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Initially, a job may seem straightforward but once you immerse yourself in it, a whole set of new surprises emerges in front of you.
Interested in the professional nuances that hide behind initial impressions, Reddit user Acrobatic_News_9986 made a post on the platform, asking others "What was an industry secret that genuinely took you aback when you learned it?"
From retail to event planning and sales, the answers they've received lifted the curtain from a variety of sectors; even if it's just a glimpse, there are plenty of intriguing tidbits.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I feel like it just surprised me in general once I entered the world of work to learn how disorganised things are behind the scenes, even at the biggest of companies. From the outside looking in it always looks super official and clean cut but really it’s just a lot of people behind the scenes fumbling around and not really knowing 100% what is going on.
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#2
99% of web traffic to a client’s commercial that they upload to YouTube is fake.
That 1,000,000 views within the first few days for that new Bud Light commercial? Most are BoTs paid for by the ad agency that made the commercial.
#3
That if you are asked to rate someone's customer service (eg your bank lender, salesperson etc) out of 10, anything less than a 9 in some places may as well be a zero.
#4
Worked for a health insurance company that provided coverage for people with Medicaid and used the DRG reimbursement method to pay some providers. The charges on a hospital bill were literally meaningless, all that mattered were the diagnosis codes/procedure codes. Hospital could have charged $5 dollars or $15 million dollars, payment would have been the same regardless. Another one of the many ways in which US healthcare is just so whack.
C L 10 months ago (edited)
They are mandated to use the DRG code method by Medicare and Medicaid rules if they accept those coverages. It is hard for the hospitals/clinics/nursing homes to cover what a patient actually needs under those rules. I worked in oncology and many times the dr*gs we used weren't what was best for the patient but what the government decreed was covered. Not what the oncologist thought was best. It gets so tiring fighting those battles. I know other specialties have the same problem.
#5
As an electrician, I'm amazed more houses don't burn down every day. I do my best, but many others just work as fast as they can and leave behind shoddy work that (sometimes literally) falls apart when you touch it.
#6
I work in IT security, for a vendor. I am constantly surprised by how terrible so many organizations’ security practices are. There’s outdated equipment, no accountability, and most of it is run on Excel.
David Paterson 10 months ago
My personal opinion. Ever since remote access desktop was invented, some time before the year 2002, there has been no computer security.
#7
The use of microwaves in mid-range restaurants. I knew it was common in fast food, but seeing all the hot sides in a steakhouse with $50 entrees being cooked in a microwave was a little jarring.
Michelle Carlson 10 months ago
This is why I don't go to a lot of chain restaurants. I know that stuff is coming out of a Sysco bag.
#8
I don't know if it's a secret, but I remember hearing someone ask a doctor why they specifically say to "turn your head" before coughing, when assessing for a hernia.
The doctor said there wasn't a medical reason, but "it's so you don't cough on me.".
#9
Not sure if this counts, but when I was in car sales I learned real quick that the actual car itself isn’t where the real money is at, but the backend is. So like warranties, getting work done, etc etc.
Most dealerships will still put up a fight on the actual price of the car though because they know most people are focused on the car itself. This is also done to help wear you down so you’re less likely to fight on the backend when they say they’ll discount the car price down to X amount but you have to get a warranty or 2 with it. More often than not, most people will cave because they got 2-3k off on the car and don’t realize the warranties are adding on 2-5k and warranties are often straight profit.
Different dealerships tweak the above strategy to their market but generally they all play it to some degree.
#10
When I found out those Judge TV shows are just game shows and the show pays out the winnings. It's not really court, it's more of a game show at that point.
Plus those shows fly you out and pay you $500 to be on them. So both sides get paid to be on them.
#11
A lot of aisles in grocery stores are sponsored. The soda aisle for example, the store didn't buy that merchandise, it's stocked by a vendor.
The.Butterfly.Effect.530 10 months ago
This is why walmart makes as much as it does. It doesn't buy the merchandise. It basically just rents shelf space.
#12
I don't know if the rule has changed since I left, but you CAN 100% bring in candy at the movie theater. I worked at an AMC and was tearing tickets one day, a slow day. I was chatting with my manager when a lady came in with a grocery bag full of snacks. I tore her ticket, directed her to her room, and asked the manager about the candy. She said it's ok. You aren't allowed to bring in "hot food". I believe it's because it's a health code violation.
So stop doing that stupid s**t like using a huge bowl to pretend you are pregnant. You aren't a f****n' rebel. You are basically j-walking. No one cares.
#13
College Admissions here: we absolutely discriminate when we read applications, and your chances of getting in are not equal. Some of the ways are legal, some aren’t, but good luck proving any of it. Most selective options will let you know about the legal ways (in broad terms, not in specifics), but plenty goes on behind the scenes that won’t make it to the information session.
marianne eliza 10 months ago
All applications should be edited to remove all identifying characteristics like race, religion, gender, age, before admissions gets them. The best person is the best person.
#14
When a political campaign texts you, anything you respond with gets read by an actual human.
So continue with the funny, cheeky, and even mean responses. But the death threats will get reported to the police.
#15
Whenever you fill out a survey like "how did you like our website today", most of the time an *actual human* does read your response, and it doesn't disappear into a black hole
tldr; fill out surveys. Your perspective is critical to understanding what you guys actually want.
felixreychman 10 months ago
But it is not critical TO ME! The company wants me to work for free, instructing them on how to runt their business. "It only takes a few minutes". Well, I charge by the hour, so how much for my opinion? I don't work for free for commercial businesses.
#16
Guess how much of your vet bill goes directly to the vet’s salary? About 22%. The rest goes to operating costs and staff salaries (which are never as high as they deserve).
XanthippeⓐWulf🇨🇦️️🇬🇧 10 months ago
This! I loved when people would say "well,I guess I just bought you a new car." No, no you didn't. But thank you for helping me provide your best friend with advanced medical care and pay my employees (who spend their days getting kicked by your livestock or bitten by your little "pookie") a well-deserved salary. This is why I don't miss having a practice. I "retired" at 37 and have spent the last year 1/2 in my mobile clinic doing private farm calls, zoo work, & a free Rabies vacc & neuter clinic every few months. I still get to do the work that I love but without all the hassle.
#17
The guacamole that you eat at TGI Friday’s is a giant envelope of dry stuff, mixed with a 5 gallon bucket of sour cream. And it’s pretty freaking good.
#18
Customer Service in Call Centres - We WANT you to swear at us...The second you swear AT me, NB not just swear, or be personally abusive or whatever, no matter how right you are, you're wrong and no matter how bad a blooper I made, you've just handed me a 'free pass'....
And I get to cut your call off - Cheers.
#19
Cable TV “customer service” the “Assumed Close”
Basically I was told to interview customers and ask if they thought that they might like to have this product or that product, and then this service or that service, what ever service they said they responded positively to I was to make a check in the corresponding sales order and have them sign before I left the house. Then in a day or so tech would show up at their house with their order and their signature showing that they did indeed order it.
Never could bring myself to do it. Scummy as could be. Time Warner Cable for those curious.
Did I say that out loud? (he/him)cis/het 10 months ago
And this is why, in the UK, at least, there's a fourteen day cooling off period with any contract giving you the right to cancel without penalty.
#20
Lots of musicians buy their records in bulk. 500k units sold is almost platinum, then they turn around and sell it back to distributors.
M Zellmer 10 months ago
I only recently discovered this concept, since I thought this was normal practice if you didn't have a publisher, but to think that the sales numbers come from the publisher sales and not the shelf sales changes everything. That means that every New York Bestseller is just people who have the wealthiest investors, betting on the resale value after its declared a best seller. What a scam.
#21
From a nursing home with fractured leadership:
CNAs often times have to speed run their cares which is abusive at times.
Patients will spit on and hit staff and face no consequences.
Patients will call black staff the N word with no consequences.
Morbidly obese patients will require routine cleaning of all their yeasty folds by up to 4 staff and will reject weight restriction diets. They'll request a commode at the bedside so staff have to rinse their p**s and s**t into a toilet multiple times a day.
Mentally ill patients in general will abuse staff and face no consequences. Only thing taken seriously is if a "vulnerable adult" is hurt or afraid.
EMS professionals who wanted to save lives become cab drivers for anybody who falls on the floor or they take calls to pick fat people off the floor. EMS > HOSPITAL > NURSING HOME cycle becomes a way to drain taxpayer dollars from government. It can't be plugged cause a death/injury will be made into a big deal to necessitate caution.
There are rich people who seem to just move around the country and be piles of s**t instead of changing themselves.
Majority of salary people do about 8 hours of work a week and keep employment by "BEING POSITIVE!" and sucking up to power.
Staff will disable call lights on problematic residents with mental health problems and inability to communicate because otherwise the alarms beep 24/7 and all the mentally ill patients start going psycho. Out of touch HAPPY salary people will cry wolf and point fingers while doing their 8 hours a week. Meanwhile direct care staff do 70 hour weeks contracting life altering fungal diseases from all the morbidly obese folds and a*s cracks.
The point where nursing homes, software, hospitals, EMS, bureaucracy, pharmacies, colleges, and federal reimbursement intersects is a weird mess of power struggles, failures, apathy, and lies/omissions that piled up for decades to the detriment of direct care staff and residents. For example see the opioid crisis for an extreme example but similar stuff is everywhere.
Then covid happened and it guess what, the people doing all the fuckery were unscathed while many hardworking decent people got sick and developed morbidities, died or lost family members.
#22
As a former Walmart cashier, a lot of people were surprised when I told them that we were given a 2 minute time limit per customer .
Robert T 10 months ago
That would seem to be a pretty pointless rule, as when I worked in a supermarket, I often used to have customers with two trolley loads and there was no way you could scan all of that in 2 minutes. You had to be able to keep up a decent speed, but at that time, I don't think they had any real way of monitoring it. I was frequently somewhat faster than the customer could bag, so I would help them bag their stuff. You just keep going until its all done and hope that the customer doesn't wander off with the first trolleyload before you're done (it happened to me once! Had to chase after her out into the car park! She was most embarassed).
#23
Years ago, I worked adjacent to the tobacco industry. My area's RJ Reynolds rep was telling me he went to a retirement party for a colleague who had been with RJ for decades. She was drunk, spilling all kinds of tea, including the fact that cigarette shippers (cardboard displays) use to be placed in the lines at grocery stores specifically to be stolen by children. They knew we couldn't buy them so they counted on us to steal. And we did. And my gen smoked. .
#24
The software industry is in shambles. I don't know when it happened, but certainly before 2007. Either it's been like that forever or happened before that year.
If you have time, read through this for an idea of what software development is like.
https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks
The digital world as we know it is held up together by a conglomeration of toothpicks, empty toilet paper rolls, and chewed up bubble gum.
#25
A lot of bands, I mean a LOT (including your favorite) use prerecorded tracks in their live show. Even ones you would never think. In fact, I would say MOST do today to some degree.
Aiden Brough 10 months ago
Not to pour water on the notion of them live, but how would you expect them to jump around a stage AND sing? Especially those of a more 'advanced' age... Hell, I can barely walk and breath...
#26
Supermarket shelf space is a cut throat market. Notice that the name brand stuff is always at eye level, whereas generic items are near the floor? That's not by accident
poison Ivy 10 months ago
Sad thing is most generics are the same as name brands, just in different packaging!
#27
I work at Waffle House & im a vegetarian so there’s not much I eat there. Money is taken out of my check for food. It doesn’t matter if I eat or not they’re still gonna take it out. Doesn’t matter how much or little it’s still taken out. The price varies on how many hours you worked that day I think.
#28
Warranty work is purposely delayed.
Lets say you have a product that has a manufacturing defect and is covered by warranty. Companies accept the warranty repair work yet sit on ordering the actual part needed to affect the repair until financials support that part purchase. Often it's better to use money (or on hand parts) for new customers as that's more profitable than fixing their mistakes/error.
Personally, I always thought supporting your existing customers was more important than getting new ones, but that's not how most businesses operate. It genuinely surprised me when I found out. I see it all the time in construction, manufacturing, and retail.
Rostit.. . 10 months ago
yeah I call b******t here. I have done warranty repair work. It did not sit around. Maybe in specific industries but this is the first I have heard of it.
#29
A large majority of "loading screens" in commercial software and to a lesser extent games are fake. In the modern world most software tasks happen almost instantly, but older/less technical users assume if it was done quickly it wasn't done well, so artificial loading bars are put in to appease those people. Really common in all kinds of "corporate software" that older people are likely to use.
Tucker Cahooter 10 months ago
Nothing more annoying than a progress bar that moves quickly to 99% and just hangs there
#30
Billboards promoting tv shows are not for the consumer but for the advertisers we want to sell time to.
What do you think ?
Tamra 10 months ago (edited)
Here is an industry "secret" from a former massage therapist: we really don't care about what kind of body type you have. Short, tall, scarred, thin, fat, or hairy...none of that matters to us. We genuinely just want you to have a moment where you can relax, be nurtured, and hopefully help with any aches and pains. And please don't joke about getting a "happy ending". It's not funny, it's harassment, and you will be flagged. And then you can bet your a*s we'll talk about you.
Rostit.. . 10 months ago
Can I get a happy ending story? No d**k stuff. Just a story.
Load More Replies...
Tamra 10 months ago (edited)
Here is an industry "secret" from a former massage therapist: we really don't care about what kind of body type you have. Short, tall, scarred, thin, fat, or hairy...none of that matters to us. We genuinely just want you to have a moment where you can relax, be nurtured, and hopefully help with any aches and pains. And please don't joke about getting a "happy ending". It's not funny, it's harassment, and you will be flagged. And then you can bet your a*s we'll talk about you.
Rostit.. . 10 months ago
Can I get a happy ending story? No d**k stuff. Just a story.
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