can't hear us doesn't mean we don't hear you .
LizzieBoredom 1 hour ago (edited)
Good, because when I'm on hold for 20 minutes is when I'm giving the most honest assessment of your company.
As you scroll through the list, you may wonder how some of these highly unethical things get so normalized. Well, to know more about it, Bored Panda got in touch with Apoorva Kale, an industrial and organizational psychology practitioner. She believes that most of this stuff doesn't always start out that way.
"It usually begins as small shortcuts taken to hit deadlines, please clients, or stay competitive. When those shortcuts get rewarded, or at least ignored, they slowly become 'normal.' People look around, see everyone else doing it, and assume that’s just how the industry works," she added.
As per her, it’s not that workers lose their morals; rather, it’s that the system quietly trains them to push those morals aside to survive.
#4
Grocery store: the amount of food waste is *unfathomable*. We have the usual- out of date, opened and possibly contaminated by a customer, left out of refrigeration/out of temp by a customer somewhere in the store. The big one, though, is presentation. Damaged boxes with perfectly-sealed inner plastic are discarded rather than marked down. I once disposed of 140+lbs of ground turkey because it was darker than the company's standard. Perfectly fine to eat, no change in flavor, just browning before its sell-by date. Not donated, put in the trash. I had made meatless spaghetti the night before due to finances. I'm still salty about it years later.
Also, employees constantly leave items out of refrigeration. And corporate's first question when we show large losses (like an entire pallet left in the backroom, out of temp, for 20+hours) is always "Were you able to save any of it?". And we're one of the better ones. Be wary of any meat or otherwise highly perishable items you buy from someone whose livelihood depends on turning a profit in a notoriously low-margin industry.
#5
I used to work in film and TV. Everyone is wearing a wig. Wrinkles and imperfections are taken out using VFX. Your favorite actor is 5 feet tall with a big head and thinning hair IRL.
#6
Work in the golf industry. The latest and greatest equipment isn't any better than the stuff that was available last year, or the year before, or the year before that. It's been quite a few years since there has been any actual improvement in technology. It's basically been maxed out for years now.
We also conversed with our expert about the huge role that the organizational culture plays in turning harmful behaviors into unspoken rules. She claimed that when a workplace culture rewards speed, profit, or obedience more than ethics or well-being, employees quickly learn what actually matters.
Apoorva also noted, "Culture spreads through everyday signals as well: who gets promoted, what leaders joke about, which problems are brushed off, and which ones cause panic. Over time, harmful behaviors stop feeling risky or wrong and start feeling normal, expected, and even necessary. New employees pick this up fast by watching others, not by reading policy documents."
In that way, culture quietly turns 'things we shouldn’t do' into 'things everyone knows you have to do,' without ever putting them in writing, she added.
#7
Pharmacy. The number of times in a day we prevent a prescriber error that could leave a patient in the hospital or dead is usually not *huge*, but it's almost never zero.
#8
I’ve worked in a whole lot of restaurants; the vast majority of restaurants would fail a health inspection if they came during normal service hours.
#9
Worked for a giant plastics company making non woven materials. They were able to say that a certain percentage of their material was made from recycled plastic because of the defective material that was made was reground and melted back into pellets and then run through the machine again. Maybe not even defective but done so to meet the criteria for the recycled requirements. Then had to sit through monthly meetings so they could explain why plastic is so good for the environment.
UnclePanda 54 minutes ago
This is recycling if the discard stuff was going to waste. Cullets are part of many industries.
Well, it all makes us wonder how employees still choose to be in such organizations despite knowing all the dirty things that are done behind the scenes, doesn't it? However, Apoorva explained that most of them stay in such workplaces because their brain finds ways to make it feel tolerable. She expressed that they focus on the good parts of the job and mentally tune out the uncomfortable stuff.
"Over time, it also starts to feel pointless to push back or leave, especially when everyone around them is doing the same thing. Employees often separate who they are from what they do at work and treat the job like something they endure rather than something that defines them. These little mental shortcuts help people get through the day, but they also make staying feel like the only realistic option," she emphasized.
#10
From my time in IT turning off and on your computer fixes 99% of the problems.
#11
When a professor or other scholar publishes new research in a journal, they don’t make a single cent off that publication. In some cases, publishing actually costs money.
Publishing a book also usually doesn’t make any money. It’s not a lucrative revenue stream. It’s not a revenue stream at all for the vast majority of scholars.
Out of chocolate 1 hour ago
Thousands of dollars to publish, thousands to read. Google Elsevier and get depressed at how science is commodified.
#12
Much of the drinkable water in the United States is only drinkable because chemicals are shipped in on a regular basis. If this shipping broke down somehow, many municipalities could go without clean drinking water within a week.
Lastly, our expert also chatted about how industry-wide normalization makes reform more difficult, even for well-intentioned organizations. "That’s because no one wants to be the outlier. If cutting corners, overworking staff, or bending rules is seen as 'standard practice,' any company that tries to stop risks looking inefficient, naïve, or uncompetitive," she added.
Moreover, Apoorva believes that there’s also a shared mindset of 'this is just how it’s done,' which lowers the urgency to change. She stressed that accountability also gets fuzzy. When everyone’s doing it, responsibility feels spread so thin that no single organization feels compelled to take the first step, she narrated.
"So even well-meaning companies can end up maintaining the status quo, not because they want to, but because the industry itself quietly punishes anyone who tries to break the mold," Apoorva concluded.
#13
No members of Congress or Senators ever read the bills before voting. It would be impossible, and they’re much too busy. They rely on their staffers, and their staffers rely on the committee staff.
#14
Some family court cases don't go through on the scheduled court dates because of an artificial court reporter shortage due to stenographer lobbying.
Stenographic court reporters have pushed for voice and digital court reporters to not be accepted in certain states and are retiring and not training new court reporters so they can charge whatever they want and only take the big-paying cases. So in states like California, where digital reporting isn't legal and voice reporting has only been accepted for like 2 years, there is a massive backlog and many cases just don't go forward. It's a classic case of boomers pulling the ladder up behind them.
Emergency hearing because your ex is stalking you and you want a RO? Sorry, Bertha wants $5.00/page and won't show up for less than a 3 hour hearing and there's nobody else available, but she can do next week, maybe. I'm a legal videographer and lawyers are livid and starting to push back, but the damage is done.
Edit: Thank you to the stenos who immediately proved my point in the comments. Not a shred of ethics.
#15
Most of the recycle bins you see in downtown areas and walkable areas are thrown in with the regular trash. Most municipalities aren't going to spend a lot of money just to buy a separate recycle truck.
Well, now we know why these nasty secrets keep being repeated from one generation of employees to the next. I guess it's all just a vicious circle that nobody can break, don't you think? Anyway, that's it from our end, dear readers. Now you have a lot of insider knowledge about the industries mentioned in the list.
However, if you are aware of any others, don't hesitate to type away in the comments. You know we always love to hear from you!
#16
I worked for a jet engine manufacturer. I was in a position where I got all the incident reports that affected our engines. Bird strikes were a daily occurance somewhere in the world. They would run DNA to find out the species as there was usually not much left. there wasn't usually any damage unless it was a someting like a goose or ibis.
One airline sticks in my mind. Somebody set off the fire suppression foam in the hangar. One of the planes was getting a new sound system installed so all the access doors were open. the report said "every nook and crannie" was full of foam. Both engines had to come off wing for a tear down and overhaul. the foam is corrosive. The funny part, It happened again a month later. Same airline same hangar.
#17
Back from the days when I was a chef, never, ever order any beef well-done. You *will* get the oldest, nastiest piece of meat they have because they know you won't be able to tell the difference once they've burnt the hell out of it.
#19
I work for a big box retailer. We have bins at the front for people to recycle their plastic shopping bags. Each morning they are taken to the back of the store and emptied into the garbage compactor.
The amount of perfectly good product that is thrown away on a daily basis is astonishing.
#20
"Thank you for your patience, we are experiencing higher than usual volume of calls, and your call may take longer than expected"
Yeah, about that.
No. We are experiencing a normal volume of calls, we just laid off a ton of staff during (or just after) covid, and we don't plan on replacing them anytime soon because that would cost money.
Edit: Punctuation.
#21
Used to do medical billing. And the number of billing mistakes is mind blowing. And the average American does not understand how the billing systems work, let alone what an EOB is. So most end up just paying what their statement says, even when the EOB says they owe less.
#22
I work in hospitality. While I always change out blankets between clients in the spa, a lot of people dont. The same blanket can be used on multiple people before it gets washed, and a lot of owners encourage that to keep the laundry volume down.
#23
Longevity of manufactured electronics like appliances and tools is not really even in the top 10 things considered for the consumer. It's all about cost reductions and what price you can sell it for. If you're lucky it will be better than the prior model in maybe 1 singular way but they probably removed some of the brushes in the motor you can't see to pay for the improvement. This is how we end up with bad Korean refrigerators that last 1 week longer than the extended warranty you buy. The tech to make them last 30 years has been around forever but the will to keep it that way has evaporated. Stay away from LG and Samsung.
#24
Environment consulting goes through a ton of single use plastic. Always feels a bit ironic doing testing borings to check closed landfill contamination and then go back to the shop and fill a dumpster with the push probe casings.
#25
You want dirty? Factories where your food is made. Yes, there are inspections every year. The factory has a window of time that the “unannounced” inspection will happen and everyone is on their best behavior, cleaning up and taking care of issues. As soon as the inspection is over it’s right back to cutting corners and ignoring nasty things.
#26
Trawling is literally underwater strip mining and no one will do anything about it.
Former employee of a subsidiary owned by a major USA seafood company. We are decimating the oceans for pollack and market it as “sustainable”. Bycatch is real and fisheries are in massive decline due to it. We throw over millions of pounds of fish and other sea life (bycatch) for a fish (pollack) that had no commercial value until it was discovered it could be used as a cod substitute as well as other substitutes. We literally destroy crab fisheries to harvest pollack to sell it back as fake crab (surimi). Salmon, halibut and rockfish are on the decline and the communities that rely on it are powerless because their very own community corporations and development corporations own CDQ’s that get money from trawling. Basically biting the hand that feeds you. Voters refuse to vote against party line and keep voting in Republicans whose top contributor is the seafood industry yet voters complain something needs to be done about trawling. And the boards and agencies that are supposed to manage all this are appointed by the same machine that keeps trawling going. You can’t even make this up.
Edit: this is happening in the USA (Alaska).
#27
Mathematics professor here. At least in my college, the highest level classes are mostly taught by the worst teachers. They don't explain things because they can't relate to people who need things explained. The higher ups figure that people taking these courses don't need explanations. The students who worked their way up to these courses are screwed.
LizzieBoredom 1 hour ago
At my college, some of the Professors had such heavy accents. I could barely make out a word (there was a foreign Professor Exchange going on).
#28
Ecommerce here:
A lot of the stuff you buy is off aliexpress. Way more than most people realise.
Saunas, hot tubs, red light masks, you name it - most brands are sourcing from Ali express.
#29
Eyeglasses. They are extremely marked up, even the cheapest frames we get for $10 will be sold for $100. That’s not even including the ridiculously marked up lenses.
#31
Science still does not understand how some anesthesia works exactly.
Blue Bunny of Happiness 1 hour ago
That’s fine by me. If it works and doesn’t k**l me, I’m good with it.
#32
I'm an electrician, if your house has wiring more than 35~50 years old you might want to consider a whole home rewire or, at least an electrician to inspect and replace devices, fixtures and panels depending on the quality and wear on the original work.
People expect to pay for new shingles every x years, and while wiring doesn't really "go bad" in the walls, don't expect everything to last forever or be designed for modern compatibility with ever growing technology and better and better installation practices and improved quality of life and added regulations and safety standards.
You know how everyone, especially boomers complain about quality of modern junk being bad by design? Yeah, not refuting planned obsolescence but a big part of why the newer appliances and devices fail to meet or exceed advertised life spans is improper grounding and lack of surge suppression.
Older homes were designed for analog appliances and incandescent bulbs, not the digital age and LEDs.
------------
Oh, and if you live in a mobile home please be aware those don't ever have to meet building codes most places in the USA and are only required to meet national DMV/DOT standards for electrical safety... Which, incidentally was never intended for permanent residences.
Ask your local fire department, those death traps go up right at about 25~35 years after manufacture like clockwork from electrical fires all the time and rarely take more than 15 minutes from initial spark to being a burnt rectangle of dirt where your everything used to be. I speak from personal experience on that one.
#33
I've dumped more gallons of unburned jet fuel into the atmosphere than you'll put into your car in your lifetime.
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