16 Company Secrets Revealed by Former Employees

1.

I used to work for a chain dental clinic (won’t list which one), and it was the worst 6 months of my life. Now, not ALL dental chains are like this, but from my experience, most are. Every patient who walked in the door (with insurance) had gum disease and were charged with a ‘deep cleaning’, even when they only needed a regular prophy ($90 whole mouth cleaning compared to $180/quadrant). Any amalgams in the mouth were to be removed and replaced, regardless of if there was any decay underneath. Any filling 2 surfaces or more (which is many fillings) indicated a crown, again, even if completely sound. Many of the things they pushed went against what I was taught in dental school. I wasn’t allowed to determine treatment plans (despite 4 years of dental education), instead that went to the office manager, who likely didn’t even have a high school education. Average treatment plans were about $2500 after insurance, but luckily they had a high interest payment plan to help you pay over time! Bonuses for the entire clinic were based on production, which invariably comes down to the dentist’s speed/procedures they do. Every morning they would announce how much production was necessary to give everyone a 10% bonus, if they hit more, it would be 20% bonus. So if the dentist didn’t hit that, the entire staff suffered. The guilt laid on the dentist was intense. At highest production, the dentist could easily make 25-30k/ month. It was incredibly good money, especially for new grads right out of school, but you sold your soul. I highly regret every moment I spent there.

2.

Come to Wal-Mart deli after 7-8pm. We mark everything down. You’re welcome.

3.

I worked at Great Clips. The stylists are strongly advised to only cut a client’s hair between 10-15 minutes. If the stylist’s average haircut time is more than 15-17 minutes, they might get talked to by the manager about speeding up their services or written up if it continues to happen. Stylists also get paid based on how fast and how many clients they have that day. If a person comes in with a long, tangled rats nest and wants a complicated haircut that takes you an hour to deal with, they can fuck up your timed average for the day and fuck your pay.

4.

Verizon retail employees, and probably call center sales reps, are actively encouraged to lie to you to close the sale

5.

This is about a decade old, so may no longer be applicable, but… Microsoft has special pricing for non-profits that is about 1/10 the regular price. They don’t advertise this, so a lot of resellers still sell the software to their non-profit customers at the regular price and enjoy the higher profit margin.

6.

Worked in several chain restaurants through college as a cook; nothing to report that you probably haven’t heard already, but I can tell you, most of the things you’ve been warned about are true, but the best thing I can tell you is: Don’t go to a restaurant within 30 min or so of its closing time. The cooks have already cleaned in an attempt to go home– at best you’re getting the scraps left on the counter, at worst, well you’ve pissed off the cooks. Oh, and I cooked at Hooters. They literally train the waitresses on how to flirt with customers. No, they don’t like you. In fact, if you’re a particularly odd-looking or annoying customer, they tell the other waitresses about you and they look at you through the kitchen windows and mock you.

7.

I worked at a “luxury” movie theatre for 3 years. Complete with service to your seat, oversized recliner seats, pillows and blankets. The pillows and blankets were never washed. Ever. But the break room was stocked with brand new ones. Always ask for a new blanket.

8.

Glassdoor.com Does remove job reviews and DOES let employers choose which ones get shown first!

9.

I used to work in financial services. Agents would sell products based on the commission, and not on how well the investment actually performed. Our customer service department was pretty much always taking calls from people who had been deceived about what to expect from their investment.

10.

I worked at NASA as a contractor for 2 years. 90% of the computing hardware was very antiquated and out of date. I saw a lot of Dell computers from the mid 2000s still being used, yes even pre-thin-style monitors, that beige or off-white color. They are pretty underfunded and spend most of their money on more advanced hardware like supercomputers, large servers, etc. But the basic hardware is really out of date. In fact, the whole place looked like a museum of the 1990s…the architecture, the dress styles, the lighting, carpet, and so on. It was very strange, almost eerie.

11.

I ran the lens lab at a Pearle Vision back in the day. The most expensive frames we carried, the Armanis, cost us about $20 and cost you $400-$600. The most expensive lenses (outside of real opthalmic specialties), what we called MTPROA’s (polycarbonate aspheric with anti-glare, anti scratch) cost them less than $20 and cost you $400. So a $1000 pair of Armani glasses with all the bells and whistles? It cost about $40. The lab guy who made it was making $12/hr. The lab itself, top of the line from Essilor, was about $250k; peanuts compared to the profit margin. All staff, even just sales staff, had to wear lab coats and glasses at all times. If you didn’t need glasses, you just wore glasses with zero prescription. The company would provide you outright with an eye exam every year, and once per year with a pair of prescription glasses and prescription sunglasses, top of the line as long as they were in style that year. That was actually a cool perk. Oh, this was one of my favorites – in Maine, at the time, Mainecare (Medicare) wouldn’t cover anti-scratch coating for adults. All of our CR39 (the basic plastic lens, super easy to scratch) just came with that pre-applied. We were actually supposed to intentionally strip that coating for Mainecare customers, costing us time and labor while depriving the customer. 99% of the time we just didn’t bother.

12.

I worked a Target and Petsmart for some time and they both had this weird policy about stealing that I’ve heard applies to most big chains Basically, a regular employee could not stop a low-price thief. Obviously we can’t let someone just walk out with a TV or live animal, but I was forbid from doing anything about small shoplifters. It’s bad for the image of the store and if you happen to be wrong, their could be a lawsuit or discrimination accusation that could cause a lot of trouble. So most of the times they just let you walk out fully knowing you stole something At petsmart, I happened to be working the register when a customer came up and alerted me that there was someone stealing a bunch of dog shampoo and shoving it in her purse (the location didn’t have many employees and all the beauty supplies were kept waaaaay at the back). I called my supervisor over and she said not to do anything- when the lady came to ring up one very small thing, the shampoos were very noticeably sticking out of her bag. My supervisor asked if she needed to pay for them and the person said “no” and we just let her walk out. Apparently if we think someone’s stealing we’re supposed to “nice” it out of them. If not -oh well.

13.

Car insurance; your credit score is a huge factor in determining your rates. People disproportionally think it’s a speeding ticket in their driving history. Sure, it does, but if you wrote two identical policies for identical cars with two identical people in the same zip code, but a huge difference in credit score? You’d see completely disproportionate prices. Most agents don’t talk about it and in a bigger national companies, they’ll likely automatically escalate the call to a specialist.

14.

I worked at an independent gym. But at most gyms the sign up “special” is only there to mark up the perceived value of the membership. It’s to convince you to buy into it with the idea that you’re getting a special discount. The reality is that the original price doesn’t actually exist and the “deal” or “discount” you get doesn’t actually expire. It’s just the standard membership rates that everybody is paying!

15.

I worked at Dunkin Donuts, and at least at my location, all the shit was frozen. The free samples are the oldest donuts we have, and when serving, we pick donuts from the back of the tray, as those are the oldest. Also, my location wasn’t too high volume, so we didn’t switch out coffee every 18 minutes like we were supposed to. Coffee could be a few hours old, sometimes donuts were over 5 or 8 hours old if they were a low-demand kind.

16.

I worked at Raising Canes for 2 years. If other stores keep up with the standards we had, there’s nothing really to say. Basically the entire place was cleaned everyday and I worked in the kitchen and at the counter. Even half the walls. Nothing was frozen except for the fries, the sauce and coleslaw was made in house every day, and no food violations I can think of. Honestly a dope ass first job. One thing though… there’s msg in everything.