Most folks are familiar with the concept that it’s maybe best to not know “how the sausage is made,” which applies to actual sausages as well as most jobs. After all, anyone who has worked knows that there are always going to be some things we keep hush hush, but it can be a bit disconcerting to realize that this is true at nearly every company on the planet.

Someone asked “What's a secret in your job that people aren't supposed to know about?” and netizens spilled the beans. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own examples in the comments section.

#1

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.

Image credits: _Externails_

#2

I was a server at a chain barbecue restaurant. Yummy food, & 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 yrs, I think I’m safe to blow the secret. ?.

Image credits: DecadentLife

#3

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….

Image credits: Gh0sts1ght

#4

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.

Image credits: SleepyOrange007

#5

I’m your IT guy. I just google everything. I’m just good at googling.

Image credits: intensenerd

#6

There are rats in the kitchen.

Image credits: flacotron

#7

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

Image credits: _Neither_Bug

#8

The mark up on supplies in the medical field is criminal.

Image credits: I_am_Reddington

#9

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.

Image credits: villettegirl

#10

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.

Image credits: HelgaGeePataki

#11

60 year old, married with 3 kids, boss is banging his 23 year old assistant. She charges him $300 when they do. Also, he gave her herpes. It’s a whole thing.

Image credits: Lekomano92

#12

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.

Image credits: wastedpixls

#13

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.

Image credits: BackInTheRealWorld

#14

I don’t have to serve you as a crew memeber.

I had to use this once.

Lady was rude and horrible and recorded me cussed me out

she threw a frosty at me

I quickly gave her card back and told her I’m not serving you have a great day shut and locked the window

and worked form the first window until she decided to leave my drive thru.

Image credits: AbbreviationsFlat767

#15

When I was temping for a large company, I was told if anyone called to say any of their property / vehicles had been damaged they couldn’t make an insurance claim because they weren’t covered, when in fact they were but the company didn’t want their premiums to increase and caused problems with their budgets. They pissed me off so much treating me like c**p, so I told everyone who called the truth and to put their insurance claims in. Then I walked out. Haha!

Image credits: JasmineRider27

#16

That fancy touchscreen thermostat we installed in your office is just a screen you are changing the number on. The logic controller we installed in your heating/ac unit uses a different sensor and is predetermined what temperatures it is set at.

Image credits: bubbz41

#17

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.

Image credits: X____________o

#18

ALWAYS WASH OFF THE CAN BEFORE DRINKING ?.

Image credits: CubanBird

#19

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.

Image credits: TeaJazzer

#20

How often IEPs aren't followed, how often staff are attacked by students(sometimes very seriously injured), how often teachers and/ or staff make fun of the students they serve.

Image credits: Opticallusion

#21

Not my job... but... soda machines and icecream machines at fast food places are rarely properly cleaned.

Image credits: Dat_Harass

#22

If you ask internet customer service reps politely to credit you for every day of outage in your area on that billing cycle you can easily get 70% discount on your bill. Most outages happen overnight and nobody notices but most providers keep record of them.

Image credits: Key_Neighborhood387

#23

We know you are looking at p**n on your company PC even when you are at home. We just don't care unless we are told to care.

Image credits: 1d0m1n4t3

#24

It’s not really a secret but there’s a lot of bad programmers out there. You get frustrated with their code everyday.

Image credits: zenos_dog

#25

I answer the phone a lot and if someone asks for me I say I’m unavailable and send them to voicemail.

Image credits: lsarge442

#26

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 not sure who put it back in service but someone did. Even if we reported it nothing would get done no 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.

Image credits: Charlietango2007

#27

I work for a corporation that has a bunch of field offices and there's basically nothing I can't see.

Who's surfing the internet, what year we bought the chair their a*s is sitting in, what their middle names are, how much the sales guys are bringing in, etc.

And anything I can't see officially I still hear about unofficially at some point or another.

If you work for a big company, I need you to know that your privacy lasts until it doesn't. People have access to your business and the only reason they're not looking is because they don't have a reason right this second.

#28

We don’t f**k with your food but we certainly talk s**t about you.

#29

Night shift gets more s**t done because we're able to wear headphones while daytime isn't. We focus on our work while listening to podcasts while AM will spend hours worth in bathroom breaks.

#30

When you bring your 5 kids in for Halloween costumes and leave 20 opened packages all over the dressing room floors for the employees to try and clean up and match all the pieces back in their bags, you WILL be remembered, you will be talked shite about, and when you need that one piece to compete everything, we're not going to have it, and it looks like no other stores in the area have it either.

#31

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.

#32

Most meetings could honestly just be an email, but we have them anyway to look productive.

#33

We are infested with bugs and rats.
The garbage room has a colony of rats you'll see occasionally when emptying food bins. The staff are excellent at cleaning up after the rats .
There are roaches and flies in every department all year round . To their credit, it was only this year that german cockroachs came , before it was just the tiny roaches .
Most departments were deep cleaned daily, but with budget cuts, it's now only once a week or so, and it's easier to tell how disgusting the place is back of house .
I work in a casino . Don't eat at the buffet.

#34

The bosses make 3 times as much as actual producers, they drink and spend their time watching YouTube and bidding on auction sites at work.

#35

A lot Hospitals may look good as a patient. As a mechanical engineer and pipefitter, the amount of money that gets siphoned away from the mechanical side. These places are literally running off the phrase:

“Two bolts are holding back catastrophe”

You wouldn’t believe how true this is for many things we romanticize.

schools and hospitals are in a rough spot, at least by me in Chicago.

#36

When I tell you to turn the router off and on again, it's not because I have no idea what is going on and hope the issue will sort itself out. There are all kinds of logs where I can see what the problem is. When you restart the router, these logs get updated.
Also, when you lie and tell me you restared the router already a bunch of times and it didn't resolve the issue, I can tell that you didn't - the logs are right there, and the last time it was restarted was 3 months ago. I can't tell you that I know you are lying, but it definitely goes in the documentation so everyone knows that everything you say needs to be double checked.

#37

IT guy. The whole "have you tried turning it off and on again" thing isn't just us being lazy.

Like 70% of all problems genuinely get fixed by a restart, but we can't just say that because management thinks "real IT work" needs to look more complicated. So we remote in, click around a bit, maybe run a basic diagnostic, then... restart your computer.

#38

You can have multiple degrees and be profoundly stupid.

#39

We regularly come *this* close to either poisoning everyone for 50 miles around or blowing a football field sized crater in the ground then poisoning everyone for 50 miles around.

Source: operator at a midsized chemical plant.

#40

The guys putting the new roof on your house are definitely drunk by lunchtime.

#41

Blinds cost about 1/5 of what those national blind companies charge.

#42

That all of the "metrics" reported to higher commands are lies, completely falsified in order to keep all indicators "green."

Training records are falsified by unwritten orders of higher command. At first, an employee needed to have the training. Then, they just needed to have the training scheduled. Finally, they only needed to have the required training identified.

Your tax dollars at work.

#43

Emergency room
Most medical diseases or ailments are treated with supportive care. Treating symptoms until the disease runs its course. For many ailments people present to the er for there isn’t a magic cure or anything proven better than over the counter medicine.

#44

Become a pro at pretending to be busy when you're actually done with the work alr.

#45

Hardly ANYONE cares about Veterans.

#46

I had split audio tracks for a bunch of ghost hunting tv shows and all of the “ghost sounds” were on the sound effects track.

#47

The "social media intern" is actually a full-time 40 year old man.

#48

That the “black owned business” that it’s advertised for on sites like Yelp and such, isn’t Black owned. In fact, people tend to think I’m the owner because I’m always at the front with my coworkers and I’m the only male that’s present most of the time.

#49

Health insurance has been going on a tear with denying claims/services, even with all of the boxes checked. The billing department at my place has straight up been hung up on multiple times trying to get answers.