Recently, Reddit user u/_somename_ asked r/AskReddit: "People no longer bound by their NDA, what can you now disclose?" (In case you don't know, NDA stands for non-disclosure agreement.) Here's what they revealed:
Please note that we cannot confirm the validity of each claim made in these submissions.
1. "I used to work in a warehouse where we made feminine hygiene products. The pads came out of one machine and went into several different branded boxes — both the one-cent gas station pads and the $10-a-box pads. Also, we had one product of pads that we imported from China, then repackaged them into our own boxes. I didn't have a problem with that, but the problem I had was that the box had an emblem that said 'Made in America'."
2. "The Star Wars sequel trilogy had a plan, and you can even see the narrative coming over the hill for the closing moments of The Last Jedi. Kylo Ren was supposed to die evil. He was literally supposed to be an embodiment of the antithesis of the hero’s journey. It would be Rey’s one great failure: she could not save him. It was supposed to be a message to young girls that just because you want to fix someone, it doesn’t mean you’ll always succeed. However, the powers that be chickened out when they saw how huge the Reylo fandom was and scrapped their plans and hired J.J. Abrams to make Rise of Skywalker. I cannot wait for the tell-alls to be written about the making of that trilogy. I have tons more details about what went down too, like Adam Driver only being down for the role if the ending stayed the same, and how pissed he was when it changed."
3. "I worked in consulting. I still don’t want to share details and still have many NDAs, but one thing I can tell you is that the vast majority of time you see a consulting firm start assisting your workplace, heads are about to roll in terms of layoffs. Many times we were brought in to be the bad guys and to implement decisions that management wanted but didn’t want to be linked to too heavily. Also, management almost always has a list of employees who will be first to go should something go awry. Suck up to them."
4. "Back in the recession when everyone was strapped for cash and the state of Michigan was offering big tax incentives to film companies, one famous network filmed a show at my high school. I honestly don't know if some of the staff knew the details of the show, but our school was so desperate for money that they just said yes, no questions asked. All we knew was that the lead character was a high school teacher who also coached the basketball team, so there would be classroom scenes, a basketball game that they used our actual team for, and a pre-game speech scene in the locker rooms, all using actual students as extras."
"Later, we found out the show was about a well-endowed high school teacher who becomes a sex worker. When this news came out prior to the show's release, school staff and parents were outraged. We students thought it was HILARIOUS. The school should have known better and it became a local scandal that was covered on the evening news."
5. "Not sure of how common knowledge it is, but when I was living in New York City, I was paid to be a fan at a major red carpet movie premiere for a popular film franchise. 100% of the people there were paid to act excited as famous actors and a VERY famous director walked out, said hello, and did interviews. We were under strict instructions not to let anyone know we were hired."
6. "I was part of the beta testing for DC Universe Online. I remember a few missions that were voiced probably just by developers before they hired voice actors to do it. I wish I had saved footage of it because there was one where Supergirl was clearly voiced by a man doing a high-pitched falsetto voice. One of the funniest things I've ever seen."
7. "You know those Jackbox party games? They have a database full of about a hundred Jackbox games that were pitched but not used since rejected games often get featured in later party packs. Notably, one of those Jackbox games is called Poop Cake. I won’t detail how it works in case it does get released, but just know there exists a rejected Jackbox game called Poop Cake."
8. "Jimmy John's puts soy sauce in their tuna."
9. "I used to be an au pair for a famous couple's children. The NDA was in place to protect the family: I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the kids on any of my devices, the photos I did take were not allowed to include their faces, and the rest were just general rules about not sharing their private information. To this day, I won’t sell that information even though the NDA has expired — they were probably some of the nicest people I have ever worked for."
10. "Don't buy fine art except from a real dealer in a working gallery or a specific specialist. The cruise industry is so full of vanity galleries that it's a lawsuit waiting to happen."
11. "Most F-22 fighter jets have a decepticon sticker somewhere on them."
12. "On Survivor, there’s a physically near-identical shadow team that do the challenges over and over again so we can get extra shots."
13. "I used to work in a call center that had a garden pesticide company as a client. The company knew full well that their neonicotinoid-based pesticide/gardening products killed bees and were responsible for colony collapse. We were instructed to bold face deny and/or lie to the customer or caller if we were ever asked about it. We were also instructed to lie about the spray nozzles on the bottles. The company knew they sucked and were almost always completely defective, but they refused to admit it and decided it was cheaper to just keep mailing replacement nozzles."
14. "Your leather car interior is likely to shrink in the sun."
15. "Your phone company doesn't always comply with FCC regulations involving the recording of phone calls. A lot more may be recorded and insecurely stored than you realize."
16. "Marketing companies will hire junior people, give them amazing titles, and then charge the client outstanding fees per position and pay those people junior pay, pocketing everything as profit. The time they charge on estimates is double what it actually takes."
17. "I had a friend who was on a European version of Survivor. Some things were rigged or played up. At one point, a contestant just wanted to leave the island, but you can't just say that, so the cast 'voted' him out and had to act all shocked and say, 'This is a huge betrayal and last minute twist!'"
18. "I knew ahead of time that the lead single off of Taylor Swift’s third album was called 'Mine.' I went to a taping where she performed the song prior to its release in the summer of 2010. I was 18 and signed an NDA. I had no one to discuss it with until the single came out a few months later!"
19. "Some tech companies don’t want their products to be better. I started working for a parking technology company as their IT project manager. Our installs improved drastically by using my military background to design, document, deploy, rinse, repeat… plus I worked 70 hours a week. Then, when I expected the boss to be happy, he said, 'Don’t make things work TOO well. We make money on service too.' Since my methods were implemented, service decreased, which I thought was good and would drive in more sales. In the end, I was just working myself to death for someone without gratitude."
20. "Cash Cab gets most of its contestants through an audition process where it pretends to be another show. Then a producer says they will get you a cab to go to the next location, which is how the people get surprised."
21. "I worked for a company that audited medical bills and looked for stuff that wasn’t charged. If you were not billed for something, they would try to collect on it and get a share of that. If you were billed for something and should not have been, well sucks to be you — moving on, no refunds."
22. "Naked and Afraid (and I'm assuming most 'reality' shows) had a clause in the NDA and contract that said one's image could be used in any way the production company saw fit. This included voice, image, etc. That also meant that the audio may not match the video that was recorded at the same time. It was then that I realized how much these shows are edited down before the public ever sees them. It had never dawned on me that they manipulated things that much. Oh...and it paid like $7K for 21 days of filming."
And finally:
23. "I worked for a pretzel stand at a mall about 25 years ago and had to sign an NDA about the secret pretzel ingredient. It was baking soda."
Answers have been edited for length and/or clarity.