“Dirty Little Secrets” That Companies Hide From The Public Get Revealed By These 35 Ex-Employees Online
One of the most, if not the most, important factors to a successful business is building trust with your customers. Unfortunately, it’s not always in their best interest to give us the whole picture and tell the truth. Only when we become a part of the company and get to peek behind the curtains can we grasp the reality of the situation. And as it often turns out, your workplace hides many things they wouldn’t want you sharing with friends, family, or people online.
But unless you’re bound by strict confidentiality agreements that last forever and a day, you’re welcome to spill all the juicy dirt about your experiences after you walk away. Ex-employees took to various Reddit threads to anonymously share the big and small "dirty secrets" within their industries that companies don't want regular people to know. But as the public, we really should.
Members of the Ask Reddit community started up discussions that really got workers opening up about the illuminating trade secrets and spicy tidbits from their former jobs. We at Bored Panda have gathered some of the best responses and put them all in one place for you to read. Obviously, we can’t guarantee whether these tales are fact or fiction, so remember that everything on the internet has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Continue scrolling for what happens behind the scenes at some major corporations, upvote your favorite stories as you go, and if you have any secrets you want to share, tell us all about them in the comment section below! After you’re done, be sure to find even more insider information in our earlier publications right here and here.
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Large chain bookstores: so so so many perfectly good books get thrown out...
Mass market paperbacks are cheap to manufacture and get shipped out in huge volumes. For some publishers (particularly ones that put out new mysteries or romances quarterly) when the bookstore wants it off the shelf to make room for something new, it's just not worth the cost of taking them back and finding someone else to sell it. But they don't want anyone getting them for free. So as a bookstore employee I spent hours ripping the front and back covers off of books, then tearing the book at least in half so that no one could read it later. The covers get sent back to the publishers, and the books that could have been donated to a library or school get put in a locked recycling container out back. A manager had to come back and check my work to make sure the books were not left intact.
I almost cried the first time I had to rip up a load of kid's books (in a city with high child poverty rates and underfunded schools).
Call center here.
Just because you hear music when I put you on hold, doesn't mean I do.
I can hear every profanity you utter.
Unpopular opinion loading...My dear old dad taught us to go into these calls with honey rather than vinegar and I got to say it's made a huge difference in my life. I've only had to go apesh*t maybe twice ever and yes it was getting technical support for cable. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THOSE PEOPLE!?🤣
If you own your own business, never and I mean never do any work for anyone with the promise of more business later on, if they want you to do it free the first time. Just drop them as clients and move on.
Nurse assistant here. If you have taken any illegal dr*gs, or prescription dr*gs to get high within the last 24 hours... F*****G TELL US. It could save your life. We won't judge you for it... But we would judge you for bullsh**ting us even if your life could be at risk.
I don't have tons of free time.
I am unemployed and despite contrary f**king belief I am neither lazy nor have tons of time.
Searching for a job is a full-time job by itself. In parallel, it's hard to keep searching for a job because really there is no reward. Usually, when you do something there is a result. You go to the gym and you burn calories. You sell sh*t and you make money. You study and you get grades. Even if you fail at something. You f**king learn something and try a different approach, you gain experience.
When you search for a job there is no result. You try and you try and you try....and nothing happens. Like drilling a hole in the water.
In parallel. You can't plan anything. You cant buy a f**king washing machine because you don't know where you will be staying tomorrow. I cant plan a trip back home to see my family because I need to be on stand-by for interviews and even be here to answer the f**king phone.
So no. I don't have tons of free time. Not having a job also f**ks with your biorhythm. Meaning it's hard to wake up early and sleep early. When I had a job I could easily wake up by myself at 7. Now some nights I don't sleep at all.
And this is just a part of being unemployed. I am the lucky one. Because I still have money left and a supportive family.
Teacher here.
Your child's success depends mainly on three things: the child's will, the parent's support, and the teacher's skill. If your child doesn't want to learn, he won't learn. If you don't f**king feed your child properly, he won't be able to learn. If your child gets his way at home, he will be a terror in class and won't succeed.
I am only a part of your child's education. I can't do anything if he refuses to learn or if you refuse to support him.
I was a deep sea diver for 10 years in the Gulf of Mexico. Huge oil spills happen and are covered up hundreds of times a year by every company. The entire industry is in on it. The bottom of the gulf is a disgusting garbage dump. Every boat dumps their trash into the gulf no one obeys the laws and the coast guard doesn't enforce s**t.
*I had a bunch of requests for an AMA so I'm doing one now if anyone has more questions.
School photographer here. Do not coach your children on how to smile. I can normally get them to smile naturally with a funny word or simply by smiling at them. I have seen MANY kids that have obviously coached smile because they are afraid mom will take away their Playstation. Remember that school photos are a marking of time, love your kid for who they are at that moment. And NEVER tell your kiddo to not show their teeth. Second graders are supposed to have lots of missing teeth-- it's charming. Seventh graders have braces-- that photo will remind them of such a tumultuous time in their life. And lastly, there is always re-take day.
Retake day? Not in the schools here in the U.K. You get one day once a year to get a professional school photo. If it looks bad it’s tough luck.
The groundbreaking scientific results published by the mainstream media bear little resemblance to the results published in the actual scientific article.
I work on a farm. When they say you should wash your produce thoroughly at home, they're not joking.
Depends where you farm I guess. In America you can bet I’m washing that apple to within an inch of its life because of all the pesticides but some pesticides used in the USA are banned in the EU so most fruit is ok to eat straight from the tree/bush.
A lot of people know this, but, the police can lie to you. About damn near anything. If you are ever arrested, shut the f**k up. Request a lawyer. I can repeat this, but you dumb motherf**kers will still talk to the f**king cops. You are soooo much better off just not talking to them.
That's in the USA. In our country, if the cops show up it's a miracle, and if they actually ask any questions that's even more amazing. Mostly they just round everyone up and take statemetns at the station. They are so indifferent to their job that you can fill in your own statement and put there "I murdered donald duck and buttf*cked mickey mouse" and they will just read over it and not notice it.
911: Location first, say it twice and say it clearly. Then allow the dispatcher to lead the call. I know you think you know what needs to be said, but I promise you everything will go more smoothly if you let me take the lead. I'll be gentle.
Also, yelling at me to "Get them here! Get them here!" does not actually make them get there faster. The police drive cars, they don't teleport. Me asking you questions doesn't slow down the response, another dispatcher has already sent them. Me asking you questions helps make sure the officers are informed when they get there so they don't waste the first few minutes on scene playing catch-up.
Calling from a landline usually gives me your name and address from the moment you call. Calling from a cell phone does not. I can geo-validate your call and get a close location, but it isn't 100% accurate. Calling from a disconnected cell phone makes it impossible to call you back OR geovalidate your location.
If you dial 911 on accident, stay on the line, don't hurriedly hang up and hope the call didn't go through. I'm going to have to blow up your phone AND text you if you don't take 20 seconds to stay on the line and let me know it was an accident.
Don't give disconnected cell phones to children to play with, unless you remove the battery first. I can't tell you how many parents just let their 2 year old play with an old phone because they assume she can't call anyone. She can call 911. Over...and over...and over again.
Interfering with a 911 call is illegal. If you're fighting with your girlfriend and she calls 911, do not try to take the phone from her, yell over her, disconnect the phone line, etc. You can be arrested.
Seriously people, learn your address. Be aware of your surroundings. You should know your address before you move somewhere. If you're going to a party, maybe try to just know what street the party is on, just in case. If you're in an emergency at a residence and don't know the address, look for a piece of mail. I know this sounds like ridiculously obvious advice, but you'd be surprised.
911 is for emergencies only. You should have your local non-emergency police and sheriff's department numbers saved in your phone. If you don't, please do yourself a favor and look those up right this moment and put them in your phone.
This all assumes the person is not in a stressful, dangerous situation where they are trying to hold it together. If you are calling 911 it’s not a calm situation where you are necessarily thinking 100% clearly.
It is impossible to crawl through ventilation shafts. Professional duct worker here.
I work in the space industry and I am happy to report that there are no tricks here, everything must work with multiple redundant systems.
From my former job: The US military has a tradition where you spend your entire budget by Oct (the new fiscal year) or you risk losing that portion of your budget. I've been in units that would go out and purchase $200,000 worth of useless s**t just to avoid having a budget surplus. Multiply by the number of units in the military (a s**t ton) and you have all your fraud, waste and abuse.
This is all branches of government everywhere in every country. Your budget gets cut if you do not spend it entirely.
Sadly, it's not endemic to just government. You see it in many privately owned businesses as well.
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True! When I was in the US military, I worked in a supply unit for aircraft maintenance. We went on a spending spree every year. One time I noticed that some of the tools in a Craftsman 500-piece tool set were scratched or chipped. So I ordered an entire new set. The old set of tools may or may not be currently located in the tool cabinet in my house. I can't say for sure.
I was in the Air Force from '71 to '91. During Carter's reign, our budget could get little more than a sheet of paper and a pencil. After that, when we would have any surplus, we would buy extra office supplies to give us a surplus should something happen where we couldn't get any more. We'd also repair or replace broken equipment with the excess money. One year, I got a new typewriter with the surplus so I no longer had to use my own personal one. Not all surplus budget money is squandered. Some units are responsible with their portion.
Very similar thing in the UK, I worked for the local council caretaker for a building, and if you didn't use the budget, it was cut next year. So we bought very fancy expensive vacuum cleaners that we didn't use as the old ones were perfectly good. Just to keep the budget incase something went wrong next year.
I've worked for many companies that do this as well it's a giant problem. Ski resorts retail companies, apoxy and plastics too I think it's a national wide fiscal issue
Retail work does the exact same thing only with payroll instead of a supply budget. I've lost track of how many times hours get cut across the board only for the higher ups to freak out at the end of the month when a bunch of payroll doesn't get used up. Thankfully that doesn't happen as often as it used to where I work but I can remember some of us being offered overtime because this c**p kept happening. 😑
All branches of state and federal government work this way.... Schools, municipalities etc....
As a med student, I saw this at a VA Hospital in Chicago. Won't name it, but it was at the side of the lake. They only had 2 functioning EKG machines (18 floors), and if there was a code, you could finish a cup of coffee before the elevator showed up. End-of-year, they ripped up the cement sidewalk in the front, and paved it in brick, then paved over the brick with cement to use up their "grounds" budget. They didn't have enough in their "equipment" budget to get the EKG machines they needed.
That is true. I worked in preventive medicine and one job while I was in the Navy. In that job I work in a industrial hygiene and we will examine asbestos fibers and other fibers under microscope’s, Those San Marcos scopes were used in our lab to look at red blood cells, white blood cells and other things. We had standard microscopes and we were coming up to the end of the budget, so I put in an order for two electron scanning microscopes which would vastly improve our job… Much to my surprise we got them, and our budget for the next year was increased by $76,000.
This isn't always as bad as it sounds. When I worked in an upper division lab course maintaining equipment we had a budget for "omg, it broke and we need a new piece right now" that would go away if not spent, so we also had a list of "this would be nice to have a spare or resupply but it doesn't have to happen this budget cycle if we are tight" that we would spend out any unused "emergency funds" on at the end of the cycle. We still needed those things, just not desperately. Basically if you can plan ahead, you can keep the "budget surplus" from being waste. Also, if someone is spending wastefully, it's insane to think they only do so at one time of the year.
This is pretty much any place where a budget is calculated by someone not actually involved in the work using it.
It's that way in every company in the world as well. It's the nature of budgeting.
Yup. Army friends would tell me about how they would spend days being told to burn through their ammo. Like a LOT of ammo. So they won't get their budget reduced.
That's pretty much every single federal agency, hence why there needs to be a serious overhaul of the allocation process.
That is the government period and many corporations. If you don't spend it, they think you don't need it. Stupid.
It isn't just the military... it's entire government, local to federal. Many corporations and other organizations also do budgets like this.
We had to go out at the end of each fiscal year and fire off thousands of rounds to use up the supply. Otherwise, we were told, we wouldn't get the same budget for ammo, etc.
I think the problem is that any other system would require some sort of thought and effort and god forbid the generals have to employ any of that toward anything other than sucking up to their higher-ups and corporations who might offer them a job after they retire.
In the US Navy 1968-1988 we would order spare parts in the "September follies" to use up the budget amount. Then in the new fiscal year, in October/November a lot of that would be cancelled.
This must be common in a lot of situations- I worked in a sheltered workshop/day treatment program for developmentally disabled adults before I went to college- our boss would routinely send us out on buying sprees because we hadn't used up all our allotted funds and we needed to or we wouldn't get the same amount next time. This also happened in college- my department had a discretionary fund for student activities and the chairperson would send us (as class officers) out with the departments credit card to buy whatever just to make sure we would be allotted the same amount next semester. Generally we would buy a lot of food to keep in our locker room and office because we were usually there 12 hours a day, and we got hungry.
So what if the budget get's cut if you're gonna spend it on unneeded c**p anyway? I fail to see the logic here.
I'll give you an analogy using schools. Let's say a school is budgeted for 200 students - food, supplies, activities, teachers, you name it. This year they only have 175 students so only spent for 175 people. Accounting sees they only spent for 175 so the budget is adjusted down to 175. Next year they have 200 students again. But they're only budgeted for 175 so now they have don't have enough food, or supplies, or teachers. If they had instead spent 25 student excess on supplies, non-perishable food, or unneeded fun or pizza days for the students, they'd be fine.
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Harley Davidson is in pretty bad shape, they store the lion's share of their new motorcycles in some warehouses in Montana because they don't want to stop production just to keep shareholder happy. They are a ticking time bomb.
Oh also for the last few years they force retailers to buy some new bikes every year even though they don't change. If the retailers don't buy them they lose their licensing to sell Harley's.
So basically all their sales have been made up for the last five or so years.
Er that's their own fault for targeting a very specific demographic, namely white guys having a midlife crisis. If they didn't have an image of being a gang vehicle for old conservative white guys, they'd sell more. I can afford one, I'd never buy one or drive one. The image of a harley basically says you support the confederacy. They are dead unless they get adverts with black young guys riding them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipDmsxQVxIM
Retail here!
For people who LOVE to return items. That little policy on your receipt is interpreted by me, the cashier. If you are polite and kind to me I am more than happy to bend the rules in your favor for one of the world's largest retail companies that can probably afford to lose a little money here and there.
IF you are a d**k to me I will use any excuse to deny you a cash refund and my company is not known for customer service, so my management will almost always back up whatever my claim is and support my strict ruling of our refund policy.
TL:DR: be nice to cashiers and we will be nice in return
So don't be a d**k to people you want something from.. sounds like a plan for life in general.
Emergency room doctor here.
I really do want you to get better, I really want you to not d*e. I get spat on and cursed at and am the recipient of several stink eyes daily. If you actually show that you care about your health and listen to me or show me the slightest bit of respect I will bend over backwards to help you get better.
If I'm not sending you home with a six month supply of dilaudid it's because you are better off without it. I'm sorry you have a boxer's fracture because you punched your door, but fractures hurt and I can't take all the pain away and keep you breathing at the same time. Man up and deal with a few days of discomfort, it goes away eventually.
I ask probing questions about your sexuality and drug history and the consistency of your poop because its important. I am legally prevented from sharing this info with your boss, your wife, the police. Just tell me the truth. The guy on the other side of the curtain has a curling iron stuck up his a*s, the herpes you got in high school doesn't shock me.
My paycheck is my paycheck. I don't get paid more or less because I prescribe a name brand antibiotic, or decide to do stitches instead of glue, or admit you instead of letting you leave AMA. I get paid the same if I see one patient this shift or forty, most of my decisions are based on medicine, or to decrease the chances of getting sued. This isn't true for every doctor or even every emergency doctor, but consider giving your physician the benefit of the doubt.
Never understood why people go to the doctors, or any professional. Then when they are told "X is wrong, you need to do Y to fix it". Get abusive and say they are wrong. No one forced you to come here. You can just leave without the abuse.
Graphic designer here. For the last time, just because we have Photoshop and Illustrator doesn't mean the design process is on auto-pilot. So when we say we need an extra hour to work out your problem, we mean it. And yes, we need the vector file of your logo, or at least a PDF copy of it.
Video editor here for reality TV. It's fake for the most part. They usually do multiple takes of the "reality" scenes that are staged beforehand. The most recent egregious use of this is Duck Dynasty. They pass the show off as reality tv and they actually have table readings for that show before shoots. Not saying that reality TV isn't sometimes entertaining. I'm just saying that you shouldn't be fooled into thinking that this is actually reality and the camera just happened to be there when these people were doing what they normally do.
From my time at the IT help desk: 90% of the time I'm not "a genius who magically knows how to solve problems". I just google whatever you told me and followed the steps from the top result to fix it.
We all know this that’s why we struggle for hours to fix the issue ourselves. Trust me. IT help desks are the last resort, not the first.
Got an interesting one for you: The New York Times Bestseller List is Curated Advertising.
Yup. While it is based on sales, there are some nifty little loopholes left in the list to allow publishers to "choose" what gets on the list.
Here's how it works. What shows up on the list is the top sellers from set locations in a period of time, right? So a publisher comes out with a book, and they want it to go right to the list on day one. So they call the seller and place an order in advance to buy all the books that seller has that they haven't even shipped out yet. The seller takes the money, and all those books are now "sold." So they need more books to sell. So they contact the publisher, who agrees to sell them more stock, which happens to be the stock they just bought back.
The publisher then calls the seller and buys the stock again. The seller calls the publisher and orders more. Repeat until you've got the numbers you need (which you know, since the big publishers swap info freely so that everyone knows how many sales will take what spot on the list). You can "sell" 30,000 books this way while only having 2000 printed. The whole time the stock sits in a single place.
There's no rule against this. After all, the publisher does pay the seller each time. 50% of that money comes back to them, however, so it's basically low-cost advertising.
And that's how you get a book on the NYT Bestseller list. But only if you're with a big publisher. In the last few years, indie and self-pub books like The Martian started getting on the list, both through legit sales and the creators using the same system ... So the NYT restricted the list. You're only qualified for it if you're one of the big publishers now.
And now you know.
I worked for a political consulting firm and was completely floored when congressmen/women would come in for media training (learning to be "normal" on camera or in front of constituents). Nearly every politician who came in for training was clueless and literally had "their views" on the issues fed to them by my boss (the media strategist). Sounds obvious, but it's really horrifying to witness.
No to the rest of the PLANET it is obvious that your congresspersons are muppets. I mean look at Klan Mom, and her buddy Bimbette I mean Boebert for f**k sake. And Teddy "schools need one door" Cruz. What a bunch of fucktards. Literally only "the Squad" have any brains. Especially AOC and Ilhan.
Car dealership. WE ARE SCAMMING YOU.
Mark ups are out of control and not for the sales people to make a living. They can make their commission on the list price. Some dealerships are marking up the values on some in demand vehicles by tens of thousands in some cases! That is why manufacturers are starting to rethink how they sell their vehicles. Ford for instance is considering selling from factory online because dealers are refusing to abide by the rules and people aren’t able to buy vehicles at the rate they want. They manufacturers don’t get the money from the markups
I work at a US lobbying firm, and I'm sure no Redditor would be shocked to hear that US legislators are ignorant. You might be surprised just HOW ill-informed a lot of them are, though. Like the Congressman who believed David Cameron was a member of the Socialist party. Or the one that asked me why we called it Russia now, not the USSR. Or the Senator who told me he'd grown up drinking sea water, and it was healthier for you. Or the governor who thought all Jews were k**led by Hitler. The list could go on.
For the most part, the people who want to lead are motivated not be an altruistic vision to make the world a better place, but by the simple desire to be at the top. Pride, arrogance, and a strong desire to wield power are the primary motivators for running for office. The issue isn't that our politicians are ill-informed and self-centered; that should be obvious. The issue is that so many people put absolute faith in political leaders as though they were superheroes with the ability and the will to save the world. Politicians are elected to do the will of the people, but many in democracies around the world seem to think they are elected to do the thinking for them. A healthy democracy is dependent on a well-educated, accurately informed, and engaged populace. The quality of the politician elected to office likely reflects the degree to which that is actually the case.
If more citizens knew how often U.S. Military individuals said things along the lines of, "F**k civilians, they can suck my d**k." People might lose some of their unrelenting support for the troops.
The UK has a few choice phrases for civilians in a warzone. "Acceptable Losses", "Unfortunate Individuals", "Unexpected Non-combatants". They all usually mean, "Oops, shot a civilian"
Recently retired trucker here. A fully loaded semi-truck traveling at highway speeds takes approximately 100 yards to come to a complete stop. Which means that the fun game of slamming on the brakes at the last minute in front of a big truck is just one of several ways you get referred to by the phrase "dead man driving."
I work in visual effects for large hollywood movies. We do so much digital cleanup and enhancement of practical effects, yet get no credit for how it looks. We only get sh*t on when a director or studio forces us to make cartoony CG characters or un-photorealistic backgrounds. We're the only department that doesn't have a union, yet we're in charge of upwards of half the movie's budget. Life of Pi was shot mostly on green screen, yet the cinematographer got an Oscar, even though most of those shots were created later in VFX without his input.
When you pick your dog up from the kennel after a splendid beach vacation and he/she smells like dog shampoo (probably because you requested a grooming session), that's because we have a spray that smells like dog shampoo.
Your dog has been in his cage, frightened by the foreign environment and loud barking/growling dogs. He probably s**t himself or peed and then laid down in the puddle. This made him feel extremely guilty because he knows he's supposed to go *outside* for that. He's a mess, mentally and physically.
So when you come to pick him up and we realize "oops, Fido never got over to the groomers", we have a spray bottle of doggie febreeze. We wipe any s**t off as best we can, tie a festive bandana around their neck, and hope you don't notice the completely manic excitement they're exhibiting when you're finally reunited.
*I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I love you, I love you, please let's leave, let's leave, let's leave, leave, leave, leave, I trust you, I'm sorry*
I don't know if it's a dirty secret as much as common sense when you think about it, but having worked in a warehouse that stores beer cans, I'd say that you should wash the top of any can you drink from, as it may have been sat on climbed on, touched by filthy hands and had mice run across it, and if nothing else was probably covered in layers of dust.
Most people who say this are ignored as kooks, but having worked in pharmaceutical research, I can confirm this:
We already have developed better, safer medicines than most of the c**p currently on the market. However due to the following reasons, most of it will never reach the market.
* FDA Approval costs a fair amount of money and time, and for a "new drug" to be approved takes bloody years. The slightest f**kup in testing and back to the beginning.
* Money. If a new drug discovery is not going to be as profitable as the stuff currently on the market, it will simply be patented and sat on.
* Research funding: Not enough of it anymore to properly explore all the possibilities.
I'm in radio. We don't get to pick what we play on air, the pd schedules it and we just talk in between songs. The closest we get is when we play a request, that's usually something we wanted to hear and no one actually requested it.
The guys down at the talk station ironically can play whatever they want but think the last good song came out in 1975.
Fiber Internet Service Provider here - bandwidth is not a scarce commodity like they want you to think it is. It is all about profit margins and over subscribing the network.
RMT here,
90% of your upper shoulder/neck problems can be solved by stretching properly daily. Same thing with headaches.
Stop slouching.
When you climb into a helicopter and the rotors are turning, you can't reach your arm up high enough to lose a hand....but we don't want anyone trying to test it or prove us wrong.
Note: this post originally had 104 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
I'm a manager, in a hotel. I will never make your stay worst (even if you're an a** I'm not). But you have no idea how much I can make your experience unforgivable if you're a nice, kind and respectful guest.
Banks are a business. Your house deposit is to protect the bank from losing money. If you tell the bank to send money to someone as part of a scam that's your choice. The banks business is to loan/send money not to examine your choices and decide if they are right for you.
I'm a manager, in a hotel. I will never make your stay worst (even if you're an a** I'm not). But you have no idea how much I can make your experience unforgivable if you're a nice, kind and respectful guest.
Banks are a business. Your house deposit is to protect the bank from losing money. If you tell the bank to send money to someone as part of a scam that's your choice. The banks business is to loan/send money not to examine your choices and decide if they are right for you.
