If our collective true crime obsession has taught us anything it’s that everyone has secrets. That extends to business entities, apparently, because the places we work have some buried secrets of their own.
These 16 people found out the hard way that sometimes you find out things you really wish you hadn’t – so be careful where you poke around!
16. Rage quitting.
“I used to tutor in a fairly well-known franchise. We were constantly pushed to get students signed up, but the program wasn’t actually that great and didn’t benefit a lot of the students.
A few did well off of it, but most of the kids needed more help than we could provide.
However, as tutors, we weren’t supposed to know that, and a lot of them didn’t and thought that they were doing a world of good for these children. I hated it there and ended up rage quitting.”
15. Well that’s terrible.
“At the senior care facility I work at they use fear-mongering to scare the elderly out of their homes to move into the facility.
They tell them that they could die alone and not be remembered or waste away alone for the short time they have left.” —
14. The wrong reasons.
“I’m a mental health counselor! Something I learned is that many counselors go into the field for the wrong reasons, whether they know it or not.
Some find it as a means of healing their own trauma, proving others wrong, or state they want to help, but only with certain communities, especially if the counselor themselves is white and rich.”
13. There’s only so much time.
“As an elementary school teacher, we’re encouraged (told by admin) to focus mostly on the ‘medium’ kids at my school. My school takes a diagnostic test at the beginning, middle, and end of the year and that’s part of how the school gets graded.
Kids with high scores at the beginning will already do well on the end-of-year test, so we can essentially ignore them. Low-scoring kids are unlikely to be high enough by the end of the year, so help them a little but they’re not the main focus.
Medium kids are the most likely to get high enough scores by the end of the year (better scores mean more funding), so they’re supposed to get the most attention.
We want to give all the students the attention they need and deserve, but we only have so much time to do so, especially with one of us and 30 of them.”
12. That’s one word for it.
“I worked at a hotel and I discovered they throw away bird nests even with eggs or baby birds in them.
They do all that because they could make the balconies dirty, but they don’t install something to prevent them from nesting on the upper beams of the balcony.
Even some guests thought that was totally fine, but couldn’t do it themself. Ironic.”
11. Well that’s gross.
“All cakes at a grocery store are brought in frozen and icing comes in buckets. Asking for a ‘fresh cake’ means that we’ll microwave it to be warm before we ice it.”
10. Definitely discrimination.
“I work for a homeless shelter for women. We tell applicants for the shelter to come to the office to do a screening form and to find out about bed availability. Based on the information we receive, management determines if they are a ‘good fit.’
This means if they have mental health issues, are ‘too old’ or ‘too young,’ have a boyfriend, or are simply just ‘not a good fit,’ we tell them there are no beds available.
We are not supposed to know that we definitely discriminate against people and their situations.”
9. It can be hard to tell.
“I’m a mental health counselor and sometimes counselors are forced to give a diagnosis.
Often times based on contracts and counties, what is said to be ODD is really trauma or untreated ADHD.
With that many kids diagnosed with ADHD or ADD may just be, well, kids.”
8. No one wants to hear that.
“I work at a mortuary and I can tell you that even if your loved one isn’t embalmed, a lot of work goes into cleaning their bodies and making them look like they’re sleeping when you come to view the body.
It is rare for someone to die with a peaceful look on their face.”
7. No thank you.
“I’m an EMT and I learned that the storage containers outside of my hospital’s ERs are usually filled with the overflow of dead bodies.”
6. Easiest for whom?
“I work on a small family-run farm. Despite an alleged five-star hygiene rating, the kitchens are disgusting and the farmer frequently helps make customers food without even washing his hands.
Also, it’s definitely not better for the young animals to be indoors, it’s just what’s easiest.”
5. Questionable ethics.
“My company withheld refunds for as long as legally possible, submitted them to be processed, then delayed them a further 90 days during COVID to prevent bankruptcy. This is a company with 9,000 employees.
I’m one of three low-level employees who were aware of this and it made me hate working for a place I used to love. Whilst I understand why, the lying that the customer service guys were doing to the customers (they were unaware they were lying) just made me question their ethics.”
4. Probably not that surprising.
“I work in a dive bar with lots of pool tables and gambling going on.
The owner has a suspicious amount of money and apparently, he’s trafficking drugs out the back.”
3. There’s no right answer.
“Social workers at my job will sometimes give money to clients ‘anonymously’ or bribe other businesses to give better quality service out of their own pockets.
We don’t officially condone this, but it doesn’t change the fact that the cost of living is too high, government assistance is worth shit, and most clients struggle to find work for a long time.”
2. They have a lot of faith.
“I work retail for a clothing brand with about 250 brick and mortar stores and each store has an email account. The secret? The email passwords all follow the same formula. (Retail + store number + !) The only thing that changes is the store number.
They also NEVER change these passwords. I could access any and all emails for any location in this brand and cause some serious chaos.”
1. Allergy-sufferers beware.
“The factory I work at makes plastic bags for food packaging. After our breaks, we’re supposed to wash our hands before returning to the production line in case we have residual food particles on our hands, especially peanuts and other allergens or meats, grease, and things that could contaminate the plastic bags.
Probably 95% of the people working here don’t wash their hands after breaks.”
These are kind of shocking, don’t you think?
Have you ever found out anything about your place of business that you wished had stayed secret? Tell us about it in the comments!
