People Reveal Secrets About Their Job No One Is Supposed To Know

Every workplace has its issues and secrets.

And the sooner they're exposed, the better.

This is especially true when it comes to food service.

But in the end, most of what we're about to "find out " are things we already knew on some level.

I don't go to IHOP for the cleanliness, but I do love the pancakes regardless.

And here's a little tip from my last experience: movie popcorn in the early part of the day is mostly from the night before.

Just FYI.

Redditor SpottedGelato wanted to expose some hidden facts about everyone's workplaces, so they asked:

"What's a secret in your job that people aren't supposed to know about?"

Bare-Bones Functionality

"Working for giant companies, it’s comical how many systems are raggedy messes of bare-bones functionality. All available money gets thrown at certain projects, leaving everything else to work on complete shoe-strings."

- _Externails_

"Piggybacking off this, worked for 3 top tier tech companies in the last 12 years. So much. waste and gross inefficiency."

"The people who complain about government inefficiency and worship privatization have absolutely no clue that it's simply because corporate inefficiency is entirely hidden away from public scrutiny. If corporations had to be as transparent as government agencies, their shareholders would skin them alive at every earnings call."

- thrawnie

It's a whole thing...

"60-year-old, married with 3 kids, the boss is doing his 23-year-old assistant. She charges him $300 when they do. It’s a whole thing."

- Lekomano92

Oh My George Takai GIFGiphy

You Again?

"You can call multiple entirely separate company customer service departments and talk to the exact same agent at the exact same desk who has been trained in all of them."

- TeaJazzer

"Where I worked, we took calls on our direct number, and then they made it so we'd also take calls from a related service to free them up for actual emergencies. One of our regular problematic callers had been phoning us repeatedly on our usual number, and then we got a call from her redirected from the other number - when one of our night call handlers took the call, she said 'How, the HELL, am I talking to you?!' before hanging up. Didn't stop her calling back more times overnight. I think she was annoyed that she was down a service to harass, but we found it quite funny."

- Perstyr

Celery Seeds

"I was a server at a chain barbecue restaurant. Yummy food, and they played blues all day. The secret was what they put in the potato salad that was so good… celery seeds. When I was first hired & doing training, they told us we would lose our jobs if we told anyone. It’s been > 25 years, I think I’m safe to blow the secret. 😂"

- DecadentLife

On the List

"It’s insanely easy to be a 'bestselling' novelist, and just because you are doesn’t mean you make any money. I’m a true-blue USA Today Bestselling Author, and I’ve made $5ish in 2024."

- villettegirl

"They track individual bookstores. They don’t track ALL stuff that’s sold so as there are fewer bookstores, it becomes very easy to game that system. However, they never bothered to do it unless they thought the book had an audience and could make money off that game. So it means the publishers themselves have a lot of faith in you."

- nofishies

You are NO Mickey!!

"There are rats in the kitchen."

- flacotron

"The rats are wherever the garbage is put outside. Rats and mice. If there's a steady amount of food being dumped in a large bin, then the rats and mice will figure it out. And if the back door to the restaurant is ajar or open for any amount of time, the rats/mice will move toward the scent of more food, along with the heat. ALWAYS shut lids, close doors, and place traps at strategic access points. Either that or you will find little rice-shaped pieces of sh*t in places you don't want to find them."

- Dimpleshenk

Excited The Muppet Show GIF by Muppet WikiGiphy

CRIMINAL!!

"The markup on supplies in the medical field is criminal."

- I_am_Reddington

"I used to work in DME. And yeah, it’s outrageous what they would charge for things. Do you know that walker grandma got when she went to the hospital? She was probably charged $150 for it when our cost was around $12. That applied to just about everything we offered, which, if you’re familiar with DME, is a whole bunch of stuff."

- brandognabalogna

Terminals

"I fix the lottery equipment for my state. This includes lottery ticket vending machines, Powerball terminals (the ones at literally every convenience store/bar, etc), and keno vending machines. There is zero technical documentation of any kind. We made these things and there is literally nothing. No wiring schematics/blueprints, nothing."

"There are no more new Powerball terminals. If something breaks we cannibalize parts from other machines. I have literally sat there scraping BBQ sauce off machines so we can give them out to new bars. Also, the lottery ticket vending machines run XP and are Internet-connected."

- X____________o

The Fixer

"Restarting your computer will fix so many problems you call your IT dept for when you don’t restart the damn thing for 8 months."

- Gh0sts1ght

"I did tech support for phones. Do I know anything at all about that? No. But I can tell you to turn it off and turn it on again. Fixed the problem almost every time."

- Not_A_Wendigo

Bad Day Monday GIFGiphy

Sorry!

"If your 2-year-old doesn’t want to paint because they’d rather do something else, we can’t force them. If you keep complaining and being nasty because you want fridge art, we will do your child’s art and put their name in it so you can stop complaining."

- SleepyOrange007

"We would throw away do much food from the lunch boxes so parents would think it was eaten. No, we will not give your child leftover Halloween candy right before naptime. No, little kids cannot 'save room for later.' Just because Junior eats something when he’s on your lap and you’re spoonfeeding him, doesn’t mean he’ll eat it on his own."

"We would do everything we could not to serve the birthday pizza. The kids weren’t used to digesting that cheap cheese and dough so it was always a bathroom disaster."

- Silly_Somewhere1791

Keep your samples

"Olive Garden Server: You can get 3 free wine samples every time you go."

- _Neither_Bug

"The last time I went to Olive Garden there were cockroaches on the wall as we were being seated (10 years ago). The server acted like she didn’t see it. The manager offered us a free ('free', TIL) glass of wine. We walked out. All I could imagine was fruit flies in the bottle. Shoutout to Bloomington for ruining one of my anniversary dinners. I don’t even remember what we did when we left, but I will NEVER forget that cockroach just walking on the wall by my booth."

- MidnightFire1420

It gets Worse

"Most family members have no idea what's best or even good for their loved ones with dementia. A lot of times, they make things worse."

- HelgaGeePataki

"I work at a memory care facility and see this all the time. Families pushing for more and more medical interventions (knee replacement, organ transplant) for their 96-year-old grandma with severe dementia. Putting these people through all that when they don’t even know what’s happening to them or why is so cruel. Just let them live the remainder of their life peacefully."

- Key_Artichoke99

Bad Shape

"Most elevators in the United States do not get maintained properly. I used to work for an elevator company, and they would only limit us to a few calls a day because they didn't want to give the impression that something was wrong with their elevators. They didn't want to lose those contracts for those elevators and maintenance. Once in a while, I would say maybe three/four times a month we would find an elevator that was really in bad shape."

"Every time we would put it out of service, the next day, it would be in service again. I am not sure who put it back in service, but someone did. Even if we reported it, nothing would get done, and no one would check the cameras or anything. It was better to take a risk and not have people complaining about having to use the stairs even if it cost them their own safety. I learned to keep my mouth shut and do what I was told. I was close to retirement and didn't want to lose that."

- Charlietango2007

Drop It

"The IRS doesn't have the budget to enforce tax law, and will drop any issues they feel would cost more than they will collect. There has been more than one instance where a client comes to us after years of arguing with the IRS and we will literally just reprint their prior letters on our letterhead to have the IRS drop the whole matter."

- BackInTheRealWorld

The Party Guy

"Many sales guys are the guys that never grew out of the frat house, but the ones that make bank every single year are the guys that really listen and understand someone's motivations without them spelling it out. Those folks know what's important to their customers and their boss and quietly find a way to make everything work for everyone involved."

"The guy that's the life of the party, knows everyone around, and loves making connections can do well in sales, but the quiet, emotionally intelligent, and detail-oriented guys will make $150k+ every single year selling just about anything out there."

- wastedpixls

Mark Up

"Any part I can get, you can get too. The only difference is I mark it up by 30 and then charge you labor and taxes."

- becooltheywatching

Money Dancing GIF by StaatsloterijGiphy

This is why I eat out less and less.

And why I sometimes BYOB and snacks when dining out.

I can't say I'm shocked about the mechanics mark-up.

How do I go in for a $40 oil change and suddenly drop $1000 on things that are suddenly necessary?

That scam is the lie out in the open.

Also, I'm claustrophobic.

I detest elevators.

And now I know I was right to be afraid.

They don't check those things.

We could all plummet to our deaths at any second.

No one better say anything to me about them again.