People Were Asked To Anonymously Share Their Professional Secrets, And They Are Quite Surprising
"I am in IT. We don't always know WHY the fix worked and we don't care."
Reddit has a way of turning everyday jobs into a giant confession booth, and this thread is a perfect example. One user asked people to anonymously share the professional secrets nobody talks about, and the answers ranged from funny to unsettling.
The post quickly took off, pulling in thousands of upvotes and comments as workers from all kinds of fields weighed in. Some of the confessions were harmless, some were blunt, and a few were the kind of thing you cannot unsee once you read them.
Here are the most surprising secrets people were willing to say out loud.
"Your dog or cat is much more comfortable when you are there with them during euthanasia. It's really hard when people say, "It's too hard for me to be here with him." And leave the room for it. It is one of the hardest things ever, but they need you there with them. They look around for you sometimes.
That being said, if we do the euthanasia without you, we always have one staff member whose only job during the procedure is to cuddle and comfort your pet and tell them how much their owner loves them, and what a "good boy" they are."
The thread quickly shifted from curiosity to confession mode.
"I am in IT
We don't always know WHY the fix worked and we don't care."
"Vet worker here. Probably doesn’t count as a “secret” but we absolutely do pet your cats and dogs a lot when you bring them in."
“So that made me wonder, out of mere curiosity, why can’t people just share some of whatever they have been holding back as ‘open secrets’ related to their professions? Secrets that can be interesting to know and fun to speak about, with no harm at all!” HannibalGoddamnit stated.
The Redditor said he never expected the thread to go viral. “I was expecting perhaps to get some funny jokes about how big named professions are actually so boring, but not thousands of ‘Oh God, have mercy’ secrets.”
“I have received messages from fellow Redditors saying they have spent a lot of time reading the thread, and how it was ‘a good read,’” HannibalGoddamnit shared, how pleased Reddit’s response to his thread made him.
"Bartender here: if you're cool I will absolutely bend over backwards to make sure your night goes amazing. That means extra stiff drinks, remakes if you don't like something, faster service, etc. You don't even have to tip THAT well, just treat me like a human and maybe have a funny story to make my night go faster. If you're mean to me you get exactly what you ordered and not a mL more."
5.
"Work in telecommunications. 5G does not cause Coronavirus"
6.
"Former psych ward tech here. Patients and visitors alike used to frequently complain about all of the ridiculous and specific rules that we had on the unit (patients can’t use the TV remote themselves, use a standard regular sized hair tie, etc).
We don’t make those rules just because. Each and every rule has a very real story behind it that we cannot divulge to you. People are terrifyingly creative when they really want to hurt themselves.These incidents may never happen again, but we don’t want to take that risk. And so, a new and seemingly stupid rule is born."
That kind of honesty is exactly why the thread hit so hard.
When asked what would happen if people found out everyone else’s professional secrets, HannibalGoddamnit said that this would have a “considerable” impact on society. “I really hope that no one will take advantage of it in a bad way.” He added: “It was really brave of all of the people to share what has always been untold. The thread needs to [be shared] as widespread as [possible], for it is a national treasure. I thank everyone who contributed to the thread. I was just the conversation starter.”
7.
"There is no cloud, it's just someone else's computer."
8.
"I work in a nursing home. Your sweet little Meemaw and Pawpaw are as***es. I worked at Walmart before my nursing home and I had way fewer problems with rude, entitled, and plain malicious people than I do now in nursing. Almost all of the men sexually harass the female staff too. Including, but not limited to, sexually explicit comments and requests, grabbing, groping, flashing, masturbating, etc etc. This is, surprisingly, much more common amongst completely cognizant residents than it is amongst those with dementia. Its an extremely difficult job and no one gets paid enough, especially not the aid because we’re the ones exclusively dealing with almost all of the stuff mentioned above."
9.
"I’m a furniture upholsterer, and the amount of times other ‘professionals’ just recover the old fabric and filling drives me mental. If you’re paying for reupholstery, ask for progress photos. Nobody needs all that nasty old fabric hidden underneath and it’s not fair to the client as they don’t necessarily know any better (nor should they have to)"
Some of these confessions are surprising. It turns out gadgets like fake thermostats actually exist to prevent people from messing with the temperature. Not all IT workers know (or even care) why their repair attempts work. Most normal aired radio shows use prerecorded playlists, and song requests from callers and the DJs can't really affect the music that is playing.
10.
"I worked as a retail a manger in the past. A customer’s attitude and approach is about 99% of the reason someone would help them solve a problem. Sale ended yesterday? Your return is past the date? You want a better price on a clearance item?
Be a normal kind person and you’ll usually get your way. If you start off being sh***y or demanding then,“Sorry, I can’t help you, it’s store policy.”
11.
"That most of those "3 people have booked this hotel today" or "4 people are looking at this prodocut right now" pop-ups on travel agency website and ecommerce sites are lies. Totally static and made up."
This is similar to someone hiding a secret cam model job from their partner, and debating trust.
12.
"We don’t actually know how general anesthesia works at the molecular level. There are theories but nothing concrete."
One undertaker told The Guardian that it’s a cut-throat business with fierce competition. Surprisingly, the job itself isn’t depressing - they are pleased to learn so much about humanity through their career.
A judge disclosed that most judges are very anxious about their jobs. The rulings they are supposed to bring justice to everyone, and that is a heavy burden.
13.
"Teacher here. I learned early on in the game that there are a lot of supplies we don't have to pay for if we just know where to look and how to ask nicely. Want to have a lesson about plants? Go to a grocery store/florist a few days ahead and ask if they can set aside their dying flowers for your class. Need cardboard? Ask a store for their old boxes. I've even heard of my colleagues just going to stores and asking for donations and explaining why, and getting new stuff for free. It's amazing how much people are willing to go out of their way to help educate kids."
14.
"Cinema theatres are full of bugs. No matter how much you clean, bugs will live off the food dropped and are very good at hiding, even exterminators can't get them all. Plus, with all kids of people coming in, they bring in bugs, fleas, lice etc and we can't refuse service just because someone absolutely stinks. Think about that next time you sir down. Not unheard of for cinema workers to keep your lost property and cash they find. Though most staff won't, one or two deffo will. High value lost property gets given to managers to 'deal with'. And yes this absolutely includes 'upmarket' fancy cinemas.
15.
"Most people who work in IT support really aren't more tech savvy than the average user. They just know how to Google."
16.
"My friend is a doctor. He said that hospitals always overcharges the patient. One solution to this is to ask for an itemized invoice, and more often than not, there will be a significant reduction in the invoice."
17.
"If you ever hear your local morning radio guy interviewing someone that seems too famous to talk to a local radio guy, that's because that celebrity recorded an interview and their audio was sent to radio stations everywhere, then the local guy rerecords the questions."
18.
"If you see twelve different sellers for an item on Amazon, in all likelihood the total number of sellers is probably three to four, all of whom have multiple names selling the same item at different prices."
19.
"I work at a jewelry store that produces custom pieces. Diamonds and other precious stones get dropped and lost, by everyone, constantly. 3 or 4 times a day you will hear "Fu*k! Nobody move! Get the flashlight!" I saw the owner drop a whole tray of sapphires one day. Pretty sure part of his soul died. We're usually more careful with customer's stones, though. Usually."
20.
"The majority of regular broadcast radio shows are pre-recorded. If a DJ is broadcasting live (usually the morning shows), they still have no control over what music plays, it's all pre-programmed. They'll usually record phone requests and replay them during the voice break before the requested song is scheduled to play anyway, to make it seem like they're playing/taking requests. When the studio is empty, all phone lines are set to "busy", so no one calls and realizes there's no one there to answer."
21.
"At the airlines, we generally have no idea where your bag is at any given time. It follows a chain of events to get to the right place. If it ends up missing, no one is "looking" for your bag. Your file gets loaded in a computer and when your bag is eventually scanned somewhere, a person is notified to grab it before it moves on to somewhere else. This also means, if you jump to an earlier flight, there is a strong chance that your bag is going to fly on the original flight. The time is usually too little to go find it, retag it and get it to a new flight. If you jump to another airline and we have already retagged it/ handed it off to a different airline, it is done. We are not going to be able to retrieve it. It is flying on that flight.
Just because your bag tag shows CLT on it does not mean it was accidentally sent there. We often send bags through multiple cities as it will reunite you and your bag, hours faster than the next direct flight. Sometimes, we even send it on other airlines that you never even flew on. We may even send it the other way around the globe. Ex. LAX to DXB(Dubai). You may have flown through London on British Airways, but the fastest way for me to send your bag may be through Seoul, South Korea on Delta and Korean air. We try our best but it's a question of volume, staffing, time, and technology."
22.
"Teachers do have favorites."
23.
"Dummy thermostats are pretty common. It basically works like a placebo where people feel more comfortable when they think they have control over the room temperature. It results in way fewer complaints."
24.
"I let my students cuss around me as long as they use it properly and it isn't offensive. They don't know this rule, only I do."
25.
"I can fix most people's computer issues by doing 3 things:
run a free scan from malware bytes
open up msconfig.msc from typing it in the start menu, then going over to all the services and startup items and turning off so much crap that is either a virus (says Unknown or a blank, for the manufacturer name) or unnecessary (you can google if you don't know, plus click the box that says hide microsoft to dumb it down a bit).
Make them a new user account that doesn't have admin rights (they'll need to put in a admin name and password when they really want to install things, no need to always be logged in as an Admin.. click bait will kill your pc). Then doing a few reboots... i teach this to family"
26.
"The sheer magnitude of criminal cases that detectives have that will pretty much never even get looked at, much less investigated due to a massive lack of staffing."
27.
"Most hospitals are actually crazy trusting about who they release dead bodies to when people die.
Often times I show up with just a gurney, and someone’s name scribbled on a post-it note, and they just let me walk out with somebody’s grandma without asking my name or getting ID or anything."
28.
"The recycling market is way down in the US because China had stopped accepting most of our recyclables. So, a lot of what you think you're recycling is just ending up in the landfill anyway."
29.
"That just because something is patented doesn't make it any good. Stupid [crap] is patented every day."
30.
"As a freelance ghostwriter, most of my clients are Russian or Middle Eastern men who publish five to ten ghostwritten romance or erotica books a week under female pen names. They spend 10k a month and double or triple that by flooding the market. At one point one client told me he had six of the top ten Regency Romance spots on the paid best seller list."
It is a reminder that every job has a side people never see.
Some of the biggest surprises were how ordinary the secrets sounded once people said them out loud. A lot of the time, the truth was less glamorous than the job title suggested, and sometimes a lot more chaotic.
That is what made the thread so addictive to read.
Want more awkward “secrets” tension, read about keeping your partner’s pet adoption details private and blowing up a friendship.
