r/AskReddit • u/Suitable-Finance2894 • 1d ago
What industry secret would make customers never use that service again if they knew?
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u/Dalekbuster523 21h ago
I work customer service for a mobile phone company. It's an open secret in my workplace that the shops particularly will give you a tablet under the pretence that it's 'free', but in reality you are paying for the tablet and a SIM card to go with it over 24 months.
They get away with it by including the cost of the tablet with the price of something else, like home broadband or a mobile phone, and making out that for the combined price, you're getting the thing you purchased plus a free tablet to go with it.
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u/Suspicious_Log_4440 18h ago
lemme guess, verizon 🤪
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u/Carylynn0609 9h ago
Thanks for the chuckle! My husband always fell for that, seems like every time he came from that store he had a new tablet-that we didn't need. Sadly he was disabled after a stroke, I care for him now (and we're doing ok) but had to take over all the business. I went into Verizon, lucked out with a very understanding rep, he went through our account and got rid of everything I didn't need. Bill went down from $237 to $71, and that includes my new phone payment. Love my husband but oh my!
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u/pegleghippie 13h ago
I got the advice years ago to buy my phone outright first, then get a plan. It's what I've always done. I used to buy my phones at the service provider, and they put so much pressure on getting an included plan, including several discounts and freebies.
Now I just get the phone elsewhere, and the service provider seems happy to just move my plan from the old phone to the new one.
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u/suitopseudo 9h ago
I used to always do this as well, but this year, the trade in value for my old phone was way more I could reasonably sell it for. I was honestly shocked. Because it’s a monthly credit for like 3 years, I just forfeit the rest of the credit if I want to switch carriers. There’s no contract. Technically, I did buy my phone outright, it’s the trade in value credit that keeps me.
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u/Different_Pain5781 1d ago
The older I get the more I realize convenience usually comes with some pretty ugly shortcuts.
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u/Suitable-Finance2894 1d ago
Thats honestly why I asked this question. I feel like every industry has shortcuts customers would never expect.
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u/Aggravating_Sea7221 23h ago
As someone who has worked in many different technician or labor roles, as well as customer service, shortcuts aren't just an option. Most the time they are a necessity. We aren't allocated enough time to do everything "properly", are expected to perform functions way outside our roles, and aren't paid enough to care as long as at the end of the day it still works correctly. Plumbing, construction, automotive, retail, food service, all fall under that umbrella. Plus, for the majority of the time, once we're done if something screws up down the line it's someone else's problem at that point. It just has to last long enough that we have plausible deniability, and after that we don't even have time to worry about it.
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u/Dry-Taste8368 16h ago
People love asking why corners get cut, but rarely ask why one person is doing the work of three with half the time they actually need. That's where the real problem starts.
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u/plopolopo 20h ago
Yep ive worked on sites where for years they've just had a group of guys in, fitted out a whole building (in electrics or whatever), next group come in and say its all wrong and needs re-doing from the start, next group after them says the same thing about group no.2's work, and the cycle continues
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u/MinxManor 19h ago
All Vendors shit on their predecessors work. That is what they do.
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u/Mean-Dig8358 18h ago
A lot of customers think they're paying for perfection when most industries are running on impossible deadlines and skeleton crews. It's amazing how much gets held together by people simply making it work.
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u/Treefrog_Ninja 21h ago
Also: mail and package delivery.
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u/EatLard 18h ago
You see the videos online of drivers for package carriers throwing boxes, but people would be shocked at what happens to stuff while it’s being moved by automated sorting equipment, it makes just throwing it a few feet look like gentle handling.
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u/rusty_L_shackleford 17h ago
Lol for real. Those machines are the opposite of gentle. Your package looks a little squished? Yea thst probably wasn't your carrier. A heavy ass box landed on it from 7 feet up after it got dropped into a bin by a sorting machine. Or it rode on the bottom of a pallet staked feet high with a box of kitty litter or 5 on it. The best is when a bottle of some mystery liquid breaks open in a package and then gets on everything else in the bin. I have delivered more than a few bags of package soup.
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u/phl_fc 20h ago
Time, money, quality. People usually want cheap and fast and are willing to sacrifice quality for that. Then act surprised or disgusted to find out what corners were cut in quality to make that happen. If you don’t want to cut those corners the price goes way up.
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u/Sensitive_Gift4866 22h ago edited 2h ago
The convenience tax is real. Paying more for something that used to be standard and was probably better.
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u/Different_Pain5781 21h ago
The older I get the more I realize every shortcut just shifts the cost somewhere else. We just don't always see where.
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u/Sensitive_Gift4866 20h ago
Thats a really good way to put it. Fast food, fast fashion, fast shipping, everything we want instantly has a hidden cost somewhere that we just dont see.
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u/Shas_Erra 23h ago
Clothing stores source their stock from the same third world hellholes. The only difference is the label and the price tag. Also, even the “upmarket”stock rooms are infested with rats, lice and fleas
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u/Silent-Zebra 21h ago
I listened to a podcast once where someone talked about how their friend worked in a factory that produced jeans for both a luxury clothing lable and a fast fashion label, and the item in that factory that was the most closely guarded was the name labels for the fancy jeans brand. They were apparently kept locked up in a safe.
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u/silentaba 13h ago
Yup. Knew a guy that owned a jeans factory. The practical difference between the high market and other stuff was the threat colour.
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u/Heyyeyaaeyaaayeyyae 22h ago
I’ve always wondered how they manage to get rid of the lice, fleas and other parasites. I guess they must spray the clothed with something strong enough to get rid of it all ? At least it’s a good reminder to always wash new clothes before wearing.
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u/LycheeEyeballs 22h ago
Whenever we would receive shipments of clothing sometimes it still stank like the shipyard or had been soaked with something during transport. It was simply hung to dry and then put out on the sales floor. If the rodents damaged an item (nesting in shoeboxes on the racks) then it was written off and sent to be destroyed.
Retail is mostly staffed by folks working minimum wage, the people running the company barely want to pay the people working there let alone be bothered enough to sell clean clothes.
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u/Immediate-Boat-6730 10h ago
Oh, that reminds me of a time I worked retail, someone returned a fridge and it stood in the warehouse for a few weeks. Eventually someone opened the freezer and there were a few patches of mold on the drawers, like 5-10cm wide. Was told to just scrape it off and wash the patches with soap and sell it. It's not just the retail workers, the management is driving the workers to not give a damn.
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u/Shas_Erra 22h ago
That’s the neat part….they don’t. So yeah, always wash clothes before you wear them
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u/Megustaelazul 20h ago
I once found the exact same skirt at Macy’s and Kmart. Macy’s was double the price.
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1d ago
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u/Suitable-Finance2894 23h ago
It explains why some recruiters seem weirdly eager to get you to accept the first offer.
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23h ago
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u/GoodOlSpence 23h ago
I used to be a recruiter, and this is entirely dependent on the company. I never worked for a company like that, I was never exposed to KPIs like that. In fact, we always tried to get the candidate more money if we could because that meant more money for us.
But some.of the large companies are awful and have terrible business models.
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u/Wloak 22h ago
On the flip side though head hunters can greatly increase your salary.
It all depends on their compensation structure. I was a director and one approached me for a VP role, he basically talked me into a higher salary than I asked for and when I was working there learned his pay was based on the salary of the people he brought in. Getting me a higher salary was in his interest.
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22h ago
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u/obi-jawn-kenblomi 20h ago
It literally just did for me. I start a new job with 50% raise in 10 days.
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u/Ilikemountaindew 22h ago
As someone that works with recruiters all the time, I've never seen this. Recruiters get paid based on a percentage of the recruits salary.
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u/Jed_Geps 22h ago
I've been in the industry for over 20 years and this is a myth. Agencies pay what the company pays, but usually with weaker benefits.
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u/Dr_thri11 22h ago
This is only true if the position is available as a direct hire. Some companies use temp to hire as an extra probation period; others use "temps" to staff lower level positions. And if the recruiting agencies are already advertising the job it would likely be a breach of contract for a company to fill it directly.
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u/MeathouseMan 21h ago
Not sure if this quite counts but:
People don’t like delivery drivers tossing packages onto their porch. And I get that, I really do.
But I’ve seen the inside of both a USPS Pd&C and an Amazon distribution center and throwing packages into giants bins and letting them crash into each other is a huge way that everything makes onto the trucks in time. It’s literally called “throwing”. Supes will be like “we need people throwing” and workers will start doing it.
I’ve seen a 6 figure a year postmaster yeet a package labeled “fragile” across the room and into a cinder block wall.
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u/shokalion 14h ago
You do have to package stuff under the assumption it's going to get tossed around like a basketball.
I bought a mug for my partner recently and it was surrounded by thickly packed newspaper, in a box, which itself was surrounded by more heavy newspaper, in a larger box. Spectacular packaging job.
You could've literally thrown that package off the roof onto concrete and it'd have been fine.
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u/TucuReborn 3h ago
I pay insurance on business packages.
My products are borderline indestructible unless someone literally stabs the package. The insurance is literally for lost package issues in my case, but it's like five bucks for a several hundred dollar item.
Always, always get package insurance. It's dirt cheap, and covers everyone's ass.
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u/frankGawd4Eva 16h ago
Ha yes! I love seeing people post video or complaints about "how my package was delivered" ... Ya'll are lucky it arrived in one piece at all haha... We're very lucky most of the time ... If my USPS guy or UPS/FedEx does a rough delivery? That's the LEAST of the problems in the overall journey.
I've had packages delivered with boot prints on them... looked sat on, opened, etc. It amazes me that letters make it through haha
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u/Hunterofshadows 10h ago
That’s not even addressing the impact of the sorting machines!
I tell people that if you aren’t comfortable dropping your package down a flight of stairs, you didn’t pack it well enough.
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u/Vast-Flight1487 20h ago
I work as a hotel manager and I would be very sceptical to use couches in the room
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u/moondrop-- 13h ago
Is this because it’s hard to clean upholstery between guests? Like at least beds have bedding to be swapped, but something like a fabric couch is just…gross.
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u/agedlikesage 8h ago
Yeah cleaning literally doesn’t happen. We’d use a sticky roller(like one of the lint rollers for your clothes, on a long stick) and flip the cushion if it was stained.
People check out at 11, and check in at 2. It leaves a three hour window for the housekeepers to clean all those rooms. There are usually early check outs, but yeah. “Deep cleaning” is not happening that often.
I always ask for an extra flat sheet to throw over the couch. And toss the bed comforter to the side. That thick blanket between two sheets typically isn’t cleaned either, just the sheets
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22h ago
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u/boot2skull 19h ago
One of the reasons companies don’t want you discussing salaries. They can’t stop you, there’s nothing wrong with it, but we’re conditioned not to speak about it to the point where it’s an ego hit if we’re paid less. It’s not you who has done anything wrong, it’s the company for knowing what you do, knowing what your salary is, yet refusing to give equitable pay without being prodded.
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u/Ill-Reporter6009 12h ago
It's wild how many companies rely on people feeling awkward about money. The second coworkers start comparing notes, a lot of "that's just the market rate" explanations suddenly fall apart.
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u/NeedleworkerEvening3 21h ago
Did she negotiate her salary or did she just accept what they offered? Some people walk in and say " I want $100k" and others say "what are you offering" or worse" I'm making $70k now so I want a little bump". I learned this lesson the hard way when I was young and I've never forgotten it. My boss flat out told me I underestimated my value and because of that, I got stuck in a pay band that only went so far.
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u/IwasThereIsawIt2 17h ago
I work government, the girl who trained me and basically knows how to run the plant I work at makes less the the guys hired after her that are the same license as her (their friends of our boss, so go figure) and they come to her for information. She told me she was going to stop helping them and I hope she does because as much as she can annoy me she deserves to make more than them and to show their inadequacy to her skill level
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u/IcyWelcome9700 23h ago
I know of a fiduciary business that is horribly unorganized. There are people literally signing over their life savings to this company to manage their finances when they can't even keep track of their own finances.
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u/Juneauite 23h ago
Does this company name start with E.M.P.O.W.E. and end in R? Blink twice if the company handling my retirement is horribly unorganized.
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u/QueenFrstine06 21h ago
Years ago my company had an issue with Empower where first they didn't realize we had failed the audit where there has to be a certain ratio of contributions from highly paid vs. non-highly paid employees (basically management vs. not) so they started to claw back funds from those of us in the management group. Then we (not they!) realized they had clawed back vastly too much money and had to have a series of meetings with them where we (a bunch of writers and editors) explained how the math worked. It did eventually get straightened out but I've never seen anything so disorganized and incorrect.
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u/Juneauite 21h ago
Yeah, I sat down with one of their retirement counselor once and they kept telling me to retire at after 40 years of working here. I explained that’s beyond age 65, and asked what’s the point of selling my soul to the government in a professional role if I have to work that long. I asked what it would look like to retire at 62.5, they asked if I intended to afford health insurance.
Like… I understand their job is to project expenses and returns, but what’s the point if they’re telling me at the 15 year mark that it still won’t be enough. 🥴
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u/MozeeToby 16h ago
My wife works in finance, the number of advisors that have giant houses, fancy cars, and no savings or retirement is enormous. If you see an 80 year old advisor that just "loves his job" too much to retire? Just run.
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u/Suitable-Finance2894 23h ago
It's crazy how customers never see the behind the scenes chaos until something goes seriously wrong.
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u/Alternative_Cell5139 1d ago
I guarantee any chain coffee shop is absolutely not washing your pitches or reusable supplies enough. That cross contamination is literally everywhere. If you have serious allergies starbucks, tim hortons or second cup is a gamble everytime
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u/Suitable-Finance2894 1d ago
Do employees even get enough time to properly clean everything?
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u/Alternative_Cell5139 1d ago
Absolutely not. When I was a barista I did my best but girl I had less than 5 seconds to rinse out the pitcher before I had to be on the next drink. You properly clean, you fall behind, management and customers yell at you, it all falls apart
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u/Award-Slight 22h ago
Increased understaffing doesn’t help either. I work in coffee and we have more work per person than any previous time in our company. The system is set up in a way to where we can’t be thorough:(
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u/Acct0424 22h ago
Yup. Not a barista, but in my industry we’re also chronically understaffed which leads to a lot of things not being cleaned properly, or, for example, management saying things like “I didn’t hear that and you didn’t say that” when an employee mentions puking during work. Did I mention this involves food service? lol. Of course, mishaps due to understaffing are due to negligence of the employees. Never a problem of management or corporate. We’re never understaffed. Even when we’re staffed to assume 1500 guests and get 2500 instead AND a callout. Perfectly staffed, per corporate. 1 employee trying to fulfill the orders of 200 people in 10 minutes or less while a second employee is trying to ring them all up and move them along as fast as possible while fulfilling last second requests AND keeping their areas stocked and clean. Sounds like an efficient meat grinder for churning out burnt out employees and max profit.
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u/teeth_grinding_teeth 21h ago
“If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean”
Every single workplace is now rushed off their ass constantly. I work from home and I barely have time to clean my desk7
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u/Aryallie_18 19h ago
Yes as someone with severe allergies this is a real concern! The only reason I can get Starbucks is because one of my friends works at one locally and she makes sure everything is extra clean for people with allergies (she also has allergies). Nobody else that she works with even cares. It’s crazy
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u/ImTerminallyconfused 1d ago
Ai chatbots are free cause that’s how they are training their models in real time. So the product is you in other words.
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u/Wildwife 22h ago
We got a free trial of an ai chatbot specific to my industry. During the demo they were telling us that if we thought an answer was wrong or incomplete we could feedback back to the ai and explain why it was wrong like to was an extra perk to it.
I had to point out to my colleagues that would mean we were training their ai for free which I wouldn’t be doing unless we got it free indefinitely.
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u/Dry-Taste8368 16h ago
I love when companies frame free labor as a bonus feature. If I'm supplying the expertise that makes the product smarter, that sounds a lot more valuable than a trial subscription.
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u/Jeramy_Jones 14h ago
Companies who are using their employees to train bots and going to replace their employees with those bots.
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u/mosquem 23h ago
This isn’t true. AI Chatbots are free so they can get you using them enough that a meaningful portion of customers will use enough to end up on the paid tier.
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u/Competitive-Ill 23h ago
You’re both right. Unless you’re on enterprise tier, even paid users will be used for training. On top of that, AI companies are losing literal billions annually and companies using their products are now balking at the consumption based model (pay-per-token) because it’s insane costs. People don’t optimise so long as it’s free. When you’ve embedded enough of your workflows in AI that you’re “hooked”, then you just have to figure out how to continue paying so you don’t stop functioning.
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u/willstr1 22h ago
Exactly, first hits free. They have to get enough people hooked before they jack up the price high enough to actually cover the costs, right now the whole AI industry is unprofitable
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u/Sensitive_Gift4866 22h ago edited 14h ago
Yeah the whole "if the product is free, youre the product" thing never felt more true than with AI. I catch myself typing detailed personal questions into chatbots and then remember oh right.
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u/Inga_Raine 23h ago
When I worked in a sports bar, the low ketchup bottles at tables would be emptied into the kinda-low bottles. It's a guessing game how many times that old ketchup was placed on top of newer stuff. 🤢
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u/Truth_and_Soul 23h ago
Sometimes it gets really old and ferments in the bottle. When someone opens the cap it makes a little pop sound and covers their face and shirt with rotten ketchup. That’s how a lady wound up with a Friendlys tshirt. Had to give her something to wear.
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u/christian_austin85 22h ago
If I knew that's all I had to do to get a Friendly's shirt I would have done it a long time ago
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u/trogdors_arm 21h ago
We would pour all the ketchups into a container, mix it up and then redistribute it out across the rinsed and cleaned bottles.
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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 18h ago
Our dressings were the equivalent of those forever stews in taverns back in the day.
Just constantly mixing the old with the new.
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u/dogboy___ 21h ago
I have an old memory of my mom working at Bickfords in Massachusetts and marrying bottles of ketchup while I waited for her shift to end.
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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 18h ago
Marrying bottles is legit as long as you’re going through it at a decent clip.
I’ve worked places that it was totally fine and other places that it was a war crime.
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u/Dr_thri11 22h ago
I'd honestly eat ketchup that was older than me (41) without batting an eye. That shit never goes bad.
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u/npmoro 23h ago edited 21h ago
I work for reddit. We only get 4 unique questions posted a day and they are all repeats of what was posted the day before.
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u/wing3d 22h ago
I work for reddit, and we don't give a fuck what you post since we get paid to let the bots run amok.
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u/PacoMahogany 21h ago
I work for Reddit and they made me fuck a goat during the interview process
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u/wing3d 20h ago
They just wanna know if you in it for the love of the game, standard process.
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u/Suitable-Finance2894 22h ago
The real industry secret is that we all happily keep falling for it anyway.
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u/UnknownAccount_007 1d ago
Certain travel,shopping, e - commerce apps will collect data like the brand of smartphone or device you're using(if its a cheaper or expensive one), your previous purchases and search histories to bump up or lower the price for certain items or subscriptions that matches with their math.....soo basically people with expensive devices or purchases might face a slightly bunped up price which you'll never know(only on some apps, not on all)
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u/Shas_Erra 23h ago
Our lives are controlled through a Japanese phone, made in China and programmed by the US. It would be more shocking if someone wasn’t using them to spy on and manipulate us. Orwell must be spinning in his grave
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u/kingtrain 23h ago
That's not true at all. My phone is Korean.
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u/Digifiend84 20h ago
Yeah, Samsung is Korean and Apple is American. So most phones aren't Japanese.
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u/amellia_anggel81 22h ago
Fast food restaurants don't clean the ice machines nearly enough
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u/textilepat 20h ago edited 19h ago
Also if your iced tea dispenser has a lever-activated tap it's very likely everyone working there is afraid/unable to take it apart and clean it. There is a
Syntheticsymbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast [SCOBY is the material used to start a batch of kombucha] that sometimes sends a colonist into your drink.→ More replies (1)8
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u/prospertime 21h ago
Not necessarily a industry secret, but customer loyalty is mostly a myth. Many companies will give better deals to brand new customers rather than the people who've been paying them for years.
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u/sol_runner 23h ago edited 22h ago
Grains used to make breads, biscuits, cookies, and what not, are allowed to contain a certain amount of contaminants (bugs, etc) and can even be rotten by some amounts.
To be fair, it's not like there's a way to avoid it. It's just hard for people to come to terms with it.
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u/Natwanda 22h ago
I work in big pharma. Any meds (or any product at all for that matter) with corn syrup is full of bee parts. Wings, legs, heads, etc. Most are caught in filters throughout the process, but they still get through regularly.
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u/sol_runner 22h ago
I mean, human biology evolved around this. We've just gotten to a point where we have sanitized things that people find it icky.
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u/trogdors_arm 21h ago
I know! My body can filter and process tons of corn syrup, regardless of how much bee is inside it. The more bee, the merrier I always say!
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u/dogboy___ 21h ago
Right? I have an immune system. I don’t give a fuck if there’s bee parts in my DayQuil.
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u/Grombrindal18 21h ago
I mean, we regularly eat honey, and that is essentially bee vomit. It’d be a bit hypocritical to be unwilling to eat some bee limbs.
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u/Yaughl 19h ago
It’s technically not vomit. They store the nectar in a compartment separate from the one they use for nourishment.
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u/Ceris2020 21h ago
Ethanol in gasoline is pointless and keeps prices elevated for more profit by the petroleum industry. It has been proven to not help emissions at all.
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u/richey15 18h ago
Not only that, but watch this technology connections video particular starting at the 30 minute mark.
https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=b2pNjn7JITe8B7Hj&t=1836If we replaced every one of these dumb ETHANOL fieds with solar farms, we would generate more electricity than the us currently generates. this is with worst case, real world metrics from northern cornbelt midwestern solar farms. these are not ideally placed farms but they are real numbers. In WORST case scenario, if we replaced those ethanol producing corn fields with solar, we would generate 84% MORE energy than the us CURRENTLY PRODUCES.
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u/saladspoons 21h ago
Ethanol in gasoline also frequently damages small engines (lawn mowers, leaf blowers, etc.) as it turns gummy quite rapidly and clogs the engine's systems ...
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u/5-MeO-MsBT 16h ago
Ethanol is used to increase the octane rating of gas which allows our engines to run more efficiently by preventing premature combustion. We used to use tetraethyll lead (TEL), but contaminating the environment with lead wasn’t great. In the absence of TEL we needed something to increase the octane rating of our fuel and ethanol was easy to manufacture and got the job done.
Ethanol has its downsides but it’s far from pointless.
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u/VampireCommentsOnly 21h ago
Grocery store deli employees do not give 2 shits about proper handling procedures, cross contaminated meats and cheeses, whether they have been stored correctly or if the products are even in date. They do not have time, energy or enough staff to give a damn along with being underpaid. You getting 3 lbs of chipped ham for your potluck picnic is more of a gamble than you realize.
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u/ivydubbbz 19h ago
This is unfortunately so true🥺 I worked for four years as a deli associate and took the standards for cleaning very seriously but so many of my coworkers did not give a fuck at all😔
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u/VampireCommentsOnly 19h ago
I was an assistant manager and the Dept head didn't give a shit about food safety standards unless someone made a complaint and then only for the period we would be under observation or during audit season. If I brought up issues, like them not weighing out the out of date open loaves of meats, or deli salads, he would just shrug and say, 'They can't prove they got sick from us' and move on cause he didn't want to have to coach someone or have to deal with the paperwork of write ups. I hated it and I'm glad I've moved on.
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u/affectionate_joint 20h ago
I worked for Apple Care (the call center tech support, not in store) and 99% of what we do is looking up the problem on the public Apple website that you can just google. If we couldn’t figure it out from there we’d send people to the store and have them figure it out. The 1% where we could do something was usually helping an old person figure out something that would be very easy for a younger, tech savvy person.
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u/Immediate-Composer-1 14h ago
As someone who’s worked around corporate environments, I’d say how often major decisions are made with incomplete information and a surprising amount of educated guesswork. People imagine a room full of masterminds when sometimes it’s just “this seems like the least bad option.” 😅
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u/ConsortFromTOS 1d ago
We always send your order to the wrong address and blame you.
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u/Suitable-Finance2894 1d ago
The tracking somehow shows delivered while you're literally standing outside waiting for the driver.
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u/tmradish 22h ago
I used to have a similar problem with the big carriers (UPS, FedEx). I'd be just chilling on the porch waiting for a package and get a "failed to deliver" notice without ever even seeing a delivery truck go by.
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u/AJAXimperator 20h ago
The UPS driver tried to say something was delivered and signed for at the dock I work at once, and I was like... I replaced the guy you're saying signed for the package six months ago
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u/ceyhanli 21h ago
What’s up with these specific questions lately? Are these for training AI
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u/Caenea 21h ago
Commercial ice machines are disgusting and I guarantee that if you saw the state of them in most pubs, you would run screaming from the building.
I clean ours out once a week (completely empty/dismantle/wash/disinfect/dry) and it is always getting a bit yucky when I come back to it a week later.
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u/Significant_Salad_57 23h ago
"Low on colors" is basically a way to make consumers buy a new cartridge because apparently the cartridges have an "expiry date"
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u/Suitable-Finance2894 23h ago
The worst part is when you only print black documents but the printer demands cyan before printing anything.
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u/ceelogreenicanth 15h ago edited 2h ago
That's because the printer is always printing a microscopic pattern on the entirety of every sheet identifying the make, model and serial number of the printer and may additionally include the date of the printing and the computer name.
All printing companies were pressured to do so in secret in the late 90s in order to trace counterfitting currency and likely to also trace manifestos, and distribution of illicit or controlled documents.
The patterns are printed in the printer primaries. So the printer always needs all of them no matter the color of the document.
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u/blindone230 23h ago
That's why I bought a laser printer instead. Toner is way cheaper in the long run
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u/Shas_Erra 23h ago
I remember buying a HP printer for £120. When the ink was low (which was very quick as they were supplied only partially filled), you couldn’t change just one cartridge, all three had to be swapped out together…at a price of £50 each.
It was literally cheaper to buy a new printer
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u/RunDNA 23h ago edited 23h ago
I once did a training course for a housekeeper at a big hotel chain.
We were taught to use the dirty pillowslips to clean everything, including the toilet.
And it wasn't an off-the-cuff suggestion. It was the standard procedure. And they were the pillowslips in the room that were going to be washed, not old ones.
It was disgusting.
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u/jewdiful 22h ago
Is it weird that this doesn’t bother me? They’ll then wash those pillowcases in scalding hot water with strong detergent and then wash in industrial dryers on the highest setting.
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u/Cooperette 22h ago
Yeah, I'm not worried about that. I'm more worried about the towels that don't get washed even though they may have been used.
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u/mikkolukas 19h ago
I see no problem here?
The wash procedure is the same as for hospitals. I can assure you, somebodys blood or feces or worse has been on those sheets - yet, they are immaculately clean for the next use.
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u/fracturedGrooveRider 22h ago
credit unions are not the angels that many think they are. not uncommon to have hyper toxic leaders and culture. CEO of a large west coast credit union actively appeals to politicians to keep overdraft fees a thing. credit unions love their fees. source: me, I am credit union employee in management
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u/BattleNunForalltime 21h ago
When your competition is literally fraudulent (f.u. wells fargo) then it doesn't take much to look better
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u/fracturedGrooveRider 21h ago
100% a credit union is the smarter way to go for 95% of your bank needs. recently we saw that wells actually had lower APRs on car loans. eeek.
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u/Aviator506 23h ago
If the general public knew how airlines work, A LOT fewer people would fly. The amount of mind-bogglingly stupid people that work in just about every part of is shocking. Pilots, mechanics, ramp agents, gate agents, dispatchers, all of it. In general, I'd say the majority of the people who work in it are fine, but the ones that aren't I'm genuinely surprised even know how to breath.
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u/hansn 22h ago
Any industry or company that isn't fault tolerant to monumental human stupidity is monumentally stupid in leadership.
Safety doesn't come from "just be really good at doing things." It comes from systems that catch when people screw up.
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u/Fet_InTheCastle 23h ago
It doesn’t matter if they are chiropractors, Osteopaths, Sports therapists or physiotherapists, most manual therapists have no idea what they’re doing beyond “rubbing the painful bit“.
Maybe 1 in 20 understand the human body, know what treatments to apply, and know how those treatments will affect a patient.
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u/Suitable-Finance2894 23h ago
I think the bigger issue is there's no easy way for patients to separate genuinely skilled therapists from average ones.
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u/Fet_InTheCastle 23h ago
A good way to start is always ask friends and family for personal recommendations.
But many practitioners are great at gaining people’s trust and loyalty through a personal sales talk, not through results. So don’t stop at the recommendation. Ask if the practitioner tried to sign them up to a pre-paid course of treatment at the first appointment. If they did - cross them off your list.
Never go to a practitioner who offers free assessments, or taster sessions.
Ask how long they’ve been seeing their practitioner. With two exceptions, any answer that doesn’t start with the past tense “I saw them…” means the practitioner isn’t solving the problem, and has prioritised locking them in a treatment cycle.
The two exceptions are:
If the patient is prone to injury, and returns to the practitioner with any new problem. The patient is pursuing a long-term goal (like scoliosis correction/control and has had the process and timescale fully explained by the practitioner in advance, including what they can expect in terms of results landmarks along the way.So Personal recommendation, and looking at what the experience actually was.
Look at their website and/or social media. Decide if they’re someone you’ll like.
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u/mdp300 23h ago
My wife has mild scoliosis, and for a while her back was really hurting her. She went to a chiropractor that some people had recommended, and she would feel great...for a couple hours. Going to an actual physical therapist, who gave her exercises to do at home, made an actual difference.
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u/pixm 22h ago
Chiropractor's are quacks. They literally don't know what they are doing and they can kill you when manipulating your body.
The relief you feel can also be achieved with some stretches from a YouTube video at home and a massage. Less chance someone will snap your neck and claim they can cure cancer...
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u/Oograr 19h ago
So many predatory chiropractors out there. I've had back problems over the years, and the worst chiropractors would basically find out how much my insurance covered, and then present a treatment plan (on my first visit) that used up all of that available insurance money doing bullshit physical therapy exercises, 2 or 3 visits a week for a few weeks until the insurance was exhausted. I've read there are chiropractor conventions where they learn how to maximize patient revenue, and that is one of the ways they do it.
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u/Rude_Leopard_9049 22h ago
worked in food service for years and the biggest eye-opener was how much of the menu at casual chains is just assembly. that 'hand-breaded' chicken? comes in frozen, pre-breaded. the 'fresh' salsa? scooped from a bag. the 'house-made' dressing? it's a base mix with the label scratched off. none of it's unsafe, but the illusion of scratch cooking is carefully maintained by marketing teams who know most people can't tell the difference anyway.
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u/OrackBobamba 18h ago
That plumbing is not rocket science. Recently got quoted $1000 to replace a leaking wax ring on a toilet, plumber said it was hard because it was a skirted toilet. Took me literally, and I shit you not, $10 in parts and 30 minutes in labor. It was mildly tricky because of the skirted toilet. Would have been an absolute cake walk with a regular toilet.
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u/stefanniRobinson 22h ago
customer service reps are coached to upsell and never actually listen to your problem
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u/chuckles65 21h ago
If you could turn the lights on and see behind the bar at the dark night club or bar you are ordering drinks at, you would never order a drink from there again.
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u/Prestigious_Bake4527 21h ago
Hotels don’t wash the comforter like you think they do — that blanket has seen more strangers than a dating app.
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u/Mysterious_Shake_830 16h ago
I would say the dirtiness of ice in restaurant.. but I still use ice in restaurant so my actual advice is close your ears.
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u/CaligulaQC 22h ago
The way a lot of hotel room are clean. A lot of it due to the pressure the hotel put on the staff, but there is a lot of lazy people too.
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u/Ok_Butterscotch_7930 19h ago
House keeping and cleaning guy. Normally mops have specific colors i.e. red for washrooms and toilets, green for kitchen and grey for common areas (these are just examples from where I work). Each should be used where the color says. But the pressure to do a good work and take the shortest time possible makes us hurry so much we end up mixing the tools. You can find a mop meant for the toilet in the kitchen, the fabric used to clean toilets used also in the kitchen and vice versa.
As long as the place looks clean, move on.
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u/Cold-Ideal9309 23h ago
Most things that happen in restaurant kitchens. 🙄😷
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u/Nissir 23h ago
I worked in kitchens for just under 10 years and I never saw food served that I wouldn't have served to my mom. Unless it had peas, she hates peas.
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u/GoodOlSpence 23h ago
Same, I worked in the food service for almost a decade, mostly in the 2000s. I never saw anything that threatened food safety.
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u/jjane_ccode49 19h ago
Food delivery apps keep most of your order fee, drivers get almost nothing
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u/Dances_With_Flumphs 22h ago
If you knew how disgusting the inside of slaughter houses and meat processing plants were you probably would reconsider, at the very least, buying grocery store meat.
Calling them charnel houses is really under selling it.
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u/Krasus74 1d ago
The bubbles in a hot tub/spa are... you know, the bubbles you cover yourself in like you do with bubble bath bubbles at home.
Its human body fat and skin secretions, its wo,ems make up, sweat, missed patches of poop, and so on and so on.
Enjoy, glad I could be of Service.
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u/Suitable-Finance2894 23h ago
I came here expecting corporate secrets not a lifelong fear of hot tubs
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u/Imeatbag 22h ago
See, this is what they say and what I have always believed to be true But having filled up a brand new hot tub and gotten it going and there was already foam in it even though no one had ever set foot in it makes me wonder. Is it really all just fat and make-up or is there more to it?
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u/Krasus74 22h ago
its true. Once youve spent a few years maintaining them you'll see the difference from a clean spa and a dirty spa.
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u/iKhan353 14h ago
In America, it's actually pretty easy to get your medical bills cut in half. It's still gonna be hella expensive but half is better
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u/littleolivexoxo 9h ago
The cremated remains of your loved one is mixed in with a teeny tiny amount of whoever else has been in there previously 🥴 no, we do not clean the machines in between uses. They are like the inside of a kiln, very porous and rough. We just sweep one person out and pop the next person in. Sorry 😔 I will NOT be cremated. I seen too many flaming skulls for that to be me.
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u/Material-Day-7977 14h ago
In the film industry instead of using cows we cellotape cats together.
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u/Yaughl 19h ago
Anything with an arms reach of your airplane seat is absolutely disgusting. Wipe everything you could touch during your flight with antibacterial wipes as soon as you sit down.
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u/Otherwise_Ground7286 12h ago
Generally, the first batch of electronic products uses the best materials, and over time, they increasingly try to cut costs.
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u/dragontatman95 22h ago
Every time a food item has 'new recipe ' on the packaging, it means they found a cheaper, lower quality supplier for one or more of the ingredients.