Employees Are Sharing Secrets They Were Never Supposed To Find Out About Their Jobs And I Can't Stop Scrolling
We asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us secrets about their jobs no one's supposed to know. Here's what they revealed:
1."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."
—Anonymous
2."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."
—Anonymous
3."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."
4."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."
5."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."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."
7."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."
8."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."
9."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."
—Anonymous
10."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."
11."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 shit was totally fine, but couldn't do it themself. Ironic."
—Anonymous
12."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."
—Anonymous
13."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."
14."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."
—Anonymous
15."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."
—Anonymous
16."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."
—Anonymous
17."Most companies have to destroy returned products as retailers often won’t reshelve them as they don’t want to be liable for any damage that could have been done to a product and also because some counties have tax implications for donating products so companies say it’s too expensive to donate. This means most returns are incinerated or go to the dump."
—Anonymous
18.And "I’m HR and one of my duties is to make sure we are in compliance with all state and federal laws. However, I know that more than 95% of our workforce is using fake or stolen social security numbers and fake names."
Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
