People Share The Dirty Little Secrets Of Their Profession
When you've worked somewhere for long enough, you become intimately familiar with all of the goings-on in the workplace. Oftentimes, this might include knowledge of how to cut corners, or an understanding that certain aspects of your work aren't really for public consumption.
While it's impossible to work every possible job out there to understand these inner workings, here's the next best thing: people on Reddit spilling the beans about the secrets from their profession that everyone really ought to know.
They've been telling us this for years!
"As a teacher: we LOVE students who engage during lessons. Any answer, correct or not, is better than silence. And if we see somebody is trying, it's much harder for us to fail them."
"If you ever want to pass a difficult subject at school, just come to class, stay active, answer questions."
Windows 95 is undefeated.
"Major financial institutions are held up by a very old version of excel."
"I just wanna point out...if it's been running that same code since 1974, it very much falls under the 'if it ain't broke, don't f'n touch it' umbrella."
Highly specific, but useful in a pinch.
"Working in behavioral health taught me that if someone grabs and starts choking your neck all you have to do is grab their thumbs and twist them back. The person will release and you can basically control them just with the thumbs."
"If someone or something bites you then you "feed the bite". Push the limb they are biting farther into their mouth will hit the gag reflex and they will stop biting."
There's a lesson here.
"I work in prison and see a lot of people sentenced for causing a death or serious injury while driving drunk who otherwise don't have a remarkable criminal background."
"You think of prison and you think illicit substances, violent crimes, etc. but this is one of those crimes that can take you from being an average Joe to a felon in an instant. So, not a secret but don’t drink and drive. Or text and drive!"
Don't blame the caregiver.
"Your child's daycare teachers really do clean them throughout the day, they are just dirt magnets."
"God bless daycare workers. They have 4x the children I do, and keep them 10x cleaner. No idea how they do it."
This is actually reassuring.
"On a good note, the secret I'd like people to know is that anesthesia as a field is incredibly safe. We get super sick patients through surgery everyday. Young, healthy people you’d almost have to try to make something go wrong to have a bad outcome."
"The medications and safety monitors are so much better than 20 years ago. We are really good at putting people to sleep and waking them up. You are safer in the OR than you are on the road driving to the OR, statistically."
Be nice to librarians.
"Librarian here - if you come in to talk to us about book damage or call to give us a head's up that it’s being returned damage, we will be a lot more amenable to working with you about forgiving damage fines than if you return it and hope we don’t notice."
"One of my favourites was a book that came back with two parallel burn marks on the back, each one almost an inch wide. It was a bit of a head-scratcher but we figured out that it was toaster burns."
We're all on the same flight.
"We're not flying the airplane unless we know it's safe. Not ever. Ever. We're not interested in dying either."
"Bonus points for a simple explanation of the delay or change. 'A sensor doesn't seem to be triggering right, but we’re going to have the mechanics look at it and get you on a different plane in the mean time,' goes a long way."
Just a quick precaution.
"Rinsing your produce with just water knocks down 99% of the bacteria on it. Its the best thing you can do to prevent food borne illness."
"I always wondered how a simple rinse with water could work… But your comment reassures me."
Rare book hacks.
"You know how in movies, people take out an old, rare book and immediately are wearing gloves to handle it?"
"You don't actually need gloves to handle old books in rare/special collections. Having freshly washed, dried hands is best practice. Why? Because when you wear gloves, it's more likely you may accidentally rip a page because you can't feel them as well as you can with bare hands!"
Advice from a veterinarian.
"Yes your dog or cat needs the rabies vaccine. rabies is transmissible to humans, and it's deadly."
"Yes your pet can have fleas, even if they never go outside, or if your yard is fenced in, or if you live in a gated community. fleas have no concept of property lines."
Don't rely on memory alone.
"Don't rely on verbal recounting when you go to management at work. Document it, print it, and bring it with you. Just saying that you have documented something, especially when it's multiple things that all point to an issue, management is going to be a lot more cooperative."
"Sometimes because it shows initiative, calm consideration, and intelligence, but more often because you have the start of a legal case if things go poorly."
Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on?
"Reboots fix a lot of issues."
"IT guy here. It's a running joke that we have an aura with a radius of around 5 meters within which computers work just fine. As soon as your PC is out of my range funny stuff may happen."
A world of plastic junk.
"The amount of waste that is created in order to fill stores like Walmart and Target with stupid novelty products should make you second guess your buying habits."
"A friend once said that when buying a product, you should think about its end of life first (e.g. will you donate it, sell it, dispose of it etc)."
How to be a true pawn star.
"Always ask for a discount when you shop at a pawnshop, at least 20%, they should be able to do that. Also, check dates, when an item has been there for over 6 months they want to sell it."
"I used to go to pawn shops with a friend who worked at a major brand here. He knew how to read the tags and knew how much they paid and how long they had it. He saved me a ton"
Don't be self-conscious.
"Licensed Massage Therapist. We are genuinely not judging any person's body. After the first few massages in our career, we literally only see your body as groups of muscles."
"And we don't care if you didn’t shave lol I had so many women apologize for not shaving their legs."
The golden rule in action.
"Hospitality workers usually don't care as much as you care, but if you’re kind to them they can work magic for you."
"Depending on how you play the next few sentences to me, you could get free drinks, lounge access, free meal, a nicer room, etc. But if you make it personal or insult me, you're getting a room at some point, and that's it."
Don't play chicken on the road.
"It's incredibly dangerous to cut in front of a tractor trailer. We try to keep at least a 2.5 second follow distance because we aren’t able to stop if anything happens suddenly on the road."
"My gross vehicle combination weight is usually at or around 100,000 lbs. It takes more than a football field length to stop."
Take them at their word.
"When we tell you we don't have any more of an item in the back, it’s because we really don’t have more in the back. Sometimes we don’t even have a back at all."
"We don't hide stuff in the back. It doesn’t sell if it’s in the back. We want it to sell. If it’s in the back it doesn’t sell. Everything we have to sell is out. That is all."
There's no vendetta.
"Former fast food manager. Believe it or not, nobody is intentionally trying to screw up your order. We are generally making thousands of orders a day, with constant pressure to be faster. Every once in a while, things go wrong or we miss something."
"We're happy to fix it if you bring it back, and even more so if you aren’t a complete a-hole about it."
IT is often just advanced Googling.
"IT just googles stuff all day long. The secret is that we're much better at Googling than most."
"This is literally the secret for anyone that is good at solving problems. They are good because they actually try to solve it instead of complaining and trying to make it someone else's problem."
It's an approximate breed.
"I don't know if it's really a secret, but when an animal shelter lists a dog as a certain breed + mix we are 100% guessing. We aren't even sure the breed we listed is accurate."
"A lot of doggy DNA doesn't show physically and most breeds share their various physical features with other breeds, so it's actually incredibly difficult to identify without a DNA test. And those are far too expensive and impractical for a dog shelter."
Sprinklers aren't all or nothing.
"When there's a fire the only sprinkler that goes off is where the actual fire is. They don’t all go off like in the movies."
"And the water in them is usually so gross you'd wish for the fire."
Bad news for newer builds.
"Most modern homes (er, residential construction, inc apts) are built with the cheapest ingredients and I'm not sure they'll last more than 30 years without requiring a substantial level of exterior refurbishing."
"Wife of construction/real estate lawyer here: never buy a new build unless it's an actual quality custom home."
Dentists aren't prognosticators.
"Dental professional here - we can't always tell if you floss or not."
"In most cases it’s very evident when someone has great oral hygiene and flosses. But some people can get away with skipping the floss, likely related to having good genetics!"
Listen to your gut.
"If you have a feeling of impending doom, come to the ED. It could save your life."
"A sense of impending doom is included on the list of sensations someone might experience when having a severe allergic reaction to a food item."
What happens in Vegas...
"As a casino dealer: We are standing at the same table you are sitting at, we can absolutely hear you talking about all those sensitive/incriminating topics."
"We can hear and observe it all…and we are obviously gluttons for punishment while 'serving' others."
The kids might not be alright.
"High school students are really, REALLY, behind on reading… it's frightening."
"Reading is a chore to a majority of students and seen as work rather than enjoyment. I.e. students won't read at home if I assign chapters or with their peers in class."
A lonely life.
"A lot of us truckers suffer from soul crushing depression from loneliness and speaking as an owner of my own truck, alot of us are always one break down from losing everything."
"I used to drive 8 hours overnight twice a month for medical appointments. The route took me through a poorly lit, winding mountain pass each time. The amount of comfort I felt seeing a trucker on the road was immense."
Almost common knowledge at this point.
"Prescription medications (in America) do not need to cost anywhere near what they do."
"Pharmaceutical companies waste money like nobody else. In most cases, the company is just charging the absolute maximum amount the market will bear. It's a moral dilemma I struggle with daily."
