While we might be used to clean, sparkling packaging and swiftly-loading webpages, anyone who’s worked a job knows that things behind the scenes in nearly every industry are never that immaculate.

Someone asked “What is an open secret in your industry that the general public would be genuinely shocked to learn?” and people shared examples from their professions. Be warned, “shocked” is right there in the title. If you decide to stay, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own examples in the comments below.

#1

I work maintenance, used to do HVAC.

You can pass a million laws, have a million armed guards at the main entrance and take away every personal freedom that anyone in the entire country has in the name of security, and I will STILL be able to walk in through the loading dock if I’m holding a folding ladder and a toolkit, with no questions asked.

© Photo: JO-N0

#2

I have been in academic research for almost 30 years, and the amount of cherry picked or just completely made up data in research papers should concern everyone. In the past it was very rare and now it is almost common practice. It’s driven by the pursuit of increasingly scarce funding sources.

© Photo: piratecat666

#3

If you’re on OnlyFans, Fansly, Fanvue, or similar platforms as a fan, there’s only a tiny chance you’re actually talking to the model. Most of the time, you’re talking to a chatter, a person, often from a developing country, who works for a small commission, replies to messages, and sells content on the model’s behalf. (Edit: especially on Fanvue that allows AI generated “models”, but there are human chatters replying the messages)

Source: I’ve been working as a chatter for over two years.

© Photo: Wife_of_Shao_Kahn

#4

I work in security. The vast majority of security is actually what’s called “security theater,” meaning things that make the given area LOOK more secure, but isn’t actually capable of stopping any threats. It’s not useless though, because a certain amount of would be threats ARE prevented under the assumption that they would be stopped if they actually tried anything.

© Photo: screenaholic

#5

The U.S. has over 624,000 highway bridges. 42% are 50 years or older, exceeding their operational lifespans, but most are still safe to drive over.

42,000 (or about 7% of all bridges) are in “poor” condition and require significant repair or rehabilitation. Many of these are heavily traveled. In fact, this amounts to 168.5 million trips, every single day, across structurally unsound bridges.

Most people have no idea the condition of the bridge they’re driving on and will never give it a second thought.

© Photo: evan274

#6

Half the sites you use every day are held together by a handful of exhausted on-call engineers, a pile of scripts nobody fully understands anymore, and duct tape. a surprising amount of the internet is one expired certificate or one fat-fingered config push away from going down for an afternoon.

© Photo: Floss_Patrol_76

#7

The chances of your children’s private info, including SSN, birthdate, birthplace, address, etc being leaked and out there on the dark web is fairly high because most school districts in this country have horrible network security and work with SaaS vendors that house all this data and are also vulnerable.

People heard about the big Canvas hack earlier this year. What people don’t seem to realize is that hack wasn’t unique and similar events happen fairly often across our country and sometimes to individual school districts.

Its a real problem that’s just being ignored by our government.

© Photo: bigeyez

#8

I run a small local pest control company and it works for a couple of the largest ones in the world.

Overall, most people doing the job barely understand what they’re doing and have a very casual. Disregard for people‘s health and the health of their pets.

I reached a point where I will no longer hire anybody that comes out of any of the big three or four companies. They come in thinking they know everything and are extremely resistant to any kind of change or adaptation.

© Photo: Musekal

#9

Farmed salmon are so overcrowded that they get sick and develop sores. It’s absolutely disgusting, and it’s awful to see them suffering.

© Photo: vray88

#10

The jewelry cleaner that you buy at a jewelry store for $10+ for a small jar is just one part ammonia, 3 parts water and a couple of drops of dish detergent, mainly to color it.

And for anyone reading this, it is NOT for use on pearls or opals!

© Photo: Bruins_Score

#11

I work in local TV.

Folks would be shocked at just how little some on air folk care about their community. Like, they hold an active disdain for the public.

Also, how often an entire story gets changed live on the air simply because an Anchor doesn’t want to follow the script. They will leave out context, or just a certain name or word, and it 100% changes the story.

© Photo: helljack

#12

Software is terrible not because of bad developers or bad testing. It’s the CEOs who make business decisions to placate stockholders by releasing too soon and/or ignoring known bugs.

© Photo: JesusShaves_

#13

Cruise Ships.

You think the entire crew is well trained to handle emergency situations? Well….

© Photo: kos90

#14

I work in construction supply. A lot of people often opt for the cheaper or budget options thinking the difference in quality doesn’t really make a difference. “A brick is a brick, they’re all the same” “cement is cement, it’ll do the job” as well as for other items like steel and timber. In actual fact most of the time the quality difference is really big and you only start notice after a while and long after you’ve already installed the item. The only item I’ve seen people really consider taking the better option is with paint.

I my country the standard thicknesses for steel and tubing used to be 1.6mm and 2.0mm. Chinese suppliers flooded the market with low quality and underspecked goods forcing local manufacturers to have to have to cut the quality in order to maintain their competitiveness and as a result you know get 1.0mm and 1.2mm tubing being sold in most smaller stores.

They’ve managed to get around it through marketing. Instead of advertising the steel with the thickness they now label it as Heavy duty and light duty. Heavy duty and light duty can be anything, I can have a 0.9mm tube and a 1.0mm tube and legally market the 1.0mm as heavy duty as technically it is a heavier duty than the 0.9mm.

There are stores I go to that now started selling 22.5N cement to contractors that are using to build houses and foundation walls.

Most of the welded mesh fencing that’s sold in smaller stores is so weak that you can literally grab one of the wire strands and pull the fence apart by hand.

Multiple times I’ve had to return goods to suppliers as they would supply underspecked rebar. I’ve received Rebar that’s marked as 8mm but that measure at 6.8mm-7.2mm and Rebar is critical to the building process.

I always advise clients to go for the better option but at the end of the day you have to give the customer what they ask for I guess.

© Photo: Sycousis

#15

Every courthouse in America has at least one judge that regularly violates the law and people’s rights every single day, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Even speaking about it openly can have extreme consequences.

© Photo: Stoked_Otter

#16

The housekeeping industry. Housekeepers are under such tight time restraints (30 min per room) and given like 15 rooms to clean in 8 hrs that they are forced to cut corners. Never trust the coffee pot, towels, bedding (the duvet is never changed only if there’s a strain on it or it smells really bad or something), don’t trust the glasses, and don’t walk around barefoot. I’ve seen housekeepers using the toilet brush to clean the bathtub. And touching the clean towers after touching the toilet. Unfortunately there’s not enough time to really clean so we give the illusion of a clean room. Management only cares that the metal is shiny with no water spots, there’s no hair anywhere, and everything is in its place and looks organized. But really it’s gross!

© Photo: mayanmoon

#17

Free Wifi is a trap. Its data mining. They dont put it in as a favour to you, they’re collecting i formation and corporations are using it. I dont know how it works but the amount of information they can glean from you is… Frightening. I was at a seminar on guest wifi where the company selling the access points was telling us about all the information gathering they are capable of… To them it was a selling point. To me it was a good reason never to log on to free wifi again.

© Photo: LemmyLola

#18

This insanely expensive beauty and hair products you like to buy. You know the ones that go for 1-200 for a medium sized jars of cream. It cost roughly 3 dollars to make that stuff.

© Photo: matrixzone5

#19

I’m a wildlife photographer.

A lot of the spectacular shots you see of seemingly wild and elusive animals, all over social media, stock agencies, magazines, calendars, and greeting cards, are taken of captive wolves, lynxes, snow leopards, tigers, and many others, that live horrible lives in small filthy concrete cells, only dragged out by a trainer to pose for photographers and filmmakers in fenced outdoor areas. These places are called photo game farms, and a lengthy expose of them appeared in a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

© Photo: Frequent-Jaguar6390

#20

Working in wealth management. People need to vet who they trust with their money more. Most wealth advisors are old as hell and can’t open an excel spreadsheet.

© Photo: InsulinRage

#21

I work in manufacturing as an engineer. Have worked in various industries.

I am surprised anything ever gets made ever.

© Photo: AsFarAsNeverBefore

#22

I work in education. Teachers aren’t making your kids gay. They are just gay. We just treat them like humans with care and respect.

Shocking,  eh?

© Photo: misterdudebro

#23

How much personal information people willingly broadcast without realizing it. You don’t need fancy dark web hacks or breach databases. 90% of a person’s digital footprint, routine, and history can be fully mapped just by stitching together completely public, harmless-looking breadcrumbs.

© Photo: Ok_Collection_9614

#24

If you are ever on a long term care insurance plan to receive assistance from a home health aide, DME, etc. There are two facts:

1. Case managers are actively being told to give you the least amount of hours of assistance per week as possible.

2. If you become the ultimate Karen you will ALWAYS get what you ask for. It will take time to go up the chain but you will win. 50 hours of care per week? Complain. New shower? Complain. New Wheelchair? Complain. I’m talking daily conversations with the worker, supervisor, regional manager, etc. I promise you, it will get done. So be the squeaky wheel. Insurance banks on you giving up the fight and they don’t want to deal with a judge in a hearing over the issue. They’ll give in eventually.

© Photo: Great_cReddit

#25

Government agencies will blow money on stuff that’s not necessarily needed at the end of the year to burn up the rest of the money in their budget. If they don’t spent all the money their budget will get reduced next year.

© Photo: Eating_sweet

#26

Fountain soda machines are disgusting 90% of the time. Even the places that claim to clean and service them regularly. The amount of time it takes to properly clean them along with poor placement means it’s usually to much hassle for everyday employees to properly clean and replace filters of they do it all. I work with technicians that do service calls to restaurants and gas stations daily and the condition of almost all the machines is sickening.

© Photo: alemyrsdream

#27

If the cost of the settlements is less than the cost of a recall, we don’t do one.

© Photo: budgetparachute

#28

Chefs in restaurants don’t wear gloves hardly ever- because gloves are dirty and gross. Corporate places that insist on gloves result in cooks wearing the gloves for a long period of time, resulting in cross contamination. If I’m making your food without gloves I am very clean and tidy and I wash my hands a lot. I only wear them when dealing with sloppy wet stuff. What I’m saying is that gloves are in absolutely no way a sign of cleanliness or lack of contamination.

© Photo: tessathemdervilles

#29

I work at a university. They exist for grants, funding and research, not to teach.

© Photo: runsonpedals

#30

Local (and probably state, but I haven’t worked with them much) level law enforcement has a staggering amount of personal information and the database is usually only protected by default credentials with no 2-factor required.

© Photo: tuscaloser

#31

I worked in the parks industry in Colorado.

A certain amount of water is allowed for a city like Denver to keep its golf courses top-notch. That water comes from the western slope, up to several hundred miles away.

If only a percentage of that water is used, then you are allowed that new, lesser amount. So they will just keep sprinklers running to avoid having any amount taken away.

While the mountains might experience a drought and get hit with wildfires, devastating wildlife, farmlands and homes (due to excessive water use in the front range), the golf courses look great.

#32

Vegetables that come canned are cooked in the can.

#33

IT guy here. Rebooting works.

#34

Public Libraries have to beg local and state (mostly state) governments for funding. Most of the cool stuff your local library has added? Yeah that came from either grants or donations. The actual funding is fought for very hard every single day. The best thing you can do to support public libraries? 1) get a library card most importantly, 2) get involved and vote in local and state elections, 3) go utilize all the free stuff available at libraries so we keep getting money to continue having that cool stuff for you guys.

#35

The airplane you are flying on fails all the time during flight but you don’t know it because of the way redundant systems take over. Flight critical systems often have triple redundancy with systems that operate differently (like primary hydraulic and secondary electromechanical) so the same mode of failure can’t affect the backup system.

#36

Auctions are a scam. Lots of tricks to suck more money out of customers. Could be a whole sub-reddit.

#37

An overdraft fee is actually an incredibly high interest rate loan but, since they call it a fee and it doesn’t vary with the charge amount it doesn’t have to follow interest rate caps. For example, if you pay a $35 fee to cover $100 and have to pay it back with your next paycheck (assume 2 weeks) that is an interest rate of 913%.

#38

Big insurance and tech investors own most of the big online therapy platforms.

#39

When I worked at a call center that dealt with tax software, we’d cheer about the long wait times and having over 500 calls in queue. We weren’t focused on quality more so quantity of calls.

#40

The tech industry is becoming increasingly racist. It is common for Indians to take over entire departments. They force everyone else out and hire other Indians. Once you have an Indian hiring manager it’s all over. I watched as they went from a 50/50 split to over 95% Indian. All in seven months. I’ve got no problems with Indians but in tech it’s become ridiculous. Only one of them knew their stuff and the rest just lied and covered for one another. It’s becoming a bigger and bigger problem.

#41

FedEx doesn’t clean out any of their trailers or warehouses. Your packages sat in complete filth in a trailer for hours, being smashed by other packages, and often chemicals or plants or other liquids have hit your package and dried on it.

Do wear gloves and yeet the box out asap.

#42

In Air Traffic Control, we joke about plane crashes on a daily basis.

Also many radio transmissions to pilots end with “freaking idiot” spoken just after the mic button was released. Its okay, they do it on the other end too.

#43

The defense industry isn’t really wasting your money. It’s the government.

For context I used to audit the supply chain practices of what are called “commercial”(I.e. companies like Raytheon or KBR) and “organic” which are sites run by govt employees.

Every single commercial site keeps tight books and extensive records. They can account for every dollar spent.

The fed boys working for the military in a hangar at some base? Absolute garbage record keeping. Management in the dark of their own facilities and items just straight up unaccounted for.

#44

35% of patients with a knee replacement are unhappy despite everything done textbook.

#45

Data privacy is a myth.

#46

AI is a big lie. We built an autonomous agent pipeline internally because our CEO saw that Stripe did the same thing and automated 80% of PRs. We built it. It doesn’t work and still requires major human intervention to get production ready code. A team at my company just presented at a conference how we’ve automated most work using said tool perpetuating the initial lie that tricked us into building the darn thing.

#47

The amount of information your bank knows about you as an individual. Honestly mass surveillance starts in finance.

#48

Screenwriters who write for TV don’t really write specific episodes. The union requires that someone be credited for each episode and they technically do actually sit down and write it, but between the writers room thourouly outlining the episode and all the extra drafts and revisions afterward (sometimes even full rewrites) it would be much more accurate to say that the whole room writes every episode.

#49

I’m in the nuclear industry; public would be shocked to truly learn that its way safer than most other industries.

#50

I work in recycling. Metal recycling to be precise, but I have connections in plastic/e waste/landfills/residential/etc recyling as well

Even if you recycle every possible thing you could and think you’re doing your part, I’d say a solid third of it goes straight to a landfill without even the attempt to recycle it. Of what’s left, maybe a third of that is rejected for whatever reason also to be sent to a landfill. The remainder is actually recycled in some way. There’s a lot of reasons why but the biggest by far is simply greed

Metal recycling is one of the better, if not the best industry as far as recovery and we still operate with the expectation of significant loss.

#51

Privately held Multi billion dollar corporations do not care if a top producer behaves above the law. They will even fire Human Resources if they attempt to make it an issue. Money rules.

#52

You work the first 20 years and are overworked and underpaid so that you can work the next 20 years to be underworked and overpaid.

#53

I’m a lawyer.
Billing fraud is rampant. This includes exaggerating the amount of work actually done, doing unnecessary work, and intentionally creating problems the lawyer has to solve (at your expense).
Generally the bigger or more “prestigious” the law firm, the more rampant the fraud.
We’re talking 50% or more of the bill is garbage.

#54

We’ve had raw seafood sitting on the floor in the freezer for over a month and no one has done anything. Our species should pass the baton to Dolphins.

#55

I’m a firefighter, the way we joke about the people who we see pass away would make most people cringe, or cry, or attack us. We don’t do it because of a lack of respect, it’s just a coping mechanism for us but it would certainly shock people to hear.

#56

The vast majority of classical musicians are taking beta blockers.

#57

Your lawyer is not telling you to get more physical therapy or chiropractic treatment because they care about your health or recovery, it’s because they can get more money.

#58

Astrophysics. People publishing data from space instruments rarely have a good grasp on the details of how that instrument actually performs, especially if it’s been in space for awhile. They’ll still assume it’s performing the same as it did when it launched, which is usually a more idealized version of that instrument. Results in general should have far larger error bars than published and it greatly weakens them. This can even extend to the teams that build the instruments. I was doing a in-depth analysis of two separate space-based instruments that SHOULD agree with each other and they never did. Two spectrometers, observing the same events, giving different results, with errors that don’t cover each other’s results.

#59

You know those “Can we use Cookies” popups? Most of the time they use cookies whether or not you accept. It’s been a while since I checked, but with no enforcement or consequences I doubt anything’s changed
You know those “Can we use Cookies” popups? Most of the time they use cookies whether or not you accept. It’s been a while since I checked, but with no enforcement or consequences I doubt anything’s changed.

#60

In Canada, a standard index prescription lens for glasses that includes an anti-reflective coating costs $2.30.

#61

The overwhelming majority of US patents are complete garbage. With limited exception, they would either be invalid if anyone had the time and money to challenge them, or they’re so poorly conceived or poorly drafted that nobody could ever infringe them. This isn’t something that’s really fixable. Patent examiners simply can’t have enough expertise in enough areas to reliably know whether something is truly inventive in view of the thousands patents, papers, and products that came before, especially when lawyers are smart enough to make even the most mundane things sound new and inventive.

That’s ok, though. The goal of the patent system is not truly to reward invention. That’s a fiction. It rewards engagement with the patent system. Domestically, this favors big business. Internationally, it forces foreign companies to expose their technology to us if they want to participate in our market. And that’s the real goal.

#62

Most law firms, even the big ones get hacked, and they always pay the ransom and move on.

#63

No one knows how credit scores work. Genuinely no one. It’s a giant scam.

#64

We’re upcharged for EVERYTHING in vet med. A $5 box of gauze from the pharmacy costs us $15 from our ordering company. The vet I work at is family owned by the doctor, and our profit margins are 10%, yet its still $700 to put a cat down and for us to take care of the body. The worst part of my job is asking for payment and I want to apologize every time I have to ask owners to pay.

#65

I’m an actor. The Me too movement sadly did not fix things.

#66

Psychiatrist: Antidepressants are better than a placebo, but only slightly. A lot of people who come to see me for pills would be better off focusing on lifestyle changes rather than taking psychiatric medication. Antidepressant medication does help lots of people improve their lives greatly. For mild mood problems it’s not the best answer sometimes.

#67

Military and commercial manufacturers bid for jobs. Much like getting a house remodeled by a handyman over a remodeling company. The projects go to the lowest bidder and budget restrictions are made for any improvement ideas from the workers that’ll produce better or faster results. All in the means to keep the management pockets full with bigger bonuses.

So all the projects for commercial or military applications are therefore built half-assed and under budget. Quality is still there but with what you can make out of it.

All these companies value innovation and efficiency yet when it comes down to it. They lack severely.

So when you’re flying or using a specific hardware heavy technology. It’s very possible it could’ve been manufactured better or faster but it didn’t because someone’s pocket got full instead of the actual project.

This issue also stems into every aspect of our lives. From doctors to lawyers to police to anything with a management oversight. They’d rather focus on their bonuses being hefty while our processes continue to be mediocre.

#68

Work at a university. If you don’t get into a program and meet the requirements complain to the president. You’ll most likely get a change of decision.

#69

Almost nobody in the performing arts makes any real money, including investors. that’s why they all have to be influencers too.

#70

Prosecutors employ investigators who routinely check social media during pre-trial prep. Stop posting to your social media and delete your history. It’s low hanging fruit to use your public posting history against you. That goes double for divorces and triple for bankruptcy fraud.

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