Let's face it: Your job probably has a few dark secrets that the rest of the world would be shocked to find out about.
So Reddit user u/CircleBox2 recently posed a question to the internet: "What's a dark secret/questionable practice in your profession which we regular folks would know nothing about?"
The post quickly went viral, as thousands of people started spilling their workplace's biggest secrets. Here are some of the most eye-opening responses:
1.A grocery store employee:
You do not want to know how long food sits on the loading dock before it gets into the cooler.
Never drink straight from the can/bottle. Workers climb on the stacks, rats run over them in the warehouse, they sit in stagnant water under leaking roofs, etc.
As a nurse, I’ve had to google and watch teaching videos on not-so-common procedures five minutes before going in and performing the procedure on the patient.
Doctors will google your symptoms if they’re stumped on what to give or diagnose.
Those "Donate now and your donation will be double/triple/quadruple matched" or "We only need 10 more donors/$5,000 more from your zip code" emails are all lies. But they work, so we keep sending them.
You know the people who write instruction manuals or user guides for things you buy?
Half the time, they've never even seen or touched the product. Some dude just sends us pictures, a rough description of how it's supposed to work, and that's it.
Have you ever started filling out a form on a website and then changed your mind and said, "Nah, I don't want to give them my personal information," and then abandoned the form before pressing "submit"?
If you think that stopped them from getting your personal information, it didn't. Most companies looking to capture leads will capture your info in real time as you enter it into a form. The "submit" button is just there to move you to the next step, not to actually send your information to the company.
We had these perforated pans for thin crust and stuffed crust pizzas. They'd get washed in the dishwasher by the hundreds per day and at least half would still have burnt cheese and shit on them. They were just stacked to dry. When making new pizzas in those pans, sometimes the pans that were left to "dry" overnight grew bits of mold around the burnt cheese. We were told just to put the dough on top because otherwise we'd never keep up with the orders if we rewashed everything. The manager said, "Don't worry, it gets cooked."
Not currently my profession, but ghost writers in fiction...All those big-name authors with a New York Times bestseller every year use ghostwriters who are are never credited or mentioned. It's barely even a secret.
Sometimes we lick artifacts to quickly determine if they are bone or pottery (bone sticks, pottery doesn’t). And then we tap them on our teeth to determine if they are pottery or a rock (rock will hurt, pottery won’t).
A diagnosis of virtually any mental illness, or a diagnosis of many physical conditions, is disqualifying and will end your career. For that reason, air traffic controllers avoid doctors like the plague.
Lots of performing musicians don't ever really get over stage fright. Many of them take beta blockers to help with nerves. Although it's less about the mental side of it and more the fact that you physically can't perform if you get so nervous that your hands are shaking. That's what beta blockers help with; you'll probably still feel anxious mentally, but any physical effects like shaking or sweating will be gone.
Hotels often overbook their rooms on purpose, knowing that chances are some guests won’t arrive due to missed or delayed flights. You have guests checking out at 2–3 a.m. due to early flights, so even though the room is technically still theirs, you quickly and sometimes poorly clean the room and tell the arriving guest that there’s a random computer issue and to wait 20 minutes and then check them into the departed guest's room, praying. Multiple times I’ve had to run a kettle under a cold tap to hide the fact that the previous guest used it 15 minutes before the new guest arrived.
Many bills are literally written by lobbyists or special interest organizations. I have seen my boss give bill language to a state legislator and then found the same language in print a few days later several times. The bill may change in committee, but usually not drastically against the original intent.
Some stores that sell used merchandise like video games and movies will pay you money for stolen stuff even when they know it's stolen. It doesn't hurt them to get brand-new games that were only released hours ago for a fraction of the cost. They are getting brand-new, never-opened $60 games for a few bucks and making a huge profit.
I’ve worked in fast food, and it is a sad reality that many workers will come to work sick, because they can’t afford to lose wages. One year, the flu was going around town, and I think our restaurant was ground zero.
