Most businesses in the United States have a bottom line, and that bottom line is of course money. It’s all about widening the margins and cutting overhead and finding any way possible to do it. So when u/CircleBox2 recently asked, “What’s a dark secret/questionable practice in your profession which we regular folks would know nothing about?” people from all sorts of professions replied, racking up nearly 35K upvotes in just 16 hours.
Beware of popular pizza chains that use moldy pans (looking at you, Pizza Hut) and funeral directors, and make sure you don’t have any poop inside of you if you ever go get an X-Ray.
Scroll through 30 dark industry secrets and questionable practices in different professions that we regular folks know nothing about:
1.
You know the people who write instruction manuals or user guides in things you buy? Half the time, they’ve never even seen or touched the product. Some dude just sends us pictures, a rough description of how it’s supposed to work, and that’s it.—u/Katago
2.
Young kids talk to their teachers/coaches/counselors/principals about their parents. A lot. And kids pick up on all the dirty little secrets.—u/MineralWaterMike
3.
Not currently my profession but ghost writers in fiction. John Grisham, Danielle Steele, James Patterson, Janet Evanovich etc., all those big names with an NYT bestseller every year use ghostwriters who are are never credited or mentioned. It’s barely even a secret.—u/provocatrixless
4.
Many bills are literally written by lobbyists or special interest organizations. I have seen my boss give bill language to a state legislator and then found the same language in print a few days later several times. The bill may change in committee but usually not drastically against the original intent.—u/Jenova66
5.
Sometimes we (teachers) learn something the day before we teach it to you. Edit: Woah. This really hit a chord with people. Lots of shared experiences. It’s great.—u/pamacdon
6.
Many hotels often sell rooms multiple times. Used to work in airport hotel. Knowing that chances are some guests won’t arrive due to missed or delayed flights so we sell more rooms that we have.
You have guests checking out from 2/3 am due to early flights so even though the room is technically still theirs you quickly and sometimes poorly clean the room and tell the arriving unexpected guest or new booking there’s a random computer issue and to wait 20 mins and then check them into the departed guests room praying.
Multiple times I’ve had to run a kettle under a cold tap to hide the fact the previous guest used it 15 mins before the new guest arrives.—u/AndromedaFire
7.
Air traffic control (cue the Breaking Bad jokes) A diagnosis of virtually any mental illness…and a diagnosis of many physical conditions…is disqualifying and will end your career. For that reason, people avoid doctors like the plague.—u/Sh—ttyMcF—kface
8.
I ended up quitting a career because people (all genders and ages) kept trying to solicite me for prostitution. Young male massage therapist.—u/NinjaWen
9.
There is at least one water bottle/soda can/energy drink/ spray paint can sitting on a piece of blocking behind your drywall somewhere in your house.—u/DJdubbs
10.
I work on on a popular teen TV show. All the lead actors do cocaine regularly and they often come to set high or show up to set late because they chose to party on a Monday night.—cherrytomato23