25 Former Employees Spill Surprising Industry Secrets
It's fun to learn about industry secrets. Especially the kinds that perhaps they'd rather we didn't know about. Assembled by boredpanda, here are 28 behinds the scenes peeks at secrets different industries might not want us to know.
1.
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.
2.
I work on a farm. When they say you should wash your produce thoroughly at home, they're not joking.
3.
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.
4.
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.
5.
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).
7.
Nurse assistant here. If you have taken any illegal drugs, or prescription drugs to get high within the last 24 hours... 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.
8.
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.
9.
The groundbreaking scientific results published by the mainstream media bear little resemblance to the results published in the actual scientific article.
10.
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.
12.
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.
13.
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.
14.
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.
15.
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.
16.
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.
17.
A lot of people know this, but, the police can lie to you. About almost anything. If you are ever arrested, shut up, Request a lawyer. You are so much better off just not talking to them.
18.
Retail here. If you argue about the price of something and I don't have an easy way to check it I will probably give it to you for your price....but if you do this I will be silently hating you, at least until you leave the store and I forget you exist.
19.
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.
20.
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.
22.
In almost every labor job I've worked, including being a valet, people smoke and drink on the job. The valet service I worked for never even asked to see my driver's license.
23.
The Olive Oil Industry is controlled by the Mafia. In 2007 only 4% of italian olive oil leaving italy was actually pure olive oil. Fake olive oil has the similar profit margins as cocaine trafficking with none of the risk. About 70% of the olive oil that comes into the US is thought to be a fraud.
24.
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.
25.
I'm a celebrity event photographer in Hollywood. Most of the smaller award shows winners like the MTV VMAs, Teen Choice Awards, etc...already know they are going to win. This motivates the talent to come to the event. During the show they are backstage talking with friends and take a seat during a commercial break just before their award is announced. The few exceptions are the Oscars and Golden Globes where the audience is mostly celebrities.
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