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“What’s The Dark Secret About Your Profession That The General Public Doesn’t Know?” (30 Answers)
Every industry has its hidden side that may be unappealing. It’s akin to visiting the kitchen of your favorite restaurant and seeing how grimy and untidy it actually is from behind the scenes.
Much of this insider information remained concealed until someone posted this question on Reddit: “What’s the dark secret about your profession that the general public doesn’t know?”
People didn’t hesitate to respond, revealing what happens behind closed doors among lawyers, healthcare workers, educators, and service industry employees, to name a few.
Many of these answers may shock you and make you question the fabric of society. But if you want to read about juicy industry secrets, scroll through this list.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Former heavy machinery worker. Everything from in facility work to road and construction work.
Every single guy...I mean every guy, that operates a backhoe or asphalt roller or bulldozer absolutely LOVES and gets a kick when we see kids watching and being interested in what we are doing. We all want to stop and let them on the machine and allow them to run it, but are only forced to not to because of rules and insurance.
When we get together for lunch we aren't talking about the women we saw. We're talking about the little boy in the red hoodie who clapped when we dumped a shovel. And not one guy teases you for thinking it was great, because otherwise the job is just grinding and our bosses suck.
I figured we needed a bit of positivity on this thread.
Say No to Downvoting 2 months ago
I went to a kids party, once , where the entire “entertainment” was that one of the dads parked his crane in the front yard and let all the kids have a go at controlling it (with him helping) and even gave them rides by fitting them in a harness and lifting them up a couple of metres (I had a go, too, only I got to go up as high as it would take me - whee!). The kids and I were ruined for parties since then - nothing will top that.
ZGutr 2 months ago
Been along on trucks and been on road construction ... it's absolutely true! Those kids makes the day !!! It can even makes you forget the (many) as$hole drivers that cuts off trucks, not allowing truck any space on the roads while they completely forgetting it's the road they (mis)use we are laying down, it's their $hit being delivered
Krystle Deschene 2 months ago (edited)
I like hearing this end of it as i see the other side of things. I run an at home daycare. I love taking the kids out for walks just to find and look at the construction stuff going. Not only do the kids absolutely LOVE watching the "big trucks" and and equipment. But 95% of the time the operator of said truck usually stops, beeps and waves. And it's the highlight of their walks too. 😊
Upstaged75 2 months ago (edited)
When mine was a toddler we did exactly that almost every day. He was obsessed. Sometimes if he was having a fussy day and wouldn't nap I'd just put him in the car and drive around so he could look for trucks. :) It worked every time.
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Stannous Flouride 2 months ago
There's a place called "Dig This" in Vegas that lets kids and adult operate heavy equipment. Digthis-Pr...a5a44b.jpg 
Spencer's slave no longer 2 months ago
As a former roading worker this was absolutely the best bit of the job. Having kids come over and ask what the plant was doing and being able to explain how millers, pavers, platies, graders, rollers etc work was awesome. Kids absolutely love big yellow machines.
Panda Kicki 2 months ago
This was so adorable. Having kids that do exactly that I got so happy!
Falcon on Dizzy 2 months ago
can confirm, I was a mechanic for heavy equipment and every now and again one of the staff would bring their kids and I've seen them look so excited to see the machines at work. Luckily for the kids, we let them operate the machines (very cautiously and with heavy supervision ofc)
UncleJohn3000 2 months ago
I took a CPR class at a fire station and they actually scheduled about 10 minutes for some of us to check out the engines. "We understand."
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 2 months ago
When I worked the toddler room at the daycare, we had one boy who was picked up during nap time, so his mom preferred to put him down at home. We'd give him a book or puzzle while we put the other kids down, then play with him quietly. He was as well-behaved as a baby can be, and was usually reasonably quiet. One nap time I gave him The Truck Book. He kept paging through it, and with every new page, "WOW!" The other kids didn't get much sleep that day!
Upstaged75 2 months ago
My kid was one of those toddlers obsessed with trucks and we loved how nice the trash and recycling guys were about stopping to say hi to him every week. His first word after mama and dada was "truck". (Which sometimes also sound like duck or the F-word, LOL!)
Tara L. 1 month ago
Our street was being dug up last year, there was a backhoe & dump truck. Our neighbor's little 5 year old ran outside with his little toy dump truck & stood outside watching (with his mom). All the workers stopped everything, one guy went over & took the boy's hand & had him put his dump truck down on the ground. The backhoe operator then scooped up a little dirt & carefully dumped it in the boy's little truck! He was so precise lol. The boy was so happy, he pushed his dump truck away with its load, everyone clapped for him. It was adorable. Later I saw his mom come out with cookies lol & passed them out to the workers.
Sunny Day 2 months ago
Reminds me of this oldie. https://youtu.be/5zoTLwrm9QE?si=7rddukip4Rbyfupt Teddy Bear by Red Sovine
Nikki Gross 2 months ago
Had a REALLY bad experience with a construction size forklift involving my Dad when I was a little kid. To this day I'm very wary about being around heavy machinery, but I suck it up because my nieces and nephews love to watch them.
Lene 2 months ago
I have always made a point to show my three girls all sorts of jobs. We have talked to road workers, smiths, police officers, trash-van workers, gardeners and so on. I just want to teach my kids that there are all kinds of work that needs to be done in order to have our society working. Not all jobs require a college-/university degree. So at this point my 7yo wants to be a busdriver, while my 5yo wants to be a vet. My 3yo recently said she wants to be a doctor for children. I have an academic background and my bf is a forester by education but works in a factory now. I just want my kids to know from early on that they can be what they want and my bf and I will love that for them. As long as they have a job that gives them a feeling of purpose and happiness.
TheBlueBitterfly 2 months ago
My son and I stood looking out the bathroom window for over an hour while they removed part of the street in front of my house. At one point the piece of machinery rotated towards us, forcing the operator to see us (we were at eye-level to each other) so we started waving like crazy. His eyes lit up and he waved back, and gave the claw of his digger thingy a little up-and-down shake at us. I can only imagine what he thought.. my kid was 15 at the time, and a foot taller than me. Always a kid at heart when there's big machines around.
Sara Frazer 2 months ago
That's so cute! Heck, I'm a 30-year-old woman and I love watching machinery 😹
Gracie Mae 2 months ago (edited)
my grandchildren are fortunate in that my son operates a wide variety of heavy equipment, so they do get to experience all of it--girls are interested in that stuff too, and are so tickled by it! I think it tickles him just as much
Brian Droste 2 months ago
I am 64 and I am retired. Maybe a month ago, there were a group of construction workers repairing a state road. This was early in the morning. I went out on my front porch watched them for awhile. I didn't want to get to close to seem to be to nosy.
Cindi Antrobus 2 months ago
My uncle would sometimes bring his work truck by and we would get to go up in the bucket it was a boom truck for welding electrical line stuff
chclt4marcia_1 2 months ago
Had an in-home daycare. Our favourite thing to do was wave at construction workers as we walked through the neibourhood.
David Houde 2 months ago
I still stare at the heavy equipment at construction sites. I want to play with them. I'm 48 years old. I'll never stop wanting to play with them.
Kombatbunni 2 months ago
I’ll often stop to look at construction going on and I’m in my late 40s. I’ll also tell the workers they’re doing a good job and that what they’re building looks great :)
John Mosley 2 months ago
Well there goes the "bit of positivity on this thread".
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RELATED:
#2
It is entirely possible that your veterinarian will kiss your kitten's belly when you are not looking.
#3
The number of completely incompetent employees working in health care settings is appalling.
cecilia kilian 2 months ago
Elder care in memory care units is a disgrace in the US. The employees don't care because they are paid peanuts. The residents cannot complain because they no longer have the capacities to do so. Meanwhile the families are paying the price of a small car every month for "care", and the facilities' owners are reaping the profits.
#4
I used to be a police officer: There were a lot of unspoken rules about making sure we had a high number of arrests. Demonstrating high arrest numbers meant we got federal/state grant money. This kept the prosecutor employed along with the entire court system and showed the town/city we needed a larger budget because of all the arrests. The entire criminal justice system is literally a giant business which [profits] off the backs of the public
#5
Economist here. The dirty secret is that economists do actually know what they're doing, politicians and pundits just ignore us and do whatever they want to make more money for the rich. Oh and all conservative economic theory is a made up scam. Trickle down is a scam.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 2 months ago
Some economists know what they are doing. Enough of them supported Reaganomics to screw this country hard in the 80s. At least most of them are clever enough to oppose Trump's TARIFFS TARIFFS TARIFFS strategy.
#6
Security guard: In an active shooter event, we're not going to protect your a*s. We're heading to the nearest safe exit and calling the cops.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 2 months ago
Tbf, that is kind of reasonable, everybody should be getting out.
#7
80% of women with developmental disabilities will experience SA. The statistics are already horrible for neuro typical women but most people outside the field have no idea it's so high. It is horrific.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 2 months ago
Let's all take advantage of the vulnerable! What a mess we are as a species.
#8
Funeral Director/Embalmer here. I don’t know that this is a particularly “dark” secret, but despite the rising popularity, the lack of understand around what cremation really is always shocks me. You do not get “ashes” back. You get back bone fragments. In school we had it drilled into us to never use them term “ashes” because it is so inaccurate and only perpetuates this misunderstanding. Your body is not reduced to a fine, powdery ash that will float off in the wind/water when scattered. It is reduced to large chunks of bone which are then processed to try to attain a fairly uniform consistency. Much more like a heavy sand.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 2 months ago
I loved making sandcastles with my grandad. But then my mum would tell me to put grandads ashes back in the urn.
#9
Book editor. Unless you have a massive social media following/built-in audience already, chances are very small you'll get published by a major house. Chances are even smaller that you'll make any money from your book. Just self-publish if you really want to get your work out there: the publishing industry is 95% about making money and 5% about publishing decent books.
Bartlet for World Domination 2 months ago
Is that a big letter book or is Hamlet way longer than I remember?
#10
I work in the gas pipeline industry and there's been massive accidents and terror attacks people have no idea about and were never reported nor ever will be. All over the world.
#11
When they make a pain cream, they put in ingredients to make you "feel" something, like menthol, because it's associated with "doing something" or "working". Simple not feeling anything (or less pain) is not associated with effecacy.
#12
A boutique hotel I worked at didn’t wash comforters unless they had to. And even then you really had to push. I was pulled to help with housekeeping fairly regularly in the busy season, found a quilt with blood on it - sent it to laundry. It was sent back 5 mins for being “clean enough” 🤢🤮
My housekeepers told me it was normal. I was horrified. I cringe staying at hotels and take a blanket when I can.
#13
Professors are regularly pressured into passing failing students to keep up graduation levels. I even had the registrar go into the system and change grades. Let’s just say I have seen my fair share of students who failed my science course but were passed by admins who are now building your bridges, interstates, buildings,levees, and multi-level parking lots.
#14
Persuasive design is unbelievably effective on websites.
A little scarcity message there, a little was/now pricing, a big ol' prominent "buy now" button in just the right place, badly designed filters that limit your ability to see the cheapest products.
Lots of websites are utterly garbage, and some might *look* garbage and have obviously annoying experiences (Amazon anyone?) but it's like that because you spend more money, and cost the company less money - not to make it good for you.
We know how long you spend on a page, what you look at, what will make you buy, and how to keep you engaged for as long as possible. We know you are using an iPhone - the newest, largest model - and are likely a wealthier prospect, so will tailor our messaging and pricing to squeeze every cent out of you that we can.
These experiments are conducted on you without your knowledge in order to make you part with your money.
#15
The US public school system is on the brink of collapse.
#16
Food service, 20 years in the industry. Even surrounded by all of that food you barely have an opportunity to eat or drink anything. A lot of food service work is part time unless you're a manager, and if you're a salaried manager forget ever having a life outside of work, you are on call 24/7/365, even on your days off. You're on your feet from the moment you start your shift until you clock out. You barely have a chance to sit down unless you're using the bathroom. If you're waiting tables, you earn $2.13 per hour, and all of it is taken in taxes, so you're living on customer's tips. You have to balance a heavy tray of food and drinks on one hand while dodging coworkers and customers and trying not to spill anything. Then you have the customers with entitled attitudes who want their food fast, fresh and hot but don't want to wait for it and refuse to pay their server by tipping them for doing their job. There's a lot of prep work that goes on before the restaurant opens in order to get your meal out in a timely manner. If your restaurant serves breakfast you are awake when your customers are asleep, yep, you're clocking in at 3 am. And we wake up every day to do it for you. So treat restaurant workers well!
Stephanie Did It 2 months ago
Cue the flood of comments from all of the countries that pay food service workers a living wage, and who do not have to endure the entitled jerks to stay in business
#17
Professor. We are totally invested in helping you to make amazing work, we stick up for students all the time. We take the responsibility of helping you win very seriously. The only dark thing is that many people see it the other way around.
#18
I work in laboratory support for a life sciences department at a mid-size university, and the amount of plastic waste we generate is astounding. .
Becky Samuel 2 months ago
This is unfortunately true, but at the moment absolutely necessary. We have learned some lessons from things like prion diseases (cannot be destroyed by normal heat sterilisation procedures). Although this waste problem will have to be tackled at some stage, it is absolutely dwarfed by the plastic consumed by the food industry, so making changes to that supply line first is the most important.
#19
During an autopsy, we will not take care with your organs and stuff them back in any old how so they fit back in your chest cavity.
#20
No so much a dark secret, but authors make pennies on the dollar. Even mid-to-high level authors have to work a day job.
Jrog 2 months ago (edited)
The average royalty rate is in the 8-10% for traditional publishing, and up to 15% for affirmed authors. Electronic distribution has much higher rates, up to double. An average book that got picked up by a major editor may sell 3-5000 copies at an average price of 15$. So, except for a few blockbusters an author earns a 5-10k/yr. The real money comes later with licensing and "long tail" commerce, with the book generating small revenues for longer time, compounding with the success of further books.
#21
Dental Hygienist here: Not sure if ppl are aware that a RDH only requires an associates degree in science (2 1/2 yr program), medium salary is approx. 70k, 4 day work week most offices, good hours (no nights), free dental care and usually discounted for family. It’s a pretty good career and if you work at a private practice it’s pretty easy because you’re seeing patients who return every 6 months and have good home care. I have friends graduating from a 4 year college and deep in debt getting 25k job offers. It’s not a bad gig.
John Mosley 2 months ago
It's the whole "sticking my fingers into people's mouths" thing I wouldn't be able to handle.
#22
50% of our entire financial and banking system runs on legacy cobol code written prior to 1980.
FlamingoPanda 2 months ago (edited)
For those wondering how bad this is: if the code stops working or someone somewhere makes a seemingly small change then the whole system comes down. Globally. We have seen this on smaller scales with various internet outages most notably when someone took a vital javascript library (the internet runs on javascript) off github (place that coders often use to store their code safely) for reasons and suddenly half the internet was unusable. And the people who know Cobol are retiring currently with minimal new talent coming in. If you want to make yourself indispensable to society learn Cobol.
#23
I worked at a mental health facility. They were all about image and money. Very few clients were ever discharged. They were far more interested in the money than actually helping people.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 2 months ago
For-profit mental health is almost as bad as for-profit prisons.
#24
For anyone that didn't serve in the military, it's an absolute s**t show. Just another corporation with fancy names for managers and employees.
I don't know how the govt functions after having served lol.
#25
Some farm stands and farmers market booths have fruits and vegetables from Costco repackaged into cardboard pints to make it look "home grown".
#26
I work in medical delivery strictly to hospice patients. As you can imagine they die frequently. We pick the equipment up to be returned to the warehouse and sanitized it for redelivery to other patients. It’s a shoe string industry with tiny profit margins. Every single company out there is picking up mattress, slapping a disposable cover on them and putting them back out at the next stop. Logistically there is no possible way everyone in the industry isn’t doing it. I personally refuse to do it. I’ve had a regional vp b***h at me about it and say we were in business to make money not to deliver clean equipment to someone that was going to die the next day. Even if you don’t account for urine and fecal matter there’s still roaches and bed bugs getting moved around all the time.
Jrog 2 months ago (edited)
"It’s a shoe string industry with tiny profit margins". You know what? You should not have "margins" at all. You should not even be deemed an "industry". Margins are resources taken out of your core activities. If you give people "in business to make money" any decision power you are creating an environmental push to degrade the quality of service in favor of their profits. Medicine should be a socialized business, with fees -as well as operational standards- decided by the single-payer caregiver, and close scrutiny on expenses.
#27
Vets in the US have a high s**cide rate. High debt, relatively low income relative to that debt and their level of schooling, a lot of client abuse and depressing cases, and access to euthanasia d***s.. and like we're taught the gold standard medicine but a lot of clients can't afford the gold standard, so you've got this frustration where you want to help but can't, and then you're accused of being heartless or just in it for the money. I left clinical medicine after two years for a series of non-clinical roles.
And the turnover rate on vet techs (the nurses in the vet hospital) is fairly high, estimated at about 30-35% with an average time in the industry of just 5-10 years.. and that's for your licensed techs that went to school for it. The school I used to teach at had similar findings in our own post-grad surveys, where a lot of our graduates would either leave the field entirely or leave clinical medicine for things like reference lab work, pet insurance, or pharmaceutical rep work after just a couple years.
TribbleThinking 2 months ago
Just imagine a caring child who gets into this field because they want to help animals. Then they find that through their career, they spend a good amount of time putting down animals when it's simply the most humane thing to do. Talk about mental torture.
#28
I'm a game developer who used to work on mobile games before moving to PC development. Mobile game developers know exactly how much you've spent on the game and when so they can target you with a pop-up at just the right time to get your money. This is a fairly automatic process though not someone sitting in a room watching you. A lot of people know this so I'll throw in a bonus secret - with regional pricing people in second and third world countries are paying a tiny fraction of what you pay for the same MTX. In first world countries it's all about finding the whale who will spend BIG on a game but in second/third countries they just try to maximise volumes of sale. Remember, an MTX usually cost about a day or less than that's work to implement but from then on costs the company exactly £0. You are buying thin air or worse yet just the opportunity to keep playing the game.
Super bonus third secret that I'm sure isn't much of a secret - mobile gaming ads are downright lies honestly. It's never the primary gameplay loop. It'll be in the game somewhere but limited access and never as good as it looks in the ad.
I just straight up don't recommend mobile gaming to people any more. There may be some good games out there but the majority are quite exploitative. Gambling but without the part where the company ever pays you any money. You just get a shiny hat or some bs.
Becky Samuel 2 months ago
What the heck is an "MTX"? I wish people wouldn't assume that we all understand their industry slang and acronyms.
#29
IT guy, I Google or reddit half my problems. Your computers I buy from a place you could buy them from also I just mark them up 35% or more. I could care less if you look at p**n at work until I'm told to care. We talk about end users like they have the intelligence of a rock and we judge you on your technical skills. More techs than you want to know about will search your personal device for nudes given then chance.
arthbach 2 months ago
It is so common in lots of professional jobs to look up information. You are not expected to have all of the information in your head. Instead, you are expected to be able to use the tools at your disposal, your experience, and your knowledge to find solutions to problems. An IT person looking up information is the equivalent of a GP (family doctor) looking up the correct dosage for a certain type of medication for their patient. It's not a secret, it's how it works.
#30
Pilot. I don't actually give a s**t if it's turbulent or you're uncomfortable back there. .
What do you think ?
BookFanatic 2 months ago
I've been a librarian for over 20 years and the job's getting harder and harder. Every year our budget gets slashed because we're seen as no longer relevant. Yet we are expected to do more and fill more gaps. I've been called on to be security, mental health worker, tax advisor, health advocate, social worker, and babysitter. We're on the frontlines of censorship with little to no recourse. The number of challenged titles in public libraries has increased 92% from last year. Libraries have been the victim of first amendment audits, protests, and bomb threats. There are laws being passed to restrict the type of materials we can offer our patrons. It feels like we're fighting a losing battle.
Sophia Athene 2 months ago
I can imagine how much you might want to give up, but please keep fighting the good fight. If I didn't have to work, I'd just read all day and most nights. As a kid up to teens, I lived for library trips to load up for that week's reading, every week in the summer. I was older than my sister enough to do my own thing like an only child. Books were everything to me. My high school teacher assigned Handmaid's Tale and Sons and Lovers and even more that would not be acceptable today. I read widely as a kid. I had moved on to the adult fiction section by the time I was 12 b/c I'd read every kids and juvenile book.
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Illifred 2 months ago
I work as a music producer. Most "artists" have no freaking clue what they're talking about. Sometimes they ask me to make the sound more *insert any dumb term here*. I say: "Hold on - I know what you mean!" and then I hit a button or a slider in the patch bay that has absolutely no function. "Better?" "Yeah, much better!"
Dan Holden 2 months ago
That can go both ways. Search up Leland Sklar's "producer switch" that he installed on his bass for this very reason.
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Skogsrået 2 months ago
I feel like most of these are from and for the USA and not the rest of the world?
harshtart 2 months ago
Probably because they're the ones with the most problems . . . 😜
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Andy Frobig 2 months ago
I fix wind instruments. The dark secret to my business is that it exists. It never occurs to a lot of people until their kid drops a saxophone. Another secret is that a lot of fixing of beloved instruments involves whacking them with a hammer. And one secret I learned as a tech is that wind instruments can get absolutely disgusting
BookFanatic 2 months ago
I've been a librarian for over 20 years and the job's getting harder and harder. Every year our budget gets slashed because we're seen as no longer relevant. Yet we are expected to do more and fill more gaps. I've been called on to be security, mental health worker, tax advisor, health advocate, social worker, and babysitter. We're on the frontlines of censorship with little to no recourse. The number of challenged titles in public libraries has increased 92% from last year. Libraries have been the victim of first amendment audits, protests, and bomb threats. There are laws being passed to restrict the type of materials we can offer our patrons. It feels like we're fighting a losing battle.
Sophia Athene 2 months ago
I can imagine how much you might want to give up, but please keep fighting the good fight. If I didn't have to work, I'd just read all day and most nights. As a kid up to teens, I lived for library trips to load up for that week's reading, every week in the summer. I was older than my sister enough to do my own thing like an only child. Books were everything to me. My high school teacher assigned Handmaid's Tale and Sons and Lovers and even more that would not be acceptable today. I read widely as a kid. I had moved on to the adult fiction section by the time I was 12 b/c I'd read every kids and juvenile book.
Load More Replies... Illifred 2 months ago
I work as a music producer. Most "artists" have no freaking clue what they're talking about. Sometimes they ask me to make the sound more *insert any dumb term here*. I say: "Hold on - I know what you mean!" and then I hit a button or a slider in the patch bay that has absolutely no function. "Better?" "Yeah, much better!"
Dan Holden 2 months ago
That can go both ways. Search up Leland Sklar's "producer switch" that he installed on his bass for this very reason.
Load More Replies... Skogsrået 2 months ago
I feel like most of these are from and for the USA and not the rest of the world?
harshtart 2 months ago
Probably because they're the ones with the most problems . . . 😜
Load More Replies... Andy Frobig 2 months ago
I fix wind instruments. The dark secret to my business is that it exists. It never occurs to a lot of people until their kid drops a saxophone. Another secret is that a lot of fixing of beloved instruments involves whacking them with a hammer. And one secret I learned as a tech is that wind instruments can get absolutely disgusting
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