It’s widely accepted that shady sh*t is happening behind the scenes of some industries, even if it’s not publicly broadcast.
The entertainment industry, for example, may dazzle with red carpets and flashing lights, but behind the glitz and glamor, lies a world of exploitation, power games, and cover-ups.
But what about the industries that appear squeaky clean from the outside? What if we told you that many professions have a dirty underbelly, including some that you’d least expect? Seedy secrets that outsiders are not supposed to know.
Someone once asked people to share the dirty, little happenings in their chosen professions and netizens didn’t hold back. From shady business deals, to questionable ethics and even criminal activity, many of the answers might make you rethink what you once thought you knew about the world and its workers. Bored Panda has put together the top responses for you to scroll through while you wonder what’s going on behind closed doors at your own company…
#1
Wanna know why candy is expensive for the average joe? It’s expensive for the theater too. As long as you don’t show it to us, just bring candy in your pocket WE ARENT CHECKING FOR IT. someone brought in 5 pizzas in the boxes, I applauded.
Image source: anon, Pavel Danilyuk
#2
Third Party Reservations. I work in Hospitality. Property side.
Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, all that, they’re complete s**t. They pay us nearly full price for the room in the first place, and then charge you. Guess what that means? No real discount. Just that you don’t notice it as much, because when you arrive you only use your card for incidentals. Quick note about that.
THEY DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT, GIVE YOU PROPER INFORMATION. About anything. Requested a king? Oh they sent the reservation over without any notes about that. Didn’t get told we’d need a card at check in? That’s because they don’t care about customer service, and yes every hotel (that you actually *want* to stay in) in the world requires it.
I mean, the majority of people honestly don’t know much about travel in the first place, but these kinds of websites let that ignorance stagnate. Do yourself a favor, book direct, talk to the agents and ask questions even if they’re stupid ones, because it will save everyone a lot of trouble later.
Image source: SineMetu777
#3
You know those calendars with all those hugely muscled firemen in provocative poses?
Yeah, most of us look *nothing* like that. Sorry, ladies.
Image source: Privateer781, Spencer Davis
#4
Used to work for a company that made software that runs on cars. The company develops the software and hardware for each series of car manufacturer (hence why all the Honda cars have the same stereo layout in a given year) and then ships a finished unit to a big car manufacturer to include in the car. I overheard some engineers talking
A “I found a bug where a rare combination of commands will make the volume stuck at maximum”
B “That sounds dangerous, are you going to report it?”
A “No, I already send the code and the product is ready for shipping, I am not delaying anything unless someone complains”
So if your car is ever stuck on max volume now you know.
Image source: magical_midget, The Yuri Arcurs Collection
#5
You’d be surprised at how many flies commit s*****e in the fryer.
Image source: The-Lying-Tree, Ahmed
#6
Do any of you buy bras from Victoria’s Secret? You know how they’re $50ish? Well we sell a good load of our inventory to discount stores like TJ Maxx and Marshalls, and they put them up for like $5. Those are the exact same bras that are in our stores on the same day. We just print over our logo so that discount store customers dont know its ours. We want to hold that “expensive” image, but we still like the money we get from those store buying in huge lots! So the next time you want a “lux” VS bra, just hit marshalls.
Image source: Instinctftw, senivpetro
#7
This is going to get a little obscure, but lawyers that also serve as bail bond agents for their clients. Most people don’t get how this system works so brief explanation. When you’re arrested you’re supposed to be held until trial unless the judge determines you can be released on your own recognizance or you post bail. Bail is an amount of money you post to secure your appearance at trial. Basically, post bail, get it back if you come to trial, lose it if you don’t. Most defendants are poor so they can’t plunk down hundreds or thousands in cash for bail so they get a bond – basically an insurance product where the bond agent says he’s good for the bail money if the defendant doesn’t show up for trial. The bondsmen gets roughly 10% from the defendant, which they keep regardless, and write a bond promising they’ll pay if defendant doesn’t show up.
Well in Texas, a lawyer can post bond for his client and charge his client money to do it. This is a big f*****g conflict of interest and I have no idea how it’s ethical or allowed. Our communications with clients are supposed to be privileged and confidential. We are supposed to have the utmost loyalty and good faith in dealing with clients. So what happens when that client blows off trial, thereby committing another crime and putting the lawyer on the hook for thousands of dollars in bail money? If you ask the lawyers that do this shady s**t, they’ll tell you they’d never help the cops find their client or hire a bounty hunter to find their client (a clear violation of their ethical duties to clients as lawyers) they’ll just eat the thousands of dollars for their f**k-up client. Of course when anyone has a economic incentive to to do something and an ethical obligation not to, you can pretty well predict which will win out. There is no reason whatsoever that a lawyer should be able to post bond for a client in anything above a traffic offense. It’s an inherent conflict and the lawyers that do it are super shady.
Image source: abusuru, Hunters Race
#8
I offer middle of the road customer service which almost never results in a customer survey.
Really we don’t often care about making you happy, we care about getting rid of your problem so we don’t have to deal with you anymore. Only extremely good customer service or extremely terrible customer service will result in a survey, so I do enough to get rid of your issue, as quickly as possible, so you go away.
Image source: lookalive07, Getty Images
#9
I work for a Fortune 500 company that sells medical devices.
Believe it or not, the big companies really are the ones you can trust. Why? Because they have so much to lose, they’ve learned to be 100% on the level with regulatory bodies. They don’t cut corners or push the boundaries of the law to get their product to market sooner, and most actually self-impose stricter requirements for the products in terms of quality and consistency than the regulatory bodies require. This of course isn’t out the goodness of the their heart, but because the potential cost of even a single mistake can be in the billions.
The smaller startups, on the other hand, have no multi-billion-dollar business to lose, and as such often play fast and loose with the law. They frequently do the bare minimum in terms of testing and validation, and will often quietly market their products off-label (meaning they advertise uses for a product without having the clinical data to verify its safety).
This isn’t all startups by any means, most are perfectly legitimate and hold themselves to the same standards as the big boys, but there are quite a few who operate this way.
Image source: Notmiefault, gpointstudio
#10
I don’t know if it’s the entire ‘profession,’ but I worked at a gas station, and sometimes people would come in with a card to pay for gas, but my boss always had to check them out, stating there was training involved to handle the special gas cards.
I did a lot of digging around, asked people, the whole lot.
Turns out that company sells gas through the black market. Extremely cheap gas prices for certain people. After some snooping, I was then fired for “calling in too many times” when in reality I called in maybe 2 times through the 3 months I was there.
Image source: anon, Getty Images
#11
“Best Professional Judgement” means that your kid’s marks aren’t always based on the work they do, but on how we feel about their progression… Some s****y teachers take advantage to crush some kids and prop up others. Some great teachers use this to make things right.
Image source: Snuffy1717
#12
I was in executive sales for an OTC pharmaceutical company. Just selling Aspirin and things like that to giant retailers.
Part of the job is “entertainment.” This really means taking your buyers out to str*p clubs and buying them h**kers. lol.
Image source: Pavlovs_Doug, olia danilevich
#13
We in the recycling industry actually pollute a s**t ton.
Image source: anon, Nick Fewings
#14
Used to work in food service. I would strongly suggest *not* going to some restaurant or what have you when there is a special deal or promotion going on where there’s going to be a huge crowd.
Being really busy trying to keep up with such a high volume of customer demands makes it very hard to keep up with standard health code practices.
Image source: AlexanderHouse
#15
I work in an institution for mentally challenged children. It’s the “special school” jimmy was sent to after one too many bites. Well, first? The children can be pretty d**n demonic. I had this 10 year old girl pinned to the wall, so she bashed her nose in, flipped to look at me, and spat a mouthful of blood. The second is that sadly, abuse can be easily overlooked. I worked in this one for about 2 months. Turns out they just locked “difficult” kids into unused rooms. That’s why I left. I’ve got more than my fair share of HorrorTales.
Image source: Secretly_psycho
#16
Animal rescue organisations are rife with abuse towards volunteers. Lots of emotional blackmail by telling the volunteer that an animal will suffer if they don’t do something. Therefore volunteers end up fostering more animals than they can cope with, working 14+ hour days. Volunteers who are very trusting or afraid/unable to say no get the worst of it and are pushed well past their limits.
Less common but I have seen multiple occasions where a volunteer will be reaching the end of their rope and they’ll be asked to foster “one more time” and it will be a near unadoptable animal, that animal will then be left with them and the organisation will cut all contact or pretend you agreed to adopt that animal.
This happened to me once and I was left with two 1 year old feral cats in my two room apartment where I have another cat. I was only meant to mind the two for a weekend. Another person who worked with a different organisation was left with 8 extremely sick kittens which she had to pay for the medical treatment for out of her own pocket.
#17
Ive worked in call centers for a couple of different companies. One that I worked for was for one of the largest cell phone carriers in the US. At the time, they had just launched their television services for certain markets throughout the country. My job was once I fixed whatever issue the customer was having with their cell, to talk them into giving up their current TV provider and switch to the cell companies product. We were told outright to lie to the customers about how this service was better than C*x, Charter, Time Warner, etc, and that it would save them money as well. Alot of times, the people we were supposedly “saving money” were often retireees and pension based elderly folk who were lucky they could afford both food and their oxygen. For me, the worst part was the constant feeling that I just gypped someones gramma. The company also had it set so that if you didnt sell x amount of subscriptions a month, you were put on review. I lasted about 4 months after that regulation came out. Stood up at my desk, ripped off my head set, and told my boss to go f**k himself.
Image source: MountainDewAndSmokes
#18
I’ll start with one from my former profession. I am a teacher now, but used to be in banking.
In banking, violations of the law (state and federal) are commonplace. There are so many banking regulations to ward against theft and money laundering, but most bankers are under such high pressure from their higher-ups that they will willingly violate the law in order to keep a customer (always a *rich* customer) happy.
“Oh, Mr. Millionaire, you want to withdraw $50,000 cash from your wife’s account that your name isn’t on? Well, since I know you and your wife, I’ll allow it even though you aren’t legally allowed to. I’ll also skip reporting the large cash transaction to the Secret Service so you won’t get mad and pull your millions out of our bank!”
Now, it’s not every banker, but it is *a lot* of them. Violations of the law are common, all in the name of customer service…for the rich. Wire transfers, overt withdrawals, cashing of checks made out to business entities, large cash transactions that aren’t reported, etc. It’s everywhere.
Image source: NexysVI
#19
There are Bad Doctors / Nurses / Healthcare professional etc…. (By bad I mean any kind of bad, ranging from slightly unprofessional to “nearly” too dangerous to be allowed to practice)
The thing is, if you ask us, we can’t blatantly tell you they’re not good. So if you want to know if your future surgeon is good, either try to find other of his/her patients or look him/her up on the internet. The reason is that Since I’m not a Doctor, I technically have no right to criticize them and it would be considered “Damaging his/her reputation” and could be sued / lose our jobs for that.
However, you can also try to ask anyone you know in the hospital to try and find out. You’d be amazed what is said between nurses and other professionals behind closed doors. You can bet that if a surgeon is REALLY bad, even the janitors will know.
Image source: Pasukaru2
#20
A surprisingly large amount of online service providers blatantly employ what we in the industry refer to as [dark patterns.](http://darkpatterns.org/) Basically, not all the frustrating interactions you find online are based on bad design. Often, it’s a deliberate and calculated approach based on human psychology.
Fortunately, the majority of people I’ve worked with have a pretty strong ethical bias against this. Unfortunately, I’ve also met plenty of people who have zero qualms with monetizing deliberately deceptive patterns of online interaction.
Image source: boolean_sledgehammer
#21
Work in a law office. For the hourly rate that gets charged by attorneys, you would rightly expect that they would lovingly pour over every pleading and piece of correspondence to be sure that it is crafted in the most meticulous manner possible.
90% of practicing law appears to me to be cutting and pasting. For a firm that specializes in one area, the same things come up over and over. At every firm I have worked in/talked about with its employees, there is an enormous “Samples” file in their office/on their computer for every pleading, letter, etc. that regularly comes up in the course of business.
You’ve probably heard that the legal system is clunky, slow, and inefficient. A tremendous amount of the delay in cases is caused by sloppy attorneys cutting and pasting, say for instance, a request to produce documents, and forgetting to change the due date from the last time they used the form. And, lawyers being lawyers, they wait until the last possible minute legally permissible to inform the other attorney of their mistake. And just like that, your attorney delayed settling your case for a month because they sent out a defective request for discovery.
I’ve gotten declarations from opposing counsel in cases where their client is female and the name at the top of the declaration was a man’s name. I’ve been sent answers to Form Interrogatories (standard questions to be answered within a short time by the opposing party) that were very obviously the responses to some other client’s case, including their Social Security number, their place of employment, their address, the names of everyone living with them, etc.
Long story short: tons of lawyers out there recycle their work product, bill as though they prepared it anew, and at times, are not even careful enough to check that they aren’t sending your social security number into the world, or even that your name is displayed correctly.
Edit: Could have been clearer, I guess…my point, and emphasis throughout, was on the inattentiveness, not the use of samples in itself.
Tl/Dr: Lawyers recycle their work from client to client, sometimes with exceedingly bad attention to detail.
Image source: BreatheMyStink
#22
I’m a public school teacher, and it takes YEARS to fire one of us for incompetence. It actually takes a while to fire us for almost anything — alcoholism, mental health issues, etc.
One alcoholic teacher I worked with couldn’t get fired until he was in jail for a DUI so long that he used up all his sick leave. Then the school district still had to wait a certain amount of days after that to officially fire him.
Image source: estrogyn
#23
You know those car sale ads you see in the newspaper? Whatever sale they are advertising is most likely total b******t. The dealer sends over a list of stock numbers and someone at the paper comes up with whatever b******t sale theme that hasn’t been used too recently and goes with whatever stock graphic they could find with the least amount of effort. The rep just wants something the dealer will approve quickly and the dealer usually wants more fireworks. Always with the d**n fireworks…
Image source: UMReb01
#24
I’m a DSP (direct support professional. I assist in the day to day lives of those with mental and physical handicaps.)
It’s all about money. Not the people we support, not the staff, just profits and funding. They kept a guy around for months while he was injuring both residents and staff because he was bringing in decent funding. They will put people in homes they don’t fit into just because they are well funded. (A full care individual in a home that is short staffed and has 15 other people to support.)
We get paid far less than the job is worth, and usually have to fight to get time off and taking a sick day brings on world War 3. We are about 9 staff short throughout the agency, and no one is willing to pick up shifts anymore, but they will gladly take on more supported people to keep the funding coming in.
I love my job, and I love the people I care for, but it’s blatantly obvious now that this company doesn’t care about anything but funding.
Image source: RiggRMortis
#25
(This is in the U.S) Grain is harvested from fields by farmers, then transported by truck or rail car or barge. Most of it is Federally inspected as it is loaded into conveyances. Good so far. There are standards for how many live insects can be in the grain, they’re quite strict and they’re actually carefully enforced. Good so far.
But there are no standards for dead insects. A hopper car could literally be half full of dead bugs and nobody would care at all. They wouldn’t even make a note of it. As long as an infested barge is fumigated, it’s all fine from then on. Dead insects aren’t even mentioned in Federal grain inspection standards.
Image source: FoodTruckNation
#26
Used to work at a inpatient state mental health facility. A LOT of the doctors there were absolutely clueless. I’ve actually seen them actively avoid contact with patients because they’re afraid of them. I’ve seen the patients try to stop the doctors to speak with them and sometimes they don’t even acknowledge the patient. Most of them don’t go out onto the floor with them more than 15 minutes within a week. And there were usually around 20-ish patients on the long term ward. How you are supposed to treat a patient diagnosed with severe schizophrenia when you aren’t even present to observe the full range of symptoms is beyond me. I have a BS in Psych and while I’m absolutely NOT qualified to make ANY diagnosis, what I DO know about it tells me that some of them were misdiagnosed. And IMHO, it’s because the doctors didn’t want to deal with patients any more than necessary.
Please note this was my experience in one facility and HOPEFULLY not the case throughout government-based mental health. But if you have a family member/loved one in a facility such as this, PLEASE advocate strongly for your loved one because those patients at that facility were the ones that actually got better care.
Image source: WTF_am_I_doing_here1
#27
Engineering Company: We basically try to intimidate people to cover up our mistakes. We once constructed a 7 million dollar unit out of improper material, and just made up a bunch of excuses in why it failed, and why it is their fault. In most cases people will settle well worth the value, or be intimidated with a prolonged legal case. For example, we would do stuff like “well to refund you for your vessel you need to ship it back to us for us to access its value.”… bull s**t like that. Makes me feel like a piece of s**t when involved with these types of issues.
Image source: ooo-ooo-oooyea
#28
Not my current job, but a previous tech support job.
You have probably given your name, address, social, phone number, etc to a non government agency at some point. There may be some who have access to information without anything as much as a background check. You can do the math here.
Image source: Black_Hipster
#29
I work as an actor at a haunted house and some of the other actors are actually scarier out of character.
Image source: Blue-eyed-lightning
#30
I’m in health insurance. The company I work for is very transparent and honest, imo. We have the market share that it doesn’t matter.
But your HR people are playing games. On two of the plans I service we cannot print a document that says a procedure is not a benefit. We cannot state that ink. If you call in, I will tell you your shingles vaccine is not covered. But if you look at your plan documents, we can’t tell you there that the shingles vaccine is not a benefit, so we just don’t mention it at all. It’s nowhere to be found. Doesn’t matter that it’s one of the most commonly requested services by retirees, were pretending it doesn’t exist so it doesn’t say “no” anywhere. And it’s your HR team that is making that call when they set up your benefits.
Also in almost every case having two corporate insurance plans is a waste of money. (IE, “my coverage is primary, my wife’s is my secondary”) you’re wasting money. Medicare is a totally different story.
Image source: dsjunior1388
#31
I worked for a school in Australia. Every year, each principal gets a confidential copy of the confidential ‘Do Not Employ’ confidential document that is a complete 10-15 page confidential list of all of the teachers who are not to be employed because they are either medically retired, or have done something inappropriate with students.
Some of the names had one or two ominous-looking asterisks next to them but unfortunately the paragraph on the front (explaining the reasons for someone being on the list) did not mention what they meant.
Only the principal is allowed to read it but as a young sh*tkicker, my job was to open all of the mail and document the mail in the mailing book, so I got a good look at the list on a few occasions. It certainly answered a few questions about certain teachers in my past who ‘just weren’t there one day for no apparent reason’.
Also, I may have accidentally photocopied the list accidentally and accidentally taken it to my (other) school where I accidentally showed everyone accidentally.
Image source: valiantfreak, drobotdean
#32
A lot of attorneys are idiots. No, I mean it. Actual, legitimate idiots that are the idiots whom college-students-of-Reddit may wonder at in class. They have some mental processing power or else they wouldn’t have passed the LSAT highly enough to get admitted into law school, but a lot are really dumb and/or careless.
Teachers are grown-a*s high school kids, and there is a lot of politicking and petty infighting that is worse than any CW drama.
Image source: anon
#33
I work in finance/wealth management. My first job out of college was a legitimate boiler room operation . So I actually worked at the Seedy Underbelly of the industry. Basically, all we did was cold call, non stop, 7am-7pm cold call people and try to get them to buy stock of a company in the hope this would lead to further business. We would feed them “inside” information that was actually not real in hopes they would buy the stock (completely illegal). We were taught how to talk to receptionists to get past them and speak to the business owner themselves saying “its regarding a package I sent”. The name of the company was extremely similar to a real bank so it could slip by people and they could be conned into thinking this was legit. Yes, the client did own shares if they bought, but the info we told them was not accurate and completely fabricated. I was there for about 1 week before I spoke to my uncle who is a legitimate financial advisor and he told me to gtfo as soon as possible before I get marks on my licenses and have trouble finding a job. The turnover there was unreal, the guy I started with quit before me. There was also a lot of low life, arrogant guys who thought they were the s**t so the training for the 4 days was painful. Overall, it was miserable but an eye opening experience.
They did let you wear shorts after 530pm though, that was cool.
Image source: ImAjustin
#34
Libraries throw away/recycle a lot of books.
Image source: cepheid22, senivpetro
#35
Unclaimed Property Researcher – a few things I find shady about the state level system:
– When dormant financial accounts are received to be “held” by the state for the owner to claim later, it actually is immediately liquidated into the general fund, spent like tax revenue, and exists only as an IOU. No more capital gain, interest, or dividends for the owner after its transferred to state.
– Only about 20% of funds ever get reclaimed successfully by the owner or heirs of owner. The red tape gets thicker the higher the dollar amount. They often require claimants to purchase a surety bond protecting the state as part of their claim, about 3% of the claim amount. Probate estates ($$$) are required for deceased owners, and original proof of ownership for ancient stocks are required, even tho many corporations destroy records beginning after seven years. The average person is overwhelmed and quits.
– Revenue to the larger Midwestern states is in the hundreds of millions per year each.
– Lastly, many larger unclaimed property items, $25,000 to $100,000, are owned by deceased individuals with living heirs who are fully aware of it, but won’t claim it because they risk losing their social security disability benefits. The state is cool with not paying back the dead person’s money of course…and the Feds continue to pay the heir disability with taxpayer funds.
Image source: flopro1800
#36
You know that old financial system called checking? Write just about any name in the signature line, you will be stopped by 1 bank out of 5.
Image source: KlausInTheHaus
#37
I work for a non-profit and with that law that was passed recently that required even non-profits to pay over time, we were all instructed to lie on our time sheets and say that we had worked (in some cases) 30 hours less that week than we really did. It was explained to me that theyre doctoring the records now that way when the law comes into effect next year, we wont be examined that closely.
We basically told them to f**k off. If I am working 60+ hours a week, I am getting paid for every minute of it.
Image source: anon
#38
In any 3d modeling and texturing, the texture image is usually the first image that pops up in google. The same textures I’ve used, others have used in video games, animations, and movies. Nobody wants to put extensive effort into texturing a steel barrel.
Image source: DarrenEdwards
#39
I used to work at a machine shop that made car wheels. A lot of the cheap cast wheels we sold came with casting defects. Most of them were sold anyways.
Another note, most people would be surprised at the condition of many of the machine shops I’ve seen. Emergency stops that have been circumvented with a paperclip because ‘the machine still works fine.’ Also, tons of people missing fingers.
Image source: number1SHREDDER
#40
Those textbooks you buy for school that cost hundreds? Doesn’t cost the manufacturer but a few dollars most of the time.
Image source: anon
#41
I work in the auto salvage industry..
so, pretty much the entire thing.
Image source: skiffles
#42
I worked for a phone s*x website. My job was to go through photo sets of Eastern European models that we bought online and then make up s**y names and profiles for them. New operators could pick from a selection of pre-made profiles with photos. We even wrote blog posts for them so they didn’t have to do it themselves. All they had to do was talk dirty and collect checks.
Some of the models did custom photos, so if a caller asked for a special picture we could get it for them no problem.
The money was really good for actually taking calls, but I tried for a couple of nights and realised I was going to end up hating men if I didn’t stop.
Image source: anon
#43
I work at an office supply/electronics store that will offer free computer scans to check for viruses, and if we detect a virus we’ll urge the customer to pay us to fix the problem.
Thing is, regardless of whether or not the computer has a virus, the scanning program will report a virus. Every time.
Image source: margaret0619
#44
I work as a bench tech
You don’t hide your p**n nearly as well as you think. And we judge you for it.
Image source: anon
#45
I work in the firearms community.
By and large, LEOs in my area aren’t just anti gun, they are extremely opposed to anyone but law enforcement having access to them.
Our community has an unhealthy/dangerous obsession with blind hero worship, it’s a legitimate problem that people don’t want to address in fear of being labeled as anti-cop/unpatriotic/etc.
Image source: Doctor__Butts
#46
I used to work for a drinks company in the UK that made things from juice to smoothies
While working there I discovered that they actually put the rotten fruit in with the normal fruit as its “easier” to just let it slide than take it off the conveyer belt that takes the fruit to a huge blender type machine, and because in a grand scale it was unlikely to cause you any health problems (probably 1 in 10 fruits had some rot in them so mixed all together would not really matter)
They also never bothered cleaning insects off the fruit and let it get cooked and mixed in with juice and smoothies, like in the summer ther were a lot of wasps
So yeah, next time you have a smoothie from a supermarket just remember what might be in it.
Image source: anon
#47
Late to the game, but if people knew how much ‘insider trading’ went on in the art world, it’d be disgraced. Literally, millions upon hundreds of millions of dollars are laundered from rich individuals, often through public institutions (though more often through auction houses and temporary art fairs) into commodities that are then heavily over-valued for a short period before being sold on.
In fact at the present time, a major precentage of large sales (of top-name artists) are bought and sold from clients in emergent economies (Middle East, Russia, China, Brazil) in order to expand networks of connections into the west. Clients have no pressure to reveal their identities, and can often claim tax relief if work they handle goes through a public institution (a musuem exhibition, for instance).
Image source: DaveBrubeckQuartet
#48
I used to work for a UK (actually German) Gas & Electric company; and I can say I have probably killed an old person indirectly.
I had a old man 89 I believe who had just got out of hospital from a heart attack on the condition that he had heating at home (he had a meter you top-up to keep it going) I told him that we needed to get him a card and that the closest shop was 3 miles away, this was January so it was cold. I rang numerous engineering companies and spoke to the people who were above me in the company to see if we could get someone to go and take him a card or put money on the meter.
No one would go, the last thing he said after I gave him a reference number to collect a card was: “I’ll either have to ring an ambulance and I’ll die from cold waiting for it (we had been trying to resolve this for 3 hours) or I’ll walk to the shop and die on the way due to cold.
I felt so bad but big companies really don’t care about you at all and some of the things that I have had to say to customers because it’s “company policy” are just outrageous.
I left there shortly after this incident as it just seemed tog et worse and worse, never been happier now. Really hope that old dude is ok though.
TL;DR might have killed an old man because of “company policy” and no one wanted to help him.
Image source: croxy0
#49
I’m not in the US so I imagine banking is different, but don’t get me wrong, shady s**t goes on here as well. There are just so many controls in our retail branches that most of the stuff you saw just couldn’t happen without there being more than one person involved.
What annoys me is when customers get s****y because of the controls. Like dude…they are there to protect you!
Image source: crassy
#50
I work in a prison. All of it is a secret. We are supposed to keep things confidential for multiple reasons.
Image source: Devanismyname
#51
The dish you’re eating off of may or may not be as clean as you think it is.
Image source: Pattriktrik
#52
Web designer/developer here.
We have something called ‘a*****e tax’. If you’re an a*s, we’ll charge you like 20% more just because we can.
Image source: Supernatantem
#53
Studio musician/producer here. Most of us make our living playing on projects that are soul-crushingly bad and will never see the light of day. Random redneck dude who just came into some money, rich people’s bratty a*s delusional kids, mind-numbing commercials, etc. Sucks, but it pays the bills.
Image source: HotelIndiaFoxtrot
#54
Every piece of code produced in my office is completely ridden with bugs, vulnurabilities, spaghetti code and ugliest workarounds.
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#55
Work in a kitchen, I know what to buy from restaurants and what not to f**k with. We sell this ground beef at my job, it’s fresh and all but if you see it an hour after it cools down, you’ll never eat that s**t again.
Image source: sgtdarck5
#56
I used to work at a research facility and we once had identifiable HIPAA data sitting on our servers for several years until one of the sys admins stumbled upon it. Standard procedure for using identifiable data is for each node it touches to be nuked and rebuilt but I guess somewhere along the way someone forgot and there it sat for anyone who knew where it was to browse if they so wished.
Image source: ConstableGrey
#57
The internet is held together with the equivalent of dollar store duct tape and twine. Somewhere in your ISP is a mostly forgotten piece of critical infrastructure powered off a $10 power strip somebody bought at home depot.
Image source: anon
#58
Oil and gas is 10% actual work by decent people 90% greasing the wheels of self entitled consultants. I’m f*****g sick of dealing with these power tripping pricks I’m making it my life’s work to make life as hard as possible on consultants that just want a hand out from contractors.
Image source: jhra
#59
I worked for a certain well-known scientific organisation. I was not a scientist but a designer trying to make their shiny new machine look like something that customers would actually want to buy instead of a pile of tubes and wires in a plywood frame.
Without giving anybody ideas about how to get a bowie knife onto an aeroplane, a regular metal detector has two major weaknesses that could in theory be exploited to sneak in a metal thingy. Our new design used a cryocooler to overcome these weaknesses.
The major application for our metal detector was in the food industry; I was given a confidential book from a major food manufacturer that was basically a summary of every “I found this [thing] in my box of [food product]” phone calls the company had received in a certain time period.
One of the nasty ones was a couple of people ended up with the tips of hypodermic needles stuck into their tongues or the roofs of their mouth.
This is because when cattle are injected with things to make them bigger or healthier, they can move and snap the needle off.
Nobody is going to be bothered digging through the skin of a pissed-off cow looking for the end of the needle so the cow heads off to Bovine University with the needle still in there somewhere.
Abattoirs have x-ray machines but you can imagine how hard it is to find a tiny sliver of stainless steel in something that is not a nice consistent density, so the needle occasionally ends up in food.
One of the funnier ones was a caller who found a complete Parker stainless-steel pen in her packet of noodles. No, it wasn’t a giveaway.
Image source: valiantfreak, user21473825
#60
I’m a server at a restaurant. Apart from the fact that all of us are nice to your face and then immediately walk into the back to tell everybody what an a*****e the customers are, we also make up names for the customers, like “Send the salad over there to the Unibrow Family”. “Order of Foccaccia for Literally The Fattest Woman I have ever seen”. “Dessert to that table of Stupid White Girls.”
Yeah, we’re nice to your face, but we hate every one of you.
Image source: I_eat_cigarettes
#61
That we are not really all that smart and our training is not as rigorous and intensive as you imagine. We just learn as we go along and bull s**t the rest.
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#62
Any company I’ve worked for, human error happens a lot more than customers think.
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#63
Molecular Biologist
It varies from field to field, but roughly 50% of all published scientific results cannot be reproduced in another lab. Also there’s a lot of tinkering going on with statistics, which often borders on what is falsifying data and what isn’t.
Image source: Holdin_McGroin
#64
I’m an auto technician. We make fun you and your car but don’t really mean it. sometimes if you have a big bag of jolly ranchers or other candy we will take a peice. We generally get into all kinds of unprofessional shenanigans but nothing that will actually affect your repair. Some people honestly are totally incompetent, but they are generally given easy jobs that they can’t mess up too badly.
Image source: forgetspasswordoften
#65
Work in a call center. Everyone smokes weed/does other d***s of varying potency. Everyone drinks. No one likes dealing with your s****y f*****g problems. We hate you as customers, you are the worst. You want your cable bill lowered? Sorry. We look at your account for about 5 seconds and then promptly forget about you.
Image source: SteveRodgers1945
#66
Worked at the cafe in a high end department store in Europe. You know that sandwich the snobby d****e is about to drop about 25 Euros on?
We knew the were only sitting here to be seen. This will be the one of the worst sandwiches that could legally be made and they will probably think it’s great because there’s a lot of expensive brands in their line of sight and the lighting is pretty good.
The managers used to buy all the cheapest junk from suppliers. Whatever was on discount, end of line, in bulk etc. All the fridges ran too warm to pass an inspection. I worked there one summer and by the time I left I was the longest serving staff member. Once one of the chefs cut his hand doing prep but still tried to send out three baguettes that were smeared with blood. I had to tell him that it wasn’t okay to do this. Another time we were about to serve and I noticed a plate was sort of glittering… turns out there were a lot of tiny shards of glass. We traced it back to the bagged salad leaves.
People made serious money getting rich dummies to pay a lot of money for the equivalent of wonder bread sandwiches prepared with expired cheese and off brand soda.
Image source: dukeofbun
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