People Are Sharing Industry Secrets From Their Jobs, Here’s 30 Of The Most Surprising Ones
InterviewAny job can teach you a wealth of information. It might not all be relevant to your daily life, but even working in a fast food joint will provide you with knowledge that the average person doesn’t have. And because most of us don’t have the chance to dabble in 15 different career fields during our lifetimes, there’s plenty of info that we’ll never have access to. That is, unless people are willing to spill the beans online.
Reddit users who work in a wide variety of industries have been revealing some of the juiciest secrets from their workplaces, so we’ve gathered ones that you might want to know down below. Enjoy scrolling through and learning something new, and be sure to upvote the replies you find most surprising!
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I work in education. We are way behind the ball with student issues, and are just flying by the seat of our pants so to speak. We are in crisis, and most parents simply want to drop their kids off and hope they have a normal experience. None of this is normal. You need to start having conversations with your kids about mental health and social media. If not…woof. Our society is not in good shape.
As an educator, we are not indoctrinating your children. If we were, they would arrive to class on time and get their work done.
I think it hinges on how conservative parents define "indoctrination". For them, "indoctrination" happens when their child spends their time with a diverse group of people.
I'm an academic researcher and I can speak for a huge number in my field when I say:
**If you want access to our studies and they're behind a paywall, you can email us and we will send you the study.**
We are genuinely delighted to share and if you want further context for the results or what have you, I'll always try my best to oblige.
The only limiters on that last bit is that:
1. the original data for the study might have reached the end of our right to keep it, in which case it will have been destroyed.
2. I might have forgotten details or I might have written that paper during a particularly hectic time and my file system might be total s**t.
Also a lot of us are on ResearchGate and various social media things so you can contact us through there. If you can't contact us directly or we're being slow, one of the other authors on the paper might be contactable.
To find out how this conversation started, we reached out to Reddit user Boring-Plastic-4667, who was kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda. "I think what inspired me to ask this are the things that blew my mind when I started working as a low level corporate employee dealing with different departments," the OP shared. "The things I saw just shocked me. So I thought it would be interesting to see what similar experiences people had in their jobs."
If you find an extra nugget in your order, it wasn't a mistake. You got a cool employee.
When the US overthrew the Taliban they used a pro-opium rebel group named "The Northern Alliance" to fight the ground war and then put them in charge of the country.
The soy farmers who grew soy because they were terrified of the (very anti opium) Taliban immediately swapped their crops over to Opium poppy where Afghanistan quickly became over 90% of the world's opium supply mostly overnight.
Initially the US tried burning the opium crops but that didn't exactly win the hearts and minds of the people so they resorted to a combination of:
a) Paying farmers the difference to just grow soy instead
and
b) actually purchasing some of the opium from Afghan farmers for the US pharmaceutical industry who suddenly had a huge surplus of opium to offload.
Oh, did I mention this was coincidentally exactly when the Oxycodone epidemic in the US happened and a bunch of powerful billionaires in the pharmaceutical industry decided to push tons of highly addictive opium pills to basically every home and family in the country?
It's a fascinating little detail nobody ever seems to talk about.
If you have already googled your problem, you have already exceeded the first two tiers of tech support.
I work in this industry, above the first 2 tiers. Many times, I find the answer with Google.
We were also curious if they had any industry secrets of their own to share. "I'm not sure how much of a secret it is, since anyone dealing with invoices would see. But the additives that go into gasoline that can make it more expensive (think Top Tier gas or gas that gas stations market as better for your engine) are usually less than $0.005/gallon," Boring-Plastic-4667 shared.
"Less than half a penny per gallon, and the markup can be crazy high. Also, the tolerance for the amount of gas that goes missing and we just can't find it, either because it spilled, actually went missing, or someone measured wrong, is insanely high," they added. "I don't deal with much, but the little bit I do see, can easily be 50,000 gallons a month or more. A truck is upwards of 7,500-8,500 gallons. So, a lot of trucks just go missing, and we just go 'oh well' and keep moving on since it's not that much in the grand scheme of the business."
The US Military is the most wasteful organization in the United States.
People who sell courses on how to make money make their own money selling you the course.
Your phone was not “hacked,” terrorists and the government don’t give a f**k about your information. You clicked on adware, malware, or a link that asked you to put in your login information.
It’s your fault, accept that.
We also asked Boring-Plastic-4667 what they thought of the replies to their post. "I think most of the top responses I would have expected, such as teachers gossiping about your kids or being nice to employees or managers if you have a problem and they will do more things within their power for you to fix it," the OP shared. "The only ones that surprised me were ones I would never have thought to ask. Hearing from people who design slot machines or work in industrial safety are cool to hear from. Mainly the people who we don't come into contact with on a daily basis, like you would a teacher."
If you’re nice to hotel staff they are more likely to give you free s**t
I’m a Casino Manager.
It is definitely possible (more likely than you think) to win money in the short term. For example, if you walk in, bet on Red/Black on Roulette, it’s reasonably close to 50/50 (not quite because of 0). You might do this once, double your money and leave. Congratulations.
You will always lose in the long term. Always. Anyone that thinks they have some kind of system is a sucker. A game would not make it into the casino floor if the maths have not been rigorously checked and long term simulations run to confirm.
*exception to this is Poker. The casino will always have a rake or time charge to make their money but there is no reason you cannot consistently win money if you are skilled enough.
The last time I was in a casino I was given a complimentary roll of nickels because I lived in a different state. Started with that $2, and walked out with $135. That was almost 30 years ago. I'll never beat that percentage, so no point in trying unless it is again with somebody else's money.
The OP went on to share that they think more companies, and people in general, should be more transparent. "I'm not sure they ever will be though," they noted. "Either because doing so would ruin the 'magic' or, more likely, would cost them money."
"I think these discussions should happen more often," Boring-Plastic-4667 added. "Either to prevent people from coming up with conspiracies, hearing others perspectives on things, or just getting to hear more about other people's jobs and advice."
That store brand products and name brand products made in the same third party factory aren't the same.
People believe that there is no difference to the recipe and that the same stuff is just put into a different box. That it's the same ingredients on the same production line.
Each brand asks the factory to make the product at a particular price point. A luxury brand might want the product to cost $4 a unit but the store brand might want it for $2. The factory will tailor the recipe to the price point, substituting expensive ingredients for cheaper ones, eliminating an ingredient all together, altering the manufacturing process to require fewer people or equipment, or eliminating intermediate quality control steps.
Sure, there might not be a detectable difference between some products, and other products might actually be identical to the point that spending more for a better brand isn't worth it, but a lot of products are noticeably different even if they are made on the same production line by the same people.
"It#s all the same" is just people justifying buying the knock-off. Which is dumb ... there is no "justifying" necessary. If something cheaper gives you as much satisfaction as the expensive thing, why spend more?
I see your point of not just blindly buying the cheaper generic. I usually try both, and if the generic tastes just like—-or sometimes even better than—-the more expensive name brand, I will buy the generic. No point saving the money if the generic is terrible and the name brand is markedly better.
Load More Replies...When I attended Tech college (Engineering), my tutor told us that brand-specific manufacturers bought 'foundation' laundry powder from a main distributor and then added their own special additions/ingredients to it, once it was delivered, so what is said above makes a lot of sense to me.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I've worked in enough factories to know that there's no one statement that covers all of it. Most generic is just over run. Some has lower QC. Some is just cheap garbage.
There's literally no difference between Advil and the generic ibuprofen I buy though. Or any of the generic OTC drugs. No idea why anyone would spend the extra $ just to have the name Advil on the bottle. Been trying to convince my mom of this for years now. There ARE certain things where I won't buy generic though - like tampons or Coke Zero. :)
One difference between generic and name brand drugs is the non-active ingredients and the packaging. For example generic aspirin might be a blocky, chalky tablet while a name brand one is a smaller capsule and coated with something that makes it easier to swallow. Effect is the same, but it makes for a better product to actually use.
Load More Replies...Personally, I'm neither for nor against store brands "exclusively". They get evaluated just the same on all aspects, price, taste, ... I have definitely liked some store brands more that cost less than the name brand, but the opposite is true to, and then there is the, it was worth it to pay a bit more for the taste/quality.
I'm not sure exactly why, but there are some store brand items that are better than the brand name. It doesn't make sense, but that's my experience.
Okay, this is how it works. Major brands are reluctant to change their recipe/formula because it can cause major media problems and customer dissatifaction. They can't afford to lose customers loyal to the brand. Store brands can be constantly improved and tweaked to make them better using more up-to-date technologies, ingredients, and materials.
Load More Replies...They aren't the same. I have a sensitive palette, I can assure you they skimp ingredients. I am amazed when people can't taste the difference. They often have a different texture also.
A lot of the store brand products are made by 3rd parties that have their own products. I worked for the company that makes 100% of all Wal-Mart's Great Value coffee products. I can tell you that it is higher quality than a lot of the brand names you can buy. McCafe and Keurig are 2 of the biggest I know that their quality is lower than in the Great Value stuff.
This depends on the product. I've had store brand items that are clearly the exact same thing, and others that aren't fit for consumption. Give the cheap one a try and see, but don't expect it to be the same every time!
I was a department manager in a big-box retail store. The product code/model number for the "same" product would be slightly different depending on which chain was selling it. "K" might be better quality than "W" or "T" would be, although the product was from the same manufacturer. "C" or "B" might give you more attachments or supplies than another chain store. The brand name actually carries less weight than the seller's name does in quality.
Pedantic, I know, but this drives me nuts. When the phrase is 'substituting ___ FOR ___', the first blank is the substitution. When the phrase is 'substituting ___ WITH ___', the second blank is the substitution. This should read either 'substituting cheaper ingredients FOR expensive ones' or 'substituting expensive ingredients WITH cheaper ones'. English is hard, even for native speakers.
I agree mostly, but it does sometimes work for detergents. Shop around when things are on sale.
Great Value Ketchup vs Heinz 57 Ketchup. Obviously brand name tastes a whole lot better.
If it tastes like I expect it too, I’m happy. And clothes. I will buy dress t-shirts (single color, no pictures or words) cheap because I will tire of the color easily. I mostly wear black. But, the picture of my husband and I on my desk shows me in a purple velvet blouse with a lighter purple chiffon ruffle. That picture is 20 years old. My husband has passed since then. I still have that blouse..and an identical one in black. Once in a while, someone will notice that I’m wearing the blouse in the picture. I paid a fair sum for them, and I still have them. Different needs, different solutions.
I buy both depending on taste and quality. Some store brand items make the grade, whereas for other things, brand name is the only choice.
During the pandemic, when store shelves were practically empty, I had to buy some store brands. Turns out some of those store brands were actually better. I'm thinking specifically of Kroger brand Refried Beans. They beat the "best seller/more expensive" brand by a mile. Smoother, much creamier & had better overall flavor. Now that's all I buy.
Same with appliances - off brand names are made with cheaper materials than big name - even in same factory
Name brand sugar and store brand sugar are the same. Fig Newtons and store brand Fig Cookies? Not the same.
Where food is concerned, the differences are not only in price and taste, but also in the ability of the consumer to tolerate certain ingredients. I am lactose-intolerant, and as a result have to be very selective about certain products. For example: all everyday yogurts are NOT the same. Yoplait yogurt has very little active culture. For me, it's like ingesting regular milk. Whereas store-brand yogurts have more active culture, making it easier to digest. Greek yogurt is even better. Ice cream is another example. Certain brands are not as disturbing as others, due to the amount of milk fat. When something works for you, it works.
If you read the actual iongrediens/percentages of ingredients on the label, you will see this is true.
Well that post was pointless. They made a statement then completely contradicted it.... Store brand products aren't the same as genuine ones, except sometimes they are. Genius!
Deff a different taste. Tried a knock off of some chips n they tased stale despite the expiration date being a month out
There IS a difference in how some things are made. I teach, and pencil crayons (or coloured pencils as yanks call them) get used a LOT. The cheap ones break constantly and waste my time sharpening in class. The more expensive name brands (e.g. staedtler) break less and last longer. Buy the cheapest rulers, but don't buy the cheapest pens.
I've always said, "They don't have a plot of Brand Name peas and a plot for generic peas. They all come from the same plot of tilled land." lol
And not even all store brands are equal. When our local family-owned chain of supermarkets got bought out, the new store brand was worse than the previous - something we would not have thought possible.
I find the more simply an product is cutaneous are the store brands will be suitable. Like mustard. But subverting like a ranch dressing, nope not going to be anything like the good stuff
China has stopped buying a lot of recycled plastic from the USA due to quality issues and a lot of it just gets stored in warehouses as landfill. The industry is spending money out the a*s on PR to avoid this being public knowledge.
If your baby goes to a nursery/daycare, chances are those weren't their "first" steps/words etc that you witnessed. Industry standard is to not tell parents when these things happen as it makes them feel bad. I've seen kids up and walking about the room for weeks, even months before their parent proudly announced at drop off that they "Took their first steps last night".
This is very sad. I understand if a child took their first steps that day, and then the parent reports the next day 'X took their first steps last night'. But if they've been walking for **months** before the parents see it, how little meaningful time are those parents able to spend with their children :-( This is a terrible indictment on society.
Almost nobody maintains their sobriety from their first go in rehab. It's takes several goes. On the plus side there's absolutely no need to be hard on yourself for returning to rehab as its nigh on impossible to achieve this on your first go.
All those “practical effects” that people love in movies are heavily touched by VFX. We fix/enhance/replace everything digitally, and the on-
set artists get the credit. My last movie had $350k in wig tape fixes. Fury Road, which was applauded for its practical effects, had 2100 vfx shots in it. The first Avatar had ~2500.
My slogan for VFX is “we make the rest of the movie”.
There is a HUGE difference between touching up the hair on the guy hanging on the side of the plane, and using CGI to put a plane next to the guy hanging on to a green screen.
The reason why the kid fell off the Orlando free fall ride.
Any ride with an over the shoulder restraint system works by using a proximity sensor to let the computer system know where the restraint is locked. The ride can't move unless all the sensors sense the correct metal at the correct position. On some rides you can move the sensor a few millimeters for proper alignment. Not enough to make a difference. On the free fall ride someone in management might have wanted to modify a few seats for larger guests. Someone might have told a maintenance worker to move the sensor which allowed the ride to start with the restraint in a position not in the original design. With this modification the restraint would be at more of a 45 (or so) degree angle instead of directly downward . This may or may not have been done with an engineer's approval. This may or may not have been done with the ride vendors permission. Any procedure like this is strictly prohibited from any standpoint in the amusement rides industry. I can't explain why they thought it was ok. In most situations you wouldn't be able to move the sensor much without detaching the bracket and moving the whole thing to a different location. Again, this wouldn't even be discussed anywhere I have ever worked. But they might have at Icon Park. The details of this mechanical procedure never made the headlines in Florida because all the lawsuits were settled. In the end someone decided to change the position of that sensor. We will probably never know who. There is probably a maintenance worker who was ordered to do so. I've worked on enough restraints to know that it was not an accident. Personally I would have refused to do it and so would almost everyone that works on these things.
Its been years so i can spill the beans. Worked where there were rides. Mechanic said parts had to be replaced. Boss was cheap and said they could last another year. Mechanic comes back with paper for boss to sign stating he said parts needed replaced and management declined. Parts were replaced.
Car industry: NEVER buy a car that is completely new on the market! They always always come with a ton of bugs that need fixing and it takes about two years of serial production to get rid of most of them. If you must buy a new car, be sure the model has been in the market for at least two years.
The reason for why we don't fix the problems before start of selling? Cost
Also, don't buy models that were in development during years of crisis. Example: during the 2008 financial crisis we let got a huge number of people (to fix the numbers in the books, didn't actually save the company money because they all got a big payout on their way out) so we were understaffed and under imense pressure to reduce cost. The models that came on the market after that time were s**t. Like, serious s**t quality we have never seen before.
My dad taught me that like 25 years ago when buying a new car, I've always known never to buy a new model or if the model has been changed for at least a year. I had a friend who bought a 2000 Dodge Neon, that year they changed the model, and she was at a stoplight when her car shut off. Confused and thankfully before she started it, a mechanic who watched from across the street came running towards her with arms waving to get her attention, I turned out her gas tank fell from the car and she would have blown herself up if she tried to start it!
Trained artist here. Most oil paints are made with very toxic substances, as are most paint thinners and mediums. Every single one of my teachers was either very sick (Cancer, Ménière's disease) or a bit crazy (eating chalk, licking pallettes). All incredible artists I was privileged to learn from. One lesson I learned very well: I wear gloves and sometimes a mask when I paint.
Edit: I mentioned Ménière's because one of my favorite teachers had it. I worked closely with him and his suffering holds a large place in my memories of school. While I think the exposure to toxins didn't do him any favors, I should not have implied a correlation. I apologize.
To those asking: no paint was licked off palettes. They had just been cleaned with denatured alcohol and he always led with, 'Now you could eat off them!' before waggling his tongue on the glass. Loved the shock factor, that guy did.
The New York Times best seller list has a lot of people on it who buy massive numbers of their own books.
I just listened to a podcast about now the NYT compiles its best seller list. They do include people with massive and suspicious book orders and they put an * next to those books to indicate they're "best selling" because the authors are gaming the system.
Worked in online community management and social media for years - Admins CAN read all of your PMs. Private only means private from the masses, not from administration, we had to be able to read them to check reports of abuse, grooming, illegal activity etc. I can't tell you how much cringeworthy s**t I had to read through, especially from guys trying to hook up.
The Coke at McDonald’s tastes better because they’re one of the only companies that refrigerate the syrup tanks, the unflavored soda and the supply lines. So when it hits the ice in your cup, it’s already super cold, so less ice melts, and the first sip tastes more “concentrated” and ice cold. That’s it. No magic. No secret formula. Just more refrigeration.
In these days of global shittification, just doing things properly, with quality of service as a goal, is bordering on magic in my opinion!!!!
Some appetizers are the most labor intense items on the menu to make, for example: dumplings takes one worker about an hour to make 12-15 orders.
If you want to know where I'm getting at, if a restaurant offers a plethora of appetizers options then there's a high chance a lot of them are store bought and resold because there's no feasible way to prepare several orders for each item on the menu.
Working is restaurants taught me that A LOT of food is premake by an outside company and purchased frozen. Also, SO MUCH is just microwaved frozen food. I got a lot more picky about my restaurant choices after that, I can microwave frozen food at home for a fraction of the cost.
Previous industry.
US hospitals casually refer to other hospitals as their 'competitors'.
Noped out of that world as soon as I could.
Most—probably 80 percent or more—of the books on the nonfiction bestseller list (autobiographies, memoirs, political/business books, etc.) are ghostwritten.
Source: am ghostwriter.
Good. 80 percent or more of the people credited for writing those books probably can't write their way out of a wet paper bag. Though I hope you get paid well for not getting credit for your writing.
Teaching. Yep, teachers gossip about the kids, and each other, and everything. There is always so much drama going on at any given moment.
Yes, schools are just like other workplaces where humans interact
The news about Boeing is not a surprise to me at all.
The amount of resources that they are able to delegate in an effort to deter whistleblowers is unfathomable to the average American/EU citizen.
On the Texas house floor, people push the buttons to vote for members who aren't even present that day. This happens multiple times, on every single thing they vote for.
In Australia, additional warranties are a rip off. If a device or product can be reasonably expected to last five years without defect then it can be held to that under warranty. Companies are f****d.
If the insurance company thinks they can make money by selling you insurance it's almost certain that you'll lose less money by not buying the insurance. You can't take the risk on things like cars and houses, but you can afford the risk for most consumer products.
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I work in tourism, driving a tour bus and narrating in a major American city. You might be prepared for everything. Weather, pictures, guidebooks, you have it all. The one thing you forgot to bring is your brain. The second you get on my bus, you're an idiot sandwich. We keep a running tally in the barn at the end of the day, about who had the dumbest tourist of the day. Don't be on that list.
I used to work in a town frequented by tourists. My coworker called them "bewildered beasts." The amount of times someone just stepped in front of my car while I was driving down the street... I swear, they thought it was Disney World, not a town with actual moving vehicles that can very easily kill you
Load More Replies...I work in tourism, driving a tour bus and narrating in a major American city. You might be prepared for everything. Weather, pictures, guidebooks, you have it all. The one thing you forgot to bring is your brain. The second you get on my bus, you're an idiot sandwich. We keep a running tally in the barn at the end of the day, about who had the dumbest tourist of the day. Don't be on that list.
I used to work in a town frequented by tourists. My coworker called them "bewildered beasts." The amount of times someone just stepped in front of my car while I was driving down the street... I swear, they thought it was Disney World, not a town with actual moving vehicles that can very easily kill you
Load More Replies...