29 Employees Revealed The Extra Juicy Secrets About Their Jobs That Most People Don't Know, And I Won't Look At Free Restaurant Bread The Same Way Again After Reading This

Recently, I asked BuzzFeed readers to share the secrets in their respective industries that customers don't know about, but probably should. Y'all...some of the submissions were w-i-l-d! So, I rounded up 29 of the most shocking ones, including some particularly juicy secrets people spilled in previous editions of this post series and on Reddit. Without further ado, let the tea spilling commence:

1."I'm a recruiter. Applying for jobs on LinkedIn or Indeed using 'easy apply' or 'apply now' is about the same as buying a lottery ticket. 90% of your applications will never be seen by human eyes. They all go through AI filters and resume scanners, and most are rejected. If you see a job you like on there, the best thing you can do is go directly to the company site and apply from there. Still, no guarantee it will be viewed."

"HOWEVER, if you are looking for a job, it's important to keep your profiles on LinkedIn and Indeed up to date and active. That is how recruiters find YOU. When I'm looking for candidates, the first filter I use is those who've been active in the past 90 days. I don't want to waste time reaching out to someone who uploaded their resume three years ago and has never been back."

—Anonymous

2."Back in the '90s, I worked at a restaurant where we would just dump leftover bread from a table back in the bread drawer. I don’t even want to think how many of those rolls ended up on various tables and were touched by multiple hands."

3."I work at a university, and we're heavily discouraged from telling students to drop out. We're also discouraged from telling them to change majors if it's going to make them take longer to graduate. The second one really bothers me."

—u/esoteric_enigma

4."I worked at a water park. Every day, people poop in the pools. EVERY SINGLE DAY!! Multiple times a day. We just scoop it out and tell the guests to exit the pool for 20-30 minutes. As long as the chlorine is at an acceptable level, we don’t add any more. And by acceptable level, I mean the bare minimum level that is allowed by law because chlorine is expensive."

5."When I was younger, I worked at chain restaurants. Everyone drank; it didn’t matter your age. Bartenders would make extra of a cocktail and pour it into a kid cup (that’s what staff drank out of). It was all fun and games until some toddler got drunk. Many years later, there was a news story about it in a different state. I knew *exactly* how the mistake happened. That’s why they switched to juice boxes for kids."

—stephaniev23

6."I work in a hospital. My biggest take is that if a doctor or surgeon is great/well-liked, the staff will praise that doctor up and down. They won't have enough great things to say. If the doctor is an a-hole or has botched surgeries, we just keep it plain. So, take the glowing praise as your sign that the provider is good vs. no praise as a red flag."

7."I work in automotive paint repair. I fix a lot of scratches and scrapes on bumpers and doors. Much of my work is from car dealerships. You have no idea how many 'brand new' cars I have painted, so they look brand new. I think I average probably around two per week that I repair. The person who buys the 'new' car will never know it, because it never attaches to the VIN. It goes right back in stock for sale, brand new."

—Anonymous

8."I work in the games section at an amusement park. The 'family deals' we have are just meant to make people spend more money. Yes, they’re getting more chances per dollar, but also paying double what they were planning to. It’s the same thing with the trade-ups. If they want a certain prize, they can keep playing (and paying) until they win it."

9."My hubby interned for a local radio station. He was asked to call in for a cash prize for a daily quiz. Every day, another person working at the radio station called in. They split the cash between themselves."

—mellie06

10."I worked at a major jewelry retailer you'll find in almost every shopping center in the US. Repairs we offered, like resizing, were subbed to a separate local jeweler — as in the skilled person who actually does the work — at a major markup. Go to a local jeweler who will charge half and probably does the retailer's repairs, too."

11."I was a software designer for 37 years. Perhaps this is no surprise, but ALMOST ALL software today is shipped with KNOWN bugs, most of which the software publisher also knows they will never fix. It is simply more profitable to invest in new features than fixing bugs that are obscure or have valid workarounds. It’s a business decision, one that usually favors new features because of the marketing power of such new functionality."

—oldgem798

12."I worked at a clothing boutique for years and priced all the clothes and jewelry. For clothes, you're paying at least three times what we paid for them. For example, we bought it for $15 and sold it for $45. Jewelry was even worse. If we bought a necklace for $5, we would sell it for $25. Everything always sold."

13."I used to work for an adult live-streaming site. A lot of women would complain that they weren't getting enough traffic. It's because we would curate the front page and put certain women at the top. We were told to do this for women with large social media followings or who worked for agencies that we had partnerships with. A woman could also get her stream pushed to the bottom of the list for a load of reasons too, like looks, bad camera quality, bad wifi connection, etc. Many of us also had 'burner' accounts, and the company would load up our wallets with tokens so we could tip certain women and make them think they were getting a lot of traffic/engagement."

—u/Kalistoga

14."I worked in high-end professional kitchens for decades, serving a wide variety of styles and themes. After all that time, the one thing I can say with certainty is that there is no such thing as a 'safe' restaurant. It is always, and I mean always, safer and far better for your health to prepare your own food. Kitchen workers, almost without exception, are under very high stress, underpaid, overworked, and can't or won't put the care and time into your food."

15."I work for a PPO network. The reason your insurance company uses a PPO is because the providers in this network agree to accept reduced pay rates. Out-of-network providers bill for the full amount (up to $2000 for a specialist appointment in some cases) and cost the insurance company a lot more, so they pass that on to you. If you have to see an out-of-network provider that isn’t a hospital, ask about their self-pay rates. They have to provide a good-faith estimate for you, and it might end up being cheaper to self-pay, especially on a high-deductible plan. Providers’ self-pay rates are usually heavily discounted from what they charge insurance because they know patients without insurance will be harder to get money from."

—omgitsaclaire

16."In the education system, you cannot tell parents that you think their child has ADHD, autism, any diagnoses like that. You can say, 'I think you should talk to your pediatrician about your child’s high energy,' but you have to be so vague. They often don’t get the hint that you’re trying to tell them there is something going on with their kiddo."

17."At Whole Foods, most of the store brands of Hearth breads and some of the outside vendor brands that are advertised as 'baked fresh daily' actually come in pre-baked and frozen. The store bakery throws them in the oven to put crust on them, then bags them up and puts them on display. Also, premade salads and other items on the salad bar are often unsold deli case items that are set to expire."

—Anonymous

18."I work for a major US brewery, and we have one beer that we put into two separate cans. One of them is a 'premium' beverage (one of the most popular in the US, top five), and the other is an 'economy' beer. It’s the same stuff."

19."I work at a trampoline/adventure park. We don't clean the ballpit, like, ever. Some kid peed in there once, and they just told an employee to stick a mop in there. When we do clean it (like once a year), the number of phones, vapes, socks, etc, is actually disturbing. We're supposed to clean it like 2-4 times a year. Also, we never clean the baby changing stations. It didn't click to me to maybe wipe it down. If I'm on the bathrooms, it's now added to my to-do list."

—u/Koi_Fishhy

20."I work in tourism, and while this can vary based on location, a lot of those 'free walking tours' you see in big/popular cities are unregulated and can be exploitative for the guides, who in many cases are charged to work. The whole idea is that 'you pay the guide what you feel the tour was worth,' but the guide then has to pay the operator a certain amount per guest (which is why a lot of times they’ll have you sign in or take a group picture at the start of the tour so the company can see how many people were there."

21."In the '80s, I worked for a drugstore chain based in the Southeast US. We were required to make store announcements stating, 'Security section 5,' or 'Security section 3,' etc., when in reality, there was no store security or sections. Hilariously, once after making an announcement, a security guard from the shopping mall came running into our store, saying, 'I’m security, where’s section 5.' He had heard our announcement while walking around the mall and was responding!"

—Anonymous

22."Many bakeries don’t make their croissants from scratch; they purchase frozen croissants from a distributor and bake them in-store. Unless the bakery specifically specializes in croissants, chances are that the croissants you would get at your local bakery are the same ones you could buy in the grocery store’s bakery department for cheaper."

23."I worked as a cook at a few popular chain restaurants. Hardly anything is made fresh, even at places that claim to do so. If people request 'fresh' food, it’s often reheated in a microwave or fryer basket. You can make the same stuff at home for a fraction of the cost."

—Anonymous

24."I used to work for a frozen foods company that processed and packaged frozen vegetables. The same exact veggies, from the same exact truck, from the same exact farm, were used for multiple different brands of frozen vegetables. They're all the same. Do yourselves a favor and save a couple of bucks by buying the 'store brand' over the name brand. The only time it’s a different product is if you buy organic."

25."HVAC (heating and air conditioning) technicians are highly incentivized to sell you a completely brand new system even if you don't need one. I'm talking 5-10 grand or more, easy. Often, it's a quick, easy, DIY fix you can do yourself for very little or for free, such as the metal duct airways being clogged with dirt or a number of other things. Beware of what they tell you. Most things can be learned through YouTube."

—Anonymous

26."I worked at a fairly popular retail store. Many places nowadays have their own credit card that lets people earn points for the store. The majority of us hated harassing customers to sign up, but our jobs pretty much depended on it. We were told our pay rate/raise depended on the number of cards we sold, which was highly competitive. Many employees did nothing in their departments except advertise credit cards and got rewarded heavily. On the contrary, those who worked really hard but didn’t push a lot of credit card sales ended up with less pay and pretty much got harassed on the daily by management."

27."I work in theatre, both on the academic side and on the professional side, and I can tell you that if you are an actor, only alumni and snobs care if you have an MFA. The reason to go to acting school is to get connections you can use later in your career, but as someone who has done my share of directing and casting in the professional world, the degree makes no difference to me or anyone I know."

"What shows you have done, where, how your audition went, and if you have a good reputation is all we care about. Only go to school to learn if you feel you need to, not to get the degree, because having to get a day job to pay off the extra debt incurred by getting an MFA is exactly the sort of thing that can kill your career."

—Anonymous

28."I was a hairstylist. At my salon, they wouldn't give you a raise unless you sold a certain amount of their hair products. Being booked all the time, extremely talented, and bringing in new clients didn't matter — it was all about how much product we could sell."

29.And lastly, "When I was a medical resident at a large county hospital, we often rounded with our attendings and did our best to discuss the patients discreetly, especially in the hallway or elevator, to preserve patient confidentiality. We developed a phrase discreetly to indicate when a patient had passed away; without using any names, we sometimes said the patient had been transferred to the 'ECU.'' I soon learned that ECU meant 'eternal care unit.' Always thought that was rather sweet."

—Anonymous

Now it's your turn! Do you have a juicy industry secret you're not allowed to tell customers like these? If so, tell us about it in the comments below or via this 100% anonymous form.

Note: Reddit comments have been edited for length and/or clarity.