Few people know all the ins and outs of an industry without having ever worked in it. That’s because there are things “outsiders” should never know, and if you’re wondering what kind of things we’re talking about, it’s details no customers should ever hear—for example, the information that certain things are only cleaned once a year or that the “different” things you are buying are all made by the same manufacturer.
These are just a couple examples of secrets redditors revealed after one of them started a thread on the ‘Ask Reddit’ subreddit. They were curious to learn what people’s jobs prohibited them from telling customers about, and if you’re curious, too, scroll down to find their answers on the list below.
#1
Your loved one is dead. You should let them go and stop making us fill him/her/it/them with epinepherine just to keep their heart beating.
Image credits: Simpawknits
#2
We are highly advised against telling parents about milestones like first steps, first words etc happening at our center because it could cause numerous negative emotions in the parent and we know the child will do it again soon! It’s a very special moment and we want the parent to experience it as authentically as possible. I’m a daycare teacher :).
Image credits: Trashiee
#3
I work for a major US brewery and we have one beer that we put into two separate cans. One of them is a “premium” beverage (one of the most popular in the US top 5) and the other is an “economy” beer. It’s the same stuff.
Image credits: zackintehbox
#4
I sell new homes. I've sold about 1500 of them.Get a home inspection if you buy a new home.
Fewer than a hundred of my buyers have gotten home inspections. Probably fewer than fifty. Every single one has found something important that we wouldn't have addressed otherwise.
Image credits: mongooseme
#5
I worked in retail management for many years, and can confirm that the average consumer has a 2nd grade understanding of math.**Black Friday sales are not really sales**.
If an item costs $30 normally, they will run a promotion that is "3 for $90," and people will come in droves to buy out a product.
If a shirt is $20 and is normally "Buy 1 Get 1 50% off," (so $60 total for 4 units) the Black Friday Sale will be "Buy 3, Get 1 Free!", which is $60 for 4 units.
You would be genuinely surprised by how many people don't do simple math and get excited by big signs.
Image credits: WhiskeyEjac
#6
I worked at a fancy hotel and was out front to greet people and assist upon arrival.We weren't allowed to say "Welcome back!"
This was in place to protect those that decided to bring another spouse/partner/mistress/etc day after day to the hotel during their stay.
Image credits: really_affordable
#7
For reference, I work at a trampoline/adventure park.We don't clean the ballpit like ever. Some kid peed in there once, and they just told an employee to stick a mop in there. When we do clean it (like once a year), the number of phones, vapes, socks, ect, is actually disturbing. We're supposed to clean it like 2-4 times a year.
Also, we never clean the baby changing stations. It didn't click to me to maybe wipe it down. If I'm on the bathrooms, it's now added to my to-do list.
Image credits: Koi_Fishhy
#8
I worked at a historic penitentiary in Phila., PA.At the bottom of the children's waiver, in fine print, it states that there are cell blocks that have not been abated for asbestos, and the old lead paint leaves a film of dust on everything. I got written up for pointing this out to a pregnant woman.
Image credits: HotSpinach
#9
I was in charge of all of the keys for a navy base. Signing them out to contractors and TCNs, n such. There were probably around 300 keys for the whole base and every single one was the exact same key. When they set up the system no one realized that when they bought the same 300 locks it came with the same 300 keys. So I was basically giving out master keys to the base without no one ever knowing and I'm sure they have never replaced the locks. It passed a high level government inspection, those f****n people didn't even notice all the keys were the same.
Image credits: onebowlwonder
#10
I worked for a small family owned business that was famous for their old fashioned pies…they were bought in from a large company and baked there. That was it. I had so many customers tell me how we have the best pies ever and that the baker does an amazing job, when in reality all she did was put them in the oven.
Image credits: 27xman
#11
Company I used to work for did live chat support. Unbeknownst to customers the support engineers could read what customers were typing before they hit send... Be careful what you say to tech support is all I can say!
Image credits: lasermole
#12
Old job but that our “house beer” is one of the most common lagers in the country.
Image credits: dolphins344
#13
Our warranty is as long as it is because it will fail after the warranty.
Image credits: dylanr23
#14
I’m a contractor, so I guess it’s more of a trade secret. In sports broadcasting, you only see the interviews that have been approved for air. So, all the horrible language, political statements, extremely awkward answers, etc., get screened and buried so nobody sees them.But I see them, and they’re very entertaining.
Image credits: brickhamilton
#15
If a software salesperson says a feature is "in Development", that likely means they sent the dev team an email saying 'wouldn't this feature be great?!' 6 months ago. Until it hits the roadmap, it isn't real.And once it's on the roadmap, add 6months to a year for actual delivery. Roadmaps are estimates by management and they align with profit goals, not actual dev time.
#16
There's a sticker in the window that we have ADT security, but we stopped paying for it since covid.
Image credits: Purplociraptor
#17
In my country there are 2 main distributors of the products my employer sells. Us and the other company..which buys their products from us to sell them as theirs. I deliver a truck full of products every week to them. But we have to deny every connection to the other company.
Image credits: Chili919
#18
The job you applied for does not exist. If the website you applied on has the word job in the url, it's just data mining, at least 70% of the time. Job applicants will give up some of the most valuable data without hesitation and every fortune 500 spends upwards of 90k a year harvesting this data so I know it's high yield value content. What they do with the data idk but I do know it's packaged and sold.#19
I work at a university and we're heavily discouraged from telling students to drop out. We're also discouraged from telling them to change majors if it's going to make them take longer to graduate. The second one really bothers me.
Image credits: esoteric_enigma
#20
That you overpaid on your insurance deductible, co-pay, or co-ins which is a credit on your account. If you don’t know then you won’t ask for a refund.
Image credits: StunningInfomercial
#21
When I was in retail maintenance, I wasn't allowed to let the managers see the bill. That was for corporate eyes only.My theory was that if they knew how much I was making to change a lightbulb they would quit and go do that. Or maybe they would be good employees and change the lightbulb themselves, thus increasing the companies liability. .
#22
I used to work for a medtech startup, writing an algorithm to detect if someone has passed away. Since we were not allowed to proclaim someone dead, we notify the healthcare workers that the person in question is showing 'unusual inactivity'.#23
I worked for a big Japanese electronics manufacturer in a call center back in the early 90s. We were not allowed to say that a line of our tv's had bad tuners even though we all knew it and sent out countless free tuners to repair shops all over the country even for out of warranty products. I typed it so many times I even remember the part number, 1465371-11. EDIT: since so many people asked, it was a whole line of Sony tv's.#24
"the reason I'm giving you smaller portions is because manager says so. Yes you had bigger portions another day because a different kitchen lead was in the back monitoring who didn't care. No we are out of that item, it'll be 10 minutes. No I can't grab from the other line. Yes I know the other day we grabbed some for you but the other manager allowed it and this one doesn't. ".#25
I grew up working for a family ice cream business. The restaurants that we sold bulk tubs of ice cream to thought it was home made by us. While we did make our own ice cream the 3-gallon bulk containers was product that we purchased from another company and sold at a high markup.I was under strict orders from my father to never reveal this to the customers.
One of our customers would then sell this regular ice cream as gelato, even though it was just ice cream.
#26
None of our food is fresh. Yes, even the food listed as made fresh daily. No, we don't actually make the soup, in fact it's often refrozen and a day old. The food used to be fresh, but corporate phased that out during COVID and raised the prices.
Image credits: Kyubimon
#27
From my buddy who worked at a factory that boxed and made cereal. The only thing that will change on production lines is the box the bag gets into.
Image credits: Aeokikit
