Babysitting is a common occurrence that has been around for just about forever. But if we unpack it, it's actually a pretty strange concept.
Think about it. A parent or parents entrusts the entire safety and well-being of their flesh and blood children into the hands of a teenager who, in many cases, just happens to be a family friend or a neighbor.
With all those variables in place, any strange or troublesome incident can immediately put the babysitter against the ropes. Then the panic sets in and all becomes chaos.
Sure, the parents are a phone call away, but the babysitter still has to get through the initial insanity of whatever the kids get into.
Curious about people's bad experiences, Redditor _OwOtaku_ asked:
"babysitters of reddit, what is the worst thing you've come across while babysitting?"
Many people shared the times a child's behavior was clearly the result of their parents. The babysitter couldn't exactly blame the kid, but it was uncomfortable nonetheless.
The Mother Load
"The toddler came out into the living room holding the mom's sex toy. I was beyond grossed out! When I went to put it away in their bedroom, they had a whole drawer full of stuff."
"As a 12 year old, it was a bit much to see."
Like Father, Like Son
"This kid was angry bc i wouldn't let him have more candy (his mothers orders) and started saying all these bad words and other things that are very inappropriate for a 6-7 year old."
"I asked him where hes heard those things and he responded saying his dad says those things to her mom when hes mad."
Political Roots
"A kid I was babysitting threatened to tell his parents I was inappropriate with him because I refused to tell him what 'supermaning' meant (this was in 2007, the peak of Soulja Boy)."
"Another one was when I had to confront the parents of a kid because he told me he hated Obama because he was black while we were at the playground. I, as well as a bunch of other people, were shocked at what he said. That was a fun conversation that ultimately lead to me quitting."
-- zomgitsagirl
A Sudden Star
"Got caught in a drug raid while babysitting and local TV station was along to record it all for a show they aired."
"Kids showed cops where all the drugs were, got taken away, I was sent home & my parents had to contact the station to say, they did not have permission to show me in that episode, it never aired bc there were only minors involved. Never babysat again."
-- beleif
Early Drones
"The mind numbing tv designed for babies that somehow disturbingly holds their attention for hours. I'm not sure how healthy that is on a long term basis. I would sometimes babysit for this nanny (like take over for when she was busy), who took care of these 2 babies nearly everyday."
"And she said to leave the tv on, that was preset to a baby channel, for them because they love it. These babies just stared at the screen for hours except when I fed them and then put them down for a nap. I tried to play with them with toys and stuff and they weren't super interested, it might capture their attention briefly but then they'd always go back to the tv. These were 5 month old babies."
Others shared the truly bizarre and unexpected things that happened. These were cartoonishly bad times on the job.
Out of Sight Out of Mind
"A nine year old boy was at a play date and he crapped himself and thought no one would notice if he put the crap in the air conditioner vent. The mom of the house was not happy."
-- vhsfiend
The Rodent Room
"A tiny room FULL of guinea pigs. Cages and cages on shelves on the walls. They all seemed well fed and content but there must have easily have been 30 cages at least!"
Best Excuses For Late Assignments That Were Actually True | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Hard Line Negotiator
"The kid who tried to blackmail me by threatening to cut off all her hair and tell her parents that I did it if I did delay bedtime. Same kid also tried to push me into some exposed nails in their unfinished basement. I babysat her regularly because she drove all the other babysitters in the area away. Her siblings and parents were nice though."
Children of the Corn
"Not my story, but a friends. She would babysit these kids sometimes that were just pure evil. Not in a cute way. They thought it would be funny to sprinkle broken glass into her salad. She caught on to it and was legitimately afraid of these boys and never ever babysat for this family again"
Family Memories
"Looking through photos that where hung up on a wall. One was smaller than others, kinda grainy, I lean in to look at it closer and jump back in shock. It was the moment of birth shot from below, head crowning it's called I think. Even for my horny 12 year old self too much."
-- UareWho
Medical Emergency
"In college, I was babysitting for a family. Absolutely lovely people. Their cat was having some health problems, but at the time, they were under control."
"Poor cat had a seizure when I was babysitting. It was rough, little body twitching, the kids were worried, I was worried. It didn't last long, and he seemed ok afterwards. Poor thing peed on the living room carpet during the seizure, so I found some carpet cleaner and cleaned it the best I could."
"Parents thanked me afterwards for helping out with the cat. They followed up with the vet, and put the cat on a new round of medication, which helped."
-- Bells87
Never Got Around To It
"I was 14, babysitting 3 girls. Their dad told them to clean their toys from the backyard because people were coming in the afternoon to look at the house (it was for sale). When we were going outside, the dog escaped and came back with a huge rabbit, now dead, in the middle of the yard."
"Geez, and they're trying to sell the house! So I had to put it in a plastic bag while the 3 year old watched in horror. They didn't have a dumpster and I didn't want to take it into the house so I put it discreetly by the stoop, and told the parents."
"Babysat there again 3 days later and the bagged up dead rabbit WAS STILL THERE. Geez guys."
-- pearlie_girl
Other people talked about the times that revolved around food. Of course, babysitters are often tasked with cooking meals for the kids.
These times were a train wreck.
Rough Start
"A friend of mine was hired to be a nanny. She was flown from the midwest plains to a fifth avenue apartment. On the first night the parents went out and told her to feed the kids."
"She got them pizza and the kids loved it, having never had pepperoni before. The family was Jewish, she was fired and sent home the next day."
Total Pandemonium
"First babysitting job at 13. Four kids. Parents gave me a whole fresh salmon to COOK and serve the kids. I learned that day that salmon has pin bones when I had to pull some out of the 3 yo's throat while simultaneously calling my parents down the road because I didn't know what to do, as he's coughing and gasping for air and the other kids are freaking tf out."
"He was fine but I think I lost 10 years off my life that day."
-- nah2daysun
Couch Dog
"I stuck my hand in the couch cushions to look for a remote and came up with an uncooked hot dog. 🤢"
-- lewan049
If you find yourself surrounded by friends, relatives, or neighbors having kids, bare all of this in mind before agreeing to babysit.
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Confidentiality and extreme secrecy are both expected of people bound to non-disclosure agreements. Thankfully, NDAs tend to expire eventually. From celebrity gossip to company information, draw back the curtain and follow along as these Redditors reveal the juiciest details about everything they were never meant to say.
1. When A Cavity Becomes Code 5
When I was a kid, I visited the dentist for a cavity. While there, the dentist slipped while drilling my tooth and drilled a hole under my tongue. My mom saw me tense up, and my dentist said, “Oh, nicked her there a bit so you might see a little blood.” I got home and after an hour, my entire neck was swollen up like a frog and my voice was squeaky because of the air pressure.
A pocket of air was pressing against my heart...dirty air, at that, because of the bacteria in my mouth. I was admitted to the hospital as a “code 4,” with a “code 5” being dead. When my mom tried to sue the dentist for damages, the unbelievable happened. He claimed I was kicking and screaming and “out of control” during the appointment, even getting his secretary to vouch for him and testify.
My mom’s lawyer was super pessimistic and told her just to settle and sign an NDA because she had a “small chance” of winning. So my mom settled, being naive and scared to take on an office full of liars. She could never disclose who the dentist was, and we’ve heard other horror stories throughout the years about this dentist messing up other people's mouths.
It sucks because every lawyer we’ve talked to after the fact says we had a very strong case and it’s likely we would have won. Like really won.
2. Fixing The Film Numbers
I used to work for a company that tracked ticket sales for theaters across the United States. By contractual agreement with Hollywood studios, we collected information for approximately 80% of theaters, but we were not allowed to collect that last 20%. Why? You may have heard of Hollywood accounting. Hollywood studios work very, very hard to ensure their accounting is as beneficial to the studios as possible.
This comes as no surprise; all businesses do this. But Hollywood has unusually high amounts of money in very narrow products, creating a distorted market. And the industry is rife with films grossing obscene amounts of money but not reporting a profit. Because our company couldn't collect that last 20% of theater data, it wasn't possible to absolutely say that a movie made X number of dollars.
So, I can't prove it, but...On Friday, June 21, 2002, the movies Minority Report and Lilo and Stitch were both released to great fanfare. Minority Report's opening weekend was reported at $35,677,125 (27.0% of total gross). Lilo and Stitch's opening weekend was reported as $35,260,212 (24.2% of total gross). This is a lie.
Lilo and Stitch earned more money than Minority Report on its opening weekend. 20th Century Fox couldn't have a Tom Cruise feature film being beaten by a cartoon. So someone at 20th Century Fox called Disney and offered a deal. Since the full amount of money earned couldn't be proven, Fox would announce that Minority Report was the top earner for the weekend.
In exchange...we never knew what the exchange was. We simply knew that Minority Report was reported as the top earner and Disney received some benefit for not saying anything.
3. Settling For What’s Fair
aerial photography of body of waterPhoto by Dan Meyers on UnsplashOver 20 years ago, I took part in a pre-trial hearing. A nearby dam was being sued by the family of a dam worker. The family was suing for an undisclosed amount to cover medical expenses, pain and suffering, and negligence of maintenance of the facility. Here’s what happened: the dam had received multiple complaints about lack of maintenance.
This particular dam was a working dam but hadn’t been maintained in several decades. Before the incident, an engineer had written a report saying the maintenance supports for the walkways above the boilers needed to be completely closed until replaced. This was not done. A maintenance worker went onto the walkway above the boilers.
The walkway failed and the worker was plunged into boiling water, completely submerging him. His co-workers were able to retrieve him in under 30 seconds. But that wasn't even the worst part. This worker spent the next nine months in the ICU before dying of infection. His body suffered 99.9% third-degree burns. We awarded, in the pre-trial hearing, $1 million per second the man was boiled.
Additionally, all medical expenses were to be paid and the remaining possible wages earned paid in full, including full medical and dental to the family for the next 35 years.
4. Feedback For Some Films
I used to work for Disney. They only used Disney employees for the test screenings of Marvel movies so I got to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and an early version of Doctor Strange that needed a lot of work. When we were giving feedback to the moderator, the writers were sitting in the back with their heads in their hands looking very defeated.
It was a confusing mess, but they fleshed out the characters more so it was better by the time it was released. Oh, and here's a gruesome little tidbit: They used to kill a lot of ducks with pyro at Disney World when they did the illuminations show at Epcot. Shhhhh.
5. Revealing Celebrity Secrets
I was Guy Fieri's body person for six months. The whole experience threw me for a loop. This involved a lot of personal assistantship: booking travel by air, Ubers in a pinch, and confirming what the advance teams did before Guy gets there. Most of my job was to handle his personal life when he was "on the job." I had to sign three NDAs, but I'm only sharing what happened on the show.
Guy gave me the impression he really didn't like what he did. Every morning, he would say, "More of this again," even on our so-called "buffer days" when we had an extra day before or after shooting and we had much of the day to ourselves. After three weeks of working with him, I figured out that Red Bulls are his binky.
He's got some crazy ADHD, so the caffeine really didn't phase him. When he would get stressed out, he'd rage up a little, but then he'd completely shut down. A Red Bull just...made him calm again. Guy does not remember anything he says. People walk up to him and joke about "flavortown" and he'd look at me after the fact and ask "What's flavortown?" I had to remind him that he came up with that.
My favorite was someone who went on a cruise...apparently, Carnival Cruise Lines has Guy's restaurants. This fan loved the "Donkey Sauce" that he put on his burgers. The dude simply didn't remember he did that. I had access to his computer and I saw recipe drafts for D-Sauce. There were scores of events similar to this, every. single. time. Guy would have no idea.
It sort of floors me that this guy influences so many people and he doesn't really care. He doesn't hate his fans, but he thinks interacting with people is a hassle. He legit doesn't understand why he's a celebrity, which boggles my mind how much effort he puts into his shtick. That one British chef who lied about cooking for the Queen has more cognizance about his fame than Guy.
On a personal note, his family is full of sweethearts and I went above and beyond a few times to help them out. That’s all I want to say about his family. They're really nice people.
6. Something’s Not Right Here
the walking dead comic bookPhoto by Dev on UnsplashI was part of the beta testing for the DC Universe online. I remember a few missions that were voiced probably just by developers before they hired the voice actors to do it. I wish I had saved footage of it, but there was one where Supergirl was clearly voiced by a man doing a high-pitched falsetto voice. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
7. No License, No Racing
Tesla has failed six attempts to get its cars licensed for racing by the FIA. I can't say anything past that, but if you feel like checking the registry, you'll find they're still not licensed. I didn't enjoy the battery melting under me when we pushed the car to the limits. Nor did I enjoy the threat of a lawsuit if I didn't change my report. Tesla sucks.
It's a real shame though because I love electric cars. They're 100% the future of motorsports and I really wish there were more batteries capable of emptying at the rate needed without breaking.
8. Fake Drama, Reality Television
I signed an NDA for a prominent American show where they take a certain type of business on the brink of failure and "transform it" to save the business. When the producers of the show found out my wife and I both worked there, they tried to fish through our relationship for TV drama. When they found out we have a solid relationship, they made the most baffling request.
They tried to convince us to fake our drama with scripted conflict. Long story short, we got fed up and quit during shooting. We were cut from the show. Oh well.
9. Statistics, Software, and Skynet
white and black concrete building during night timePhoto by Venti Views on UnsplashNetflix has created a group of AI that will essentially be like the Skynet of streaming media. It can predict, with crazy accuracy, what you’ll click on based on, not only your previous views and clicks, but the time of year it is in your location, the weather going on outside your window, and the kinds of movies you like to watch when it’s raining or snowing.
It figures out your holidays celebrated, your favorite colors, typefaces, and genres. This leads to the marketing AI. They have created an AI-driven software that creates movie posters and promotional art for a film or show that appears to be whatever genre they want. For instance, it’ll create artwork for an action movie that makes the movie look like a rom-com if you’re into rom-coms and not action movies.
It’s literally an automated super smart photoshop-like computer just for film/tv artwork.
10. Work Culture Under Wraps
Adogo is a doggy daycare in Minnesota that made me sign an NDA for two years saying I was not allowed to talk about the company. The reason? Absolutely horrifying. They treated the workers and dogs really terribly. There was no care for how many dogs were packed into a room, which is both unsafe for the dogs and the dog attendant.
Often I’d be alone in a small room with up to 25+ dogs, most of who only had the most minor behavioral tests done to see if they would play well in daycare. The owner also tried to get around not paying my worker’s comp when I did get injured on the job. Whenever anybody put in their two weeks after realizing what a toxic work environment it was, which was often, he would punish them with scheduling them all week or make them open to close 12 hours for all their shifts.
If you’re in Minnesota and looking for a reputable dog daycare: STAY AWAY FROM ADOGO. If in the Twin Cities I would recommend Dog Days, not perfect, but they actually seem to care.
11. Revealing Red Carpet Instructions
I’m not sure if I’m no longer bound or not, or how common knowledge it is, but living in NYC I was paid to be a fan at a major red carpet movie premiere for a popular film franchise. 100% of the people there were paid to act excited as famous actors and a very famous director walked out and said hello and did interviews. We were under strict instructions not to let anyone know we were hired.
12. Always Buy Tons Of Donuts
Self Checkout | pin add | Flickrwww.flickr.comThe self-checkouts at the grocery stores work based on weight. It reads in the barcode what a product should weigh and throws up errors when you go to bag it if the weight isn’t within a certain range. This is great for most items, and this is why you have to have bakery items and produce on the scale before you bag it.
Knowing this, you can weigh any item as something else that’s cheaper if you have overworked people not paying attention to what you are doing. Just make sure to keep the barcode from being scanned. $20 hair care product? Ring it as a donut. Pack of steaks? Ring it as a donut. But believe it or not, there's an even darker side to these self-checkouts...
Some Walmart stores in “low theft areas” don’t even have the bagging scales turned on, while some in more “ethnically diverse” areas have the sensitivity set so high that if you put your grocery list in the bags it will throw errors.
13. A Peace Treaty Of Sorts
Coca-Cola and Pepsi regularly settle disputes behind closed doors on things like employees trying to quit and join the competitor. Their employment contracts have entire clauses stating you cannot be employed by the competing companies even after you quit so as to protect company intel and confidentiality. For example, a Coca-Cola employee feels like he is being mistreated by the company, and so he quits and tries to work for Pepsi.
Then, Pepsi’s team of lawyers will inform Coca-Cola as soon as they find out and Coca-Cola will sue the guy for breach of contract. In return, Pepsi will pay them. This is done so Pepsi and Coca-Cola don't sue each other for bankruptcy for breach of laws regarding industrial competition and market regulations. It’s basically a peace treaty of sorts.
14. Too Good At His Job
Some tech companies don’t want their products to be better. I started working for a parking technology company as their IT PM. Our installs improved drastically by using my work background to design, document, deploy, rinse, repeat…plus I was a slave so I worked 70 hours a week. Then, when I expected the boss to be happy, he gave me the most shocking response: “Don’t make it work too well. We make money on service too.”
Since my methods were implemented, service decreased, which I thought was good and would drive in more sales. In the end, I was just working myself to the bone for someone without gratitude.
15. Habitat Visit Gone Wrong
File:Paul G. Allen (cropped).jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.orgPaul Allen was sitting around his house one day and happened to watch a segment of a nature documentary on pygmy seahorses. His assistants picked up on his glimmer of interest and organized an excursion on his yacht to go visit the habitat of these animals. They brought along a marine biologist to provide more information.
On the yacht, each member of the small party that was actually getting in the water to view the seahorses were equipped with a sea scooter. They found the animals, the marine biologist gave his talk, and it was a very successful outing. As they turn to leave the area, Paul takes a wide turn on the sea scooter and just mows down a big chunk of the habitat, which definitely contained many of the little animals.
Apparently, he was oblivious or didn’t care. The marine biologist was absolutely livid. Back on the yacht, the crew had to go to great lengths to calm the biologist down and somehow get them to sign the NDA.
16. Finally Touching The Untouchable
My NDA is still in effect, but I've covered my liability. A few years ago, with a previous insurance company I worked for, we fired an employee who had a nasty personality. Imagine a toxic gamer working in a call center, and that would be this guy. He had been the son or grandson of one of the board members, so he was practically untouchable.
When his relative on the board got voted out, it was finally time for this guy to be fired. His supervisor took him to a conference room to let him know he was fired and he was escorted from the building by security. As the HR manager, I was tasked with clearing his desk and separating his property from company property. That was when I found a heavily used notepad on his desk that had a list of names.
Next to each name was a mailing address and details about how this ex-employee planned to harm these people. I did some digging and found they were all current or former clients of the company and that they all had filed complaints against this monster. It was a hit list. I notified the board after I notified a few officers. The guy was incarcerated on unrelated drug and assault charges.
The prosecutor now had to consider charging this guy for his hit list. Since she couldn't convince a judge there was a strong enough case, the prosecutor decided to impanel a grand jury. Since I was the individual who found the notepad, I was subpoenaed to confirm its provenance. Considering any other employee could have walked by and deposited this list on this guy’s desk, the grand jury decided to not move ahead to a trial.
For the other charges, the former employee was sentenced to 16 years in prison. As a witness, I wasn't issued a gag order regarding the grand jury investigation. However, my work did order me to sign an NDA to "protect the clients who were on that hit list" but it was really just to cover up that they were in any danger.
I signed and then quit as soon as I got a job offer from another company. Those guys on the board cared more about their profit margin and public image than they did about people's lives.
17. Beagles In Braces
When I was a veterinary technician before I was a veterinarian, I worked in a lab that mostly tested animal medication on animals. It was things like flea products, heartworm meds, etc. We had one product in testing for human medication though, which was an injection that supposedly was going to shorten the need to wear retainers after having braces.
Of course, to test that, we needed animals that had worn braces long enough to replicate the changes that happen to human mouths that have had braces. What I'm getting at, was that some days, it was my job to brush the mouths of like 50 beagles that all had braces and make sure the wires and brackets were in place and not causing any trauma to the lips or gingiva.
The image of dozens of goofy little dogs clack, clack, clacking around me in circles around the lab super excited to see me, doing their ridiculous beagle howls and flashing their braces as they did so will never leave my brain.
18. The Same, But Different
Damiris Dantas | Minnesota Lynx vs Seattle Storm on 9/11/19 … | Flickrwww.flickr.comI came up with an idea for a TV show that followed a women’s basketball team through a season while employed by them and after submitting a pilot to a large production company, they colluded with the athletic department to take the name and concept but use it for the men’s basketball team instead. Their reason was utterly despicable. In their words, “No one cares about women’s basketball.”
I had equipment, people, and funding set up, and no one that knew clued us in. We found out from Twitter when the men’s team announced it with the production and distribution company. I got offered a job with them later but quit the media industry altogether and taught high school for a few years. Now, I’m back to making content.
19. Fraud On The Floor
I did some work on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs. I had access to all trading accounts and transactions. I came across some shady-looking accounts which did not meet policy as they did not use clearly identifiable names and I could not find records of creation or testing for it etc...When I asked my supervisor if I should look into this, he turned to me and said, “We don’t ask about those accounts, just ignore them. Orders from the top.”
Trading account creation is a long and detailed process that requires formal approval from multiple lines of management. These accounts circumvented all that and were basically anonymous with no trace. They were also trading high volume, and I was told to accept and ignore them.
20. They’re All The Same
I used to work in a warehouse where we made feminine hygiene products. The pads came out of one machine into several different branded boxes. They were both the nickel gas station pads and the 10 dollar-a-box pads. Also, we had one product of pads where we imported them from China, then repackaged them into our own boxes.
I didn't have a problem with that, but there was one thing I didn't agree with at all...The box had an emblem saying "made in America." It would've been ok if it said “assembled in America,” but no.
21. Worst Security And Software Ever
a man sitting in front of a laptop computerPhoto by Priscilla Du Preez on UnsplashA certain global conferencing company still saves passwords for their web products in plain text. Any—and I mean any—employee that works there can see the password. My password there was NotMyPassYouIdiot because I knew other people would see it eventually and they'd even comment/laugh about it. Also, we once discovered that our main conferencing software was letting you sign in regardless of the password you entered.
This meant that you could sign in with any email address. Once we brought it up, we were immediately stonewalled and told not to say anything about it in written format. Basically, they had the development team and lawyers on a conference call and they decided it was best to just keep it quiet until they fixed it later that day.
No client was to be notified of the issue. The ones that knew of it were basically given a runaround until they gave up. They also added call spoofing to the software. They called it something fancier, but it was call spoofing. You could make a call and make it appear from any number you wanted. My team raised this concern many times, but were countered with, "No one will actually use it for that." Ok. That place was a gold mine of security risks.
22. Not So Reality TV
On the TV show House Hunters, where they are presented with three properties and must choose one, they've already chosen. In order to be selected to be on the show, you must already have an offer in and accepted on a property and be in closing. It's a foregone conclusion which one of the three properties they're going to be moving into. But that's not all.
If you watch the show carefully for clues you can start to figure out which one. Although they continue to fool me from time to time. Boxes are a clue. If they're viewing a house that's full of moving boxes where people are clearly packing, that's the house they've already bought. The other two properties may or may not have even been properties they considered during their search. They can simply be comps now on the market, or properties chosen for some kind of contrasting appeal.
The debates on the show are manufactured as well. That's probably less surprising. The wife that wants a yard for the kids and the husband that wants a short commute aren't actually as invested in their opposing viewpoints as they pretend to be...not that these issues don't matter to the home buyers at all. But the producers take some pre-existing issues and ask the home buyers to play them up as if they are more crucial or debatable than they really are.
That's why you often see one of the buyers suddenly give in for no apparent reason on something they had been fighting for until the last minute. This is in addition to the fact that one of the properties is already a foregone conclusion, so there's really no meat to the discussion anyway. I know all of this and I shamelessly watch House Hunters anyway.
23. Unknown Party Game Rejects
You know those Jackbox party games? They have a database full of about a hundred Jackbox games that were pitched but not used since rejected games often get featured in later party packs. Notably, one of those Jackbox games is called Poop Cake. I won’t go into detail how it works in case it does get released, but there is a rejected Jackbox game called Poop Cake that exists and is officially documented for potential future use.
24. They Staged The Show
woman holding magnetic cardPhoto by Blake Wisz on UnsplashI was a witness to the filming of a Discovery Channel reality show as it was set in the business of a family friend which we frequented every week. The filming took place over a couple of months, I think. During filming, the show had nothing to do with the actual business. They had actors staged in the audience/as buyers, they brought out fake products to “sell” at the business, they used fake names for the real employees they did include, every single word and movement and breath was scripted.
Yet, when it aired, it was touted to be an authentic reality show for this business. The idea for the show was kind of like American Pickers, but a bit different. I knew reality shows weren’t real of course, but I was genuinely shocked at just how scripted and fake the whole process is. Not a single thing that aired was genuine.
25. The Modern Pirate
Dell closed all of their in-person kiosk locations in order to get the money to fire the CEO they put in because no one bothered vetting his contract. This allowed him to adjust his own pay rate to whatever he wanted, and he could only be fired with a 40 million golden parachute bonus. So, their choice was to either come up with 40 million asap to fire him, or go completely bankrupt the very next pay period.
So yeah, Dell was almost bankrupted within a single week due to a pirate CEO.
26. Colony Collapse And A Call Centre
I used to work in a call center that had Bayer Advanced as a client. Bayer knew/knows full well that their neonicotinoid-based pesticide/gardening products harmed bees and were responsible for colony collapse. We were instructed to boldly deny and/or lie to the customer or caller if we were ever asked about it. We were also instructed to lie about the spray nozzles on the bottles.
Bayer knew they sucked and were almost always completely DOA defective, but they refused to admit it and decided it was cheaper to just keep mailing replacement nozzles.
27. They Had To Fake It To Make It
person holding gray wooden woodPhoto by Ian Keefe on UnsplashI had a friend who was on a European version of Survivor called The Robinson Expedition. So many things were rigged or played up. A lot of it was stuff like...the crew would hear that two contestants had an argument, so they had to re-enact the argument for the camera, which was awkward. And at some point, a contestant just wanted to leave the island, but you can't just say that, so they voted him out as they agreed and people had to act all shocked and be like, "This is a huge betrayal and last minute twist!"
28. A New Type Of Electric Bike
Harley Davidson is producing an all-electric motorcycle. It's called the Livewire. It sounds like a jet engine, even though it could be totally silent. It will go 120+ miles (193 km) per battery. At the time I was working on it, the battery would only last like 60ish miles (97 km) and the sound has changed once or twice since too. I want one.
29. Cheap Compressors Make A Cheap Company
GE knowingly put really bad compressors in their fridge units knowing they would fail within a year. Rather than do an extremely expensive recall, they offered to replace the units for free if someone complained, knowing that a large percentage of people would just buy a new unit. The compressor was so cheap to make they kept using it in their profile lineup.
30. New Tech Never Released
satellite view of earth's surfacePhoto by NASA on UnsplashUber was planning to make their own Google Street view for use in the app to better help drivers find riders and to map the world for driverless car technology. But, they were going to use Uber drivers to capture the images for the streetview. The plan was to mail out inexpensive GoPro-like devices that magnetically attached to the roof of the driver's cars.
Each would have SD cards that could be mailed back to Uber. Routes would be generated and the drivers could accept them in the app and get paid. This plan fell through quickly and Uber eventually sourced this data from third parties and ultimately abandoned their in-house driverless car ambitions. Also, Microsoft developed a really cool backpack-mounted camera that was going to be used for something like Google Street view.
The plan was to take it into pedestrian-only areas so you could get imagery indoors like malls and in walking spots. The United States snatched up the entire project for their own use and that product was never released or even announced to consumers.
31. No Business Sense To Be Found
I worked as a freelance 3D animator and did a lot of Kickstarter projects. Everyone had their own "million-dollar idea," and loved to blast you with NDAs to keep you from "stealing their idea." Anyways, one guy wanted to basically make a type of smart-belt that just played videos, and was convinced he was going to sell it to Gucci.
The guy was super nice, paid really well, and was a joy to work for, but had no business sense. Well, the NDAs expired, and the Kickstarter page seems to be erased from the internet. Basically, the belt was physically impossible to manufacture, but he wouldn't let me alter the design to fix it. It made for some cool shots for my demo reel though.
32. Moving Up And Out
I work for a moving company and we work with a women’s shelter often enough. Typically, women escaping from trauma will have the shelter hire us to go in and get their belongings, sometimes with the company of officers, and all the movers sign NDAs to protect the women from letting their new addresses slip.
I can’t disclose anything that interesting but I want to take the opportunity to say, those people who jump at the slightest sound, the littlest surprise, be nice to them because you don’t know whether they are just jumpy naturally or if there’s a reason they are like that now.
33. Surprise! It’s Real
a school of fishesPhoto by James Thornton on UnsplashUnless things have changed drastically, that popular restaurant being accused of selling "not tuna" really is actually selling tuna…and not cheap stock either. It's just masked by a boatload of mayonnaise. They actually sent out their olives for DNA testing because they were sure one of the suppliers was selling them an olive of cheaper quality. Which also makes the tuna thing make no sense to me.
I knew about specials and new things way before they ever made it into the store. We'd start testing the stock at least six months before a promotion started. In addition, shady hiring/employment practices were the norm at the restaurant, similar to what FedEx Ground was accused of in a lawsuit from about seven years ago.
34. Surviving In A Changing World
I had to sign an NDA before working with Sears. It was basically saying I wouldn't talk about the tactics they were using to survive in a changing world. That didn't age well. It was difficult to keep a straight face during orientation, but I knew they were going to be bankrupt in a few years, the writing was on the wall, but at the time I needed the job experience.
We also had to sign a non-compete agreement, which I laughed at as well, internally of course.
35. They Took His Feedback
I was a part of the focus group that saw the new Subaru Outback Wilderness edition. We gave our input and it’s funny to see some of the talking points show up in their promo material and even some suggested changes make it to the car itself like beefier tires. I’ve only had a few NDAs ever but this is probably the coolest one. I guess playtesting for Konami was kinda cool but nothing super juicy came out of it except the developers were rude.
36. How Cheap Can They Be?
a person using a vacuum to clean a carpetPhoto by No Revisions on UnsplashBack in 2004, I worked for Kirby Vacuums selling $2000 vacuums. I was making great money cause I got them for $1200 and made a profit on anything I sold over that. My team leader got them for $800, so he made $400 off of each sale. His boss got them for $550, but since he was also the regional manager he actually got them for $350 so he made $450 off of every vacuum sold in the region.
I can only imagine how much it actually cost to make them. Once I found this out, I had a hard time selling them because I felt I was ripping people off and had to quit.
37. Same News, Different Station
Basically, every local news show in the United States, and probably elsewhere, gets marching orders from the network. Each of them is privately owned, and for the most part, they can report on whatever they want, and do whatever special segments they desire. But, some stories, particularly the major national news and important "local" news that is of national interest, say, Senate elections, or a high-profile murder that happened in your market, you get copy from the network that you are meant to have your editors or anchors translate to a script.
Most stations end up just reading it entirely or nearly verbatim from the copy sent. If you paid attention, you'd find this everywhere, basically every day. Very few people watch local news in more than one market on the same day, and the copy will be different depending on who owns the station. So while the stories may be similar, you won't get exactly the same wording on two different local stations.
38. Just What You Thought
Soundgarden's single "By Crooked Steps," off of King Animal, is going to have a music video that is directed by Dave Grohl and features a cameo by Deadmau5. I was an extra for the music video. I got to meet a bunch of super cool and interesting folks. Chris Cornell was polite but seemed distant and anxious. Deadmau5 was a goofy nerd and we got along well. Dave Grohl is exactly how you imagine him, just an absolute gem.
39. When Reality Isn’t Really Real
man in black jacket using black dslr cameraPhoto by Çağlar Oskay on UnsplashNaked and Afraid, and I'm assuming most 'reality' shows, had a clause in the NDA and contract that said one's image could be used in any way the production company saw fit. This included voice, image, etc...and that the audio may not match the video that was recorded at the same time. It was then that I realized how much these shows are edited down before the public ever sees them.
It had never dawned on me that they manipulated things that much. Oh...and it paid like $7k for 21 days of filming.
40. What’s In That Vault?
I had to sign a NDA for a secure shipment that came into a building I ran security at. Shipment came in at 2 am. An unmarked transit van with two guys had to verify their biometrics and give me the correct password, then they were required to deactivate the cameras on the floors along the travel routes they took inside the building and wipe the footage of them entering and leaving.
They unpacked a set of vases and trundled off to put them in a private vault. I don't know what was in them, but I've seen less security for pallets of precious metal bullion.
41. Sickness and Severance
We had an employee that was constantly calling in sick. Twice, we had to call an ambulance to work because of her heart palpitations. Her fellow employees told us that she would call them that night to go shopping, after being removed by ambulance hours earlier. There were a lot of rumors of substance use. She would show up the next day like nothing happened the day before.
There was drama about her having to pay the ambulance bills first, before our health plan would reimburse her. Her stoner boyfriend got fired from the company, which just ramped up her emotional distress and inability to show up for work. Our manager decided to cut our losses and package her out. He was finalizing her termination package, which would have included a severance payment that would have solved their short-term money problems when she quit.
I saw her a couple of years later on an airplane, I didn't tell her what she missed out on.
42. The Rich Get Richer
white concrete building during daytimePhoto by Alex Dudar on UnsplashGoogle doesn’t hire direct support employees. They open small projects in the US and hire up to 250 contract employees of varying support positions for the project. Once they get the statistics needed to run everything efficiently, they have mass layoffs and outsource their jobs to a country like the Philippines or India, that’s willing to accept much less than their US counterparts.
At the same time, Google rakes in a huge tax cut because they’re ‘creating’ jobs in the local communities.
43. A Singer And Some Shoes
I signed an NDA when I worked as a fit model for Katy Perry’s shoe line. Basically, a fit model is used for their good proportions to test out the fit of garments. I’m a solid size 7.5, so hooray for being average. I was hired on two occasions and got to hang out and give her my opinion on the fit, feeling, and comfort of different shoes.
I didn’t think she’d actually be there, but both times she was present and totally running the show. She was a super nice woman in person and remembered me when we met again. Also, she apologized for making me wait so long which I thought was nice. Her dog is really cute too and I got to save it when it got stuck behind a wall panel.
44. Don’t Fall For It
I was a model for a few big-name/well-known makeup companies. I did several print ads for magazines and a few television commercials. The makeup artists do use the product advertised, but very minimally. That mascara they're touting? It's over really good fake eyelashes and they also used another brand of mascara along with the one they're trying to sell you.
Also, the clothes in the ads you see are pinned to high heaven on the model. They fit nothing like they look. It's not you. It's not your body. It's fake advertising. Most of us models look just like you wearing that, without all the pins and tucks and double-sided tape.
45. Keep The Skill To Yourself
red chili on white backgroundPhoto by Mockup Graphics on UnsplashWhen Chili’s first got their Awesome Blossom, there were no machines to cut the onion, so we did it by hand. I had to sign an NDA before they showed me how to do it. This was in November 1990, Fort Worth, Texas.
46. A Controlled Surprise
Cash cab gets most of its contestants through a try-out process where it pretends to be another show. Then, a producer says they will get you a cab to go to the next location which is how people get surprised.
47. Filming Was Faker Than Fake
A huge part of The Bachelorette was scripted. The company I worked for at the time was a major tourism service provider and featured prominently in one of the seasons. We were all pulled into meetings with the higher-up managers, given a speech about what was in our best interest...and told that spilling any secrets was punishable by a $5 million lawsuit.
I didn’t care at all about the show at the time and still don't. I just wanted to do my job. The "Bachelorette" herself was clearly there to further her public profile or "acting" career. The scenes were always "set up" before filming. Behind the camera, nothing was happening. The cast was told where to go, what to do, and how to do it.
If half those guys weren't on their phones texting their real girlfriends most of the time, I would be surprised. So fake...so 100% fake.
48. Your TV Knows All
turned-off flat screen TVPhoto by Dario on UnsplashIf you own a Samsung TV in North America, mainly the states, and have updated the firmware since 2015...It can recognize what you watch, even if it's not a broadcast channel, provided it has a clip to match in an online database and can send this info to provide stats on what you watch. These stats can rival the usual 'ratings' for TV, in that they're amazingly accurate, and updated every few seconds. They're worth millions.
They also build up a profile of you as a viewer, and this feeds an advertising profile based on watching habits. Software on the TV can play a video over the content you watch, the idea being to replace commercials that you watch with more appropriate ones. I don't know how much of this is still being done, but when I stopped being involved because it's abhorrent, it was 18 million TVs.
It all sounds fine when you think of it as you getting more advertisements for stuff you might buy, and fewer for stuff you won't. But here's the problem: Imagine the nutcases you know seeing adverts you never see, that lie about healthcare, and vaccines, and other kinds of conspiracies, and this becomes a buy-a-presidency system.
49. They Took The Words Out Of His Mouth
My dad did some top-secret contract work for the DOD back in the 1960s, and he signed a lifelong NDA as part of that job. He's passed now so I guess it's safe to talk about it. The thing is, he never did break the NDA in any context; the strange part was that the NDA specifically prohibited him from using certain words ever again.
The trouble is, some of the words are common vocabulary and it became obvious over the years which words he did not use. Words I know he could not say, because he would find other ways of saying them instead, included ball, balloon, briefcase, and nuclear. It would have made more sense for him to just say, "There's a balloon," instead of "There's an inflatable latex object," but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Eventually, he did gradually stop avoiding those words for the most part, although he would not discuss the NDA.
50. Rats And Racks And Raisins
I found pallets of candy in the top of the racks that were behind displays and furniture in my Wal-Mart. One pallet had been the home of a mother rat and her brood. Did you know rats don't like raisins but will eat the chocolate off and leave the raisins in a pile? The Wal-Mart management decided to put the unopened bags of candy on sale in the clearance aisle, instead of disposing of the rat-infested pallet.
We've all heard of love at first sight.
Hate at first sight is less common, but it does happen (though it's not always described that way).
Sometimes, two people don't mesh well. They could never get along, even if they were the last two people on Earth, and its usually because one of them said or did something during their first interaction that rubbed the other person the complete wrong way.
Redditors know this all to well and are ready to share their stories.
It all started when Redditor dirty_maria asked:
"Have you ever listened to someone talk for less than a minute and immediately felt like you wouldn't get along with them? What did they say?"
Too Young, Too Dumb
"I heard a 20 year old girl at my job trying to talk down to another guy because he's in his 40s with no kids."
""You're 40 with no kids! What do you know about the world?" in the most hateful tone. I've never spoken to her before and never will."
– tiamat-45
"I really wish that having kids made people smarter!"
– Witty_Commentator
Not Funny
"I'm Asian and upon meeting me, for some reason a lot of people like to open up with a racist Asian joke and tell me that their Asian friend thinks the joke is hilarious. I have never ended up getting along with those people."
– prolixity
I'll Choose My Own Food, Thanks
"“I already decided what to order, and sorry not sorry if you’re offended, but we’re gonna eat what I’m ordering. You’ll thank me for it.”"
"This was a person I was meeting for the first time"
– FlagshipHuman
"That basically ruins my opinion of the person AND the food."
– Cjhwahaha
Don't Tell Me What I Love
"A friend introduced me to a stranger at a party and said we should get along great since we were both into music. The stranger was in a band and I used to work as a sound/lighting tech. He asked why I quit music and I told him I got sick of working every single weekend and making garbage pay. I enjoy shows far more as an attendant than a worker."
"He responds: "oh, you don't love music. Which is ok, it's just that if you really loved music you would have stuck it out. For me I couldn't live without music, it's just different.""
"It took about 15 seconds of conversation to realize the dude was f**king insufferable"
– skazai
From Bad To Worse
"I was on a date once and she just started negging* me from the get go. I mistakenly picked her up and had to just listen to her talk about herself, any time I’d get a word in she’d neg."
"About lost it when I was feeling a good cheese slice at the niche New York style pizza place we went to. She said I had bad taste in pizza and actually needed to start going to XYZ."
"Started talking about the beer I chose and then joked to the waitress about me. Then asked me if I wanted to move in as her roommate was moving soon and she was joking but not joking."
– UncoolSlicedBread
Liar, Liar
"She was in a writers group. The comment was made that Finnegans Wake by James Joyce is a classically difficult book to get through."
"She opened with, actually she found it very easy in fact, a friend of hers was a lecturer in (nearby famous university) and he often came to her for insights into Joyce's work."
"I suspected immediately a narcissist, pathological liar. I was right. She earned the nickname amongst the group of "11", as in, if you said you'd been to Tenerife, she would say she had been to Elevenarife."
– jrf_1973
Some People Should Not Be Teachers
"My old French teacher in I think 8th grade. It took her not even 5 minutes for us to hate her. "I dont like any of you, I'm not your friend but a teacher to annoying brats. You'll do as I say when I say it and complainers get a 6 (Equivalent to an F) for this class." Her husband was a pretty cool guy though."
– FanStrong3311
Nepotism Makes The World Go Round
"Foremans nephew/ owners son (exchangeable for anyone who uses family ties to get a promotion)"
"I'm in the union so you have to technically work your way up as a laborer no matter what because raises come fron hours worked along with courses completed."
"Anyways i was a lead on a large college campus for the State and we have this lil chubby 19 year old laborer with a bad attitude start at the site one day so i get him what he needs tool wise and tell him that material needs to be cleaned on the 9th floor using buggies. He immediately launches into this " yeah well my dad is the foreman of this job and youre just a lead so ill just go to him so i dont have to do (xyz) job""
"After staring at him until he started to get noticably uncomfortable i asked him if this was his first day doing this? He replied "yeah why?""
"I told him he can go on and get the f**k home until hes ready to be a team player. Ive worked with his dad for many years and knowing his work ethics and moral compass for leadership he would understand my decision. His son calls him down on the radio with a smirk on his face thinking that i just made the worst career move of my life."
"When his dad arrives he asks what happened, i explain curtly exactly as it happened and he immediately turns to his boy and said " well ....why the f**k are you still standing here? He told you to go home, if you dont want to listen you can't be on the team. Dad isnt going to save you""
"Last i heard he gave up his dreams of being a foreman and works for Tesla now"
– GazeOG
Woe Is She
"After Hurricane Sandy I spent a lot of weekends cleaning out houses. It is difficult and backbreaking work, but also terribly sad. Because we just bring snow shovels into houses and throw everything away. What used to be someone's home, their whole life is now stinking moldy garbage."
"I was talking to a woman at a Christmas party about how difficult Hurricane Sandy was and she said. "I don't feel like I have had enough recognition for how I suffered! I called the mayor, I called the governor, and no one cares about my suffering." So I thought I would talk to her about it."
""Was your home flooded" -No"
""Did you have a generator" -Yes, two"
""Was it really difficult to get gas for them?" -No, my husband is a first responder so we were able to jump the lines"
""It must have been hard though, to have lost power." -So hard that after 2 days I went and stayed with family at a hotel."'
"So this woman lost nothing, didn't have to wait in the hours long line for fuel and spent most of the time in a hotel. And was pissed because the governor didn't acknowledge personally her suffering."
– RoyGBiv1488
Place Items Gently On The Conveyer Belt
"I can tell almost immediately by the way a customer walks up to the register whether or not they're going to be an a**hole."
– tubular1845
"Yep. I'm a cashier too. They don't even have to speak. When they toss their items on the counter, that tells me everything I need to know. It takes everything I have some days not to toss their money right back at them. The customers that face all the barcodes up make up for those AH's."
– Relative-Read-2937
The Company Man
"I don’t like Company Men, or people who defend the company and higher ups to no end. For example, in a meeting one time an experienced Company Man starting ripping into someone who works in another department in front of everyone over a trivial thing that has no effect on Company Man."
"After the meeting I expressed an opinion that the person was being rude, condescending, an unprofessional to a couple of coworkers that were in the room. They started defending said behavior. Instantly turned me off."
"Turns out corporate agreed with me and that person has since "retired.""
– jcm8002204
Keeps Your Eyes On Your Own Table
""I believe that I have a much more developed palate than most people", said in a very condescending, loud voice at a restaurant."
"From the guy who was at the next table when I said that oysters aren't my cup of tea."
– Nearby-Ear-883
""You seem to also have a much more developed ability to stick your nose where it doesn't belong""
– thedoobalooba
Will You Carry On My Bloodline?
"I knew a lady who, upon meeting her, told me that she was related to two people who signed the Declaration of Independence, which meant she had an important bloodline that she couldn't let die out."
"I knew she was an idiot at that point, but she then went on to say that because her autistic brother died, she had to be the one to carry on the bloodline and give them her last name, and said she'd use a surrogate if her major birth defects wouldn't let her conceive, staring hard at me with a weird smile on her face."
"Yes, she lore dumped her life and wanted me to carry her hypothetical heir in the two minutes after we met."
– Ravenamore
Yikes! I can't even believe this happened!
Not all relationships are meant to be forever.
Heck, some are meant to expire after only a few minutes.
The sooner we know when to run, the better.
Why do so many people hold on when life is telling us to flee?
Redditor mcamilove wanted to hear about the times when everyone knew it was right to flee a relationship fast, so they asked:
"What makes you think 'Run!' in your mind when talking to a new partner/date?"
Always listen to your inner voice when it comes to a relationship.
And have comfortable running shoes.
Miserable
Joe Biden Reaction GIF by Election 2020Giphy"If they complain nonstop about how miserable they are, they're not going to get better in a relationship. It will only get worse."
xain_the_idiot
Hoppers
"I call them the relationship hoppers. In my opinion, they run away from their pain and avoid facing their wounds, hence why they feel the need to immediately get to know somebody new. They are also often really bad at being alone with themselves. But no matter how far or fast you run your pain will get to you and everywhere you go, there you are."
conialogr
Cash Flow
"When they try to casually mention how much money they make or how much money their family has. There's nothing wrong with making good money or coming from money, but I don't like it when I get the vibe that someone is using it to try to impress me."
smugmisswoodhouse
"The funniest part is when they constantly do that and then complain that the opposite sex only wants them for their money."
nanna_mouse
Turn Away
"Sexual double entendres when you’ve literally just met and aren’t quite comfortable with each other yet."
Dramiotic
"I said something sucked, at a bar, and this random woman standing next to me leaned in close and said, 'That’s not all that sucks.'"
"She was ok looking but the delivery was just so f**king awkward and cringe… I made her face away from me."
_Brunonono_
Bye Bye Kitty
Cat GIF by 9CatNFTGiphy"She started talking about being allergic to cats. I have a cat. She said I could get rid of the cat if it would be getting serious. I ended the date on the spot."
Court_esy
Never cross the animals. The animals come first.
Yes, they will...
Janet Jackson Reaction GIFGiphy"If you meet them whilst they are dating someone else, but their relationship is coming to an end. You two are getting on real well, all of a sudden... oh they won't leave you for someone else, oh no. They will. Yes, they will."
gliitch0xFF
The Past Stories
"When they say all of their EXs are crazy."
Hiberniuss
"If the whole world smells like s**t, check your shoes."
RichCorinthian
"Let's be honest, ten exes is a bit of a warning by itself. Unless they are counting ONS partners and short romances lasting 2-3 weeks."
"But yeah, having 1-3 crazy exes is very natural, given the s**t world we live in. Plus it takes time to grow up as a person, to stop attracting and start avoiding those kinds of people/relationships."
merc-ai
A Free Spirit
"Continual contrariness where the intended effect is 'I am interesting and different - a free spirit' but the actual effect is 'this person is way too much like hard work.' I mean you expect s**t testing but when everything seems like a s**t test, whatever happened to enjoy someone's company?"
just_some_guy65
"Yep, and they think they are being smart too lol."
mcamilove
Replacements
"When they trying to control everything. From drinks to food on a second or third date cuz they think I would like what they’ve chosen for me. Or when they still talk about that ex from years ago or trying to find me as their 'replacement' No, I’m not her."
Effective_Math_2717
"I went on a date like this but it was the FIRST date. Didn’t ask me anything, and ordered everything including the drinks before I could even blink. Gave me vibes that he used the establishment often/people there knew his order. Also, casually mentioned he had two other options set up but he chose me. Mid dude that talked about his awesome engineering job and how much money his parents had. Wonder why he’s single with so much money."
AdKindly4291
Stalker
"When it's your first time meeting, at a coffee shop to be safe. You order she shows up and starts going on about 'how they were right we were meant to be together' - 'I am going to tell my doctor how wrong he was you are my husband' etc. I didn't even get my coffee before I left, there was more along those lines but gave me huge nope vibes."
"It was a blind date she apparently knew my best friend and all that. I spoke to said friend after he had no idea who tf she was. She became a stalker for a while after, ended up changing cars, moving house, a large distance, and basically was terrified of leaving the house for a while. Haven't tried dating since really."
azazeldeath
Look at the Signs
Zodiac Sign Leo GIF by Hope is SincereGiphy"Bringing up zodiac signs and assuming my personality based on my birth date rather than actually trying to get to know me."
"Real story. The guy spent half an hour straight checking up my ascendant sign after my zodiac sign to make assumptions about me right to my face. Boy, get a life first please."
FBrandt
Date Over
"One time a guy showed up to pick me up and was already drunk. I did not let him drive me. And another time I was on a date, getting to know each other, and I was talking about my brother and his husband, and the guy literally had his face flush and said 'You have a gay brother? And you support that?' Date over."
LittleNightBright
I'm glad I like to run.
Sometimes it's not just about exercise.
It's about running from crazy.
From the beginning of time, kids have always been adorable, heartwarming...and totally weird.
And what's the best way for a kid to show off their weirdness?
Show and tell, of course!
From glass eyes and famous knives to animals both dead and alive, these are certifiably the most bizarre things kids have brought to school.
1. All Eyes On Him
In fifth grade, we were studying human anatomy. When we got to the eyes, a kid brought in a bag full of cow’s eyes. His dad worked in a slaughterhouse. The teacher was horrified. He had brought them in, unannounced. The teacher had no plans for dissection and was just going to show us a filmstrip about eyes or something.
The teacher put them in the staff refrigerator for the day since we were living in the Arizona heat. Afterward, when the teacher returned the bag of eyes to my classmate, he took them home. On the walk home, he gave them out to any kid who wanted one. I’ll leave all that to your imagination.
2. He Was A Terrible Liar
I once had a kid in my class who was around the age of six and had a lot going on in his life. A part of it was that he was a compulsive liar with absolutely no sense of when a lie was so poorly constructed that everyone would know. Every single day, he would say he had something for Show and Tell. Most days, we “didn't have time” for his Show and Tell.
Every so often, we kind of had to let him have a go at Show and Tell. He'd stand up, ready to do his Show and Tell, then wander over to my desk, browse for a minute, and pick up the most random things. It would be things like a post it note, a sharpener, and once it was the custom "well done" stamp that actually had my name on it.
Then, he would say some poorly constructed story about how he found it in Africa when he went there for tea yesterday with his auntie or some such thing. He'd get really upset if he realized nobody believed him, though even at that age, most of the kids had the tact or gullibility to just smile and nod.
3. The Three Stooges
The Three Stooges | Insomnia Cured Here | Flickrwww.flickr.comMy mom was a teacher. I didn’t live with her, but I would occasionally go help her move stuff around, hang stuff up, and clean her classrooms. Occasionally, I’d bring a friend or two while we were in high school. My six-year-old sister attended the school that our mother taught at. One day, my mom called and asked if I’d come by with the two friends that I usually brought.
We showed up about 20 mins later. Without explaining, my mother sent us to my sister's classroom. We knocked, walked in, and my sister yelled, “My Show and Tell is here! These are my brothers. They are funny.” I am so lucky to be friends with these two guys to this day. Without hesitation, they started an age-appropriate 3 Stooges routine.
One climbed on the other’s shoulders. They juggled school supplies. They pretended to trip each other. They made funny noises. I barely played a role. My sister's class was a continuous roar of laughter. Even the teacher was crying. She asked us to stop/leave because she didn’t want kids passing out from laughing. I’ll never forget my sister's little face, looking so proud.
4. Spreading A Fake Story
When I was in the fourth grade, since my grandpa lived so close, I called him to go to my house to pick up this beaded necklace that my dad told me he got from a monk in Vietnam for Show and Tell, unbeknownst to my parents that were at work. Months later, during a parent-teacher conference, the teacher mentioned my dad being in Vietnam and the item I brought in.
My mom was very confused and had to tell him that my dad was never in Vietnam. She had a laugh about it when she realized this was one of my dad's "stories." He knew I was gullible and would always tell me weird stories about him like getting shot with arrows while the "wound" scars he had were from getting moles removed. He got a kick out of it but never thought I'd share these stories with other people.
5. It Was Dad’s Idea
As an elementary school kid, we were supposed to bring toy animals from home and tell why we picked or liked that animal. Most kids brought stuffed animals or action figures, but this one crazy girl brought a real-life bearded dragon. She brought it in a plastic bag and just whipped it out and flopped it on the table when it was her turn. The teacher, who was female and usually very chill, freaked out and called her parents to come get the "beast."
A few minutes later, her Russian dad steps into the room and you could see in his face that he didn't understand what the problem was with the bearded dragon. The teacher freaked out again and talked to him how it could have gone on a rampage and could have bitten someone and how it's animal cruelty to transport a live animal in a regular one-time-use plastic bag.
The dad realized that she was super scared and overreacting, so he just said, "Excuse me madam," with a thick Russian accent, took the bag, and walked out. The whole time, his face didn't show any emotion at all, as if that type of stuff happens to him all day. The girl was the hero of the day and she somehow didn't get into any trouble because it actually was her dad's idea.
6. The Hair Off His Head
brown hair on blue textilePhoto by Corina Rainer on UnsplashThe weirdest thing someone brought to Show and Tell was a bag full of his own hair. To be fair, he didn’t actually try to show and tell it. He also brought in an action man. I noticed him and his best friend playing with the action man. They were putting something on its head. I went over to him and asked them what it was.
“It’s hair!” he said. “Hair?” I said, “Where did it come from?” The kid said, “It’s Stevie’s hair! He got it cut on the weekend!” The child had a hair cut, brought the clippings home, then put them in his school bag and brought them into school. That hair stayed in his school bag for a full week before his mother noticed.
7. They Were Surprised With A Lesson
I taught fifth grade in a school with really rich kids, while really low-income kids bussed in. One of the low-income kids brought a coconut for her Show and Tell to talk about Trinidad, where her dad was from. When she cracked it open, it was completely rotten inside and smelled awful. I was so worried about the kid being embarrassed.
Then, one of the rich kids, who was also of a pretty low intellect, looked at it with wide eyes and said, "It's like the earth: the core, the mantle and the crust!" which is something I think he had never really understood before. So, it actually turned out pretty well.
8. Talk About A Bad Hair Day
Once, one of the kids in my class brought a remote control helicopter to class and flew it around for Show and Tell. It was super cool until he accidentally got the blades wrapped around a girl’s hair. I think the nurse spent an hour getting it out.
9. Detention Over Darts
black and brown dart boardPhoto by Anastase Maragos on UnsplashI did a similar thing as Show and Tell in primary school. I think it was year seven. I brought darts to school and when I got to my first class, I showed the teacher. They immediately took them off me. I got sent to the head teacher’s office where I was given a sort of detention. Essentially, I couldn't go to the school event that was happening at the time and I was supposed to sit outside his office at both lunch and morning tea for a week or so. I just wanted to show everyone the darts.
10. Not Your Typical Toy
In the early 90s, one of my students brought a pink vibrator and called it something else, I can’t remember exactly what it was. He honestly thought it was some kind of toy. The rest of the class was young enough to not notice what it really was since this one was not detailed, just a simple one. I remember calling his mom that evening. It was pretty scary and insane.
She just laughed it off and came to school the next day to pick it up. The crazy part, that’s how we met and she is my wife for 15 years now. We even have 2 more kids.
11. A Very Popular Accident
When I was in the sixth grade, I took a belly dancing bralette into class for Show and Tell that my brother sent me from his deployment. We were studying the Middle East and I had something from there, so I thought it would be cool to bring in. I remember my teacher gulping, eyes bulging, asking, “Just…that? That’s all they wear?” Then, I said, “Yeah, I guess so.” A few weeks later, I realized I'd made a hilarious mistake.
Turns out, he sent me his girlfriend’s present and his girlfriend got my camel book. At least I was very, very popular with the sixth-grade boys for a little while.
12. A Horrifying Misunderstanding
white and black skull figurine on black surfacePhoto by Mathew MacQuarrie on UnsplashI had a student bring in “her grandfather's skull” for Show and Tell. The class was absolutely horrified. It turned out that the student’s grandfather was a doctor and it was the skull that he kept in his office as a model. He was still very much alive.
13. Just A Kid And His Combine
I went to school in a tiny town in eastern Colorado. A kid in my class drove his dad's combine to school for Show and Tell. At the time, we were in the fourth grade. I still find it absolutely crazy that nobody really cared that he drove it and that there was this humongous piece of farm equipment sitting on the front lawn all day.
14. Not The Right Form Of Transportation
When I was in the third grade, this dumb kid in my class decided to bring a live bat to class. The only problem was that he put the bat in a plastic bag in his book bag. Obviously, the bat didn't survive the trip because it couldn't breathe. I still remember the kid removing the ex-bat from the plastic bag almost 26 years later.
15. Post Surgery Show
blue and green peacock featherPhoto by Milad Fakurian on UnsplashWhen my son was in preschool, he brought me in for a Show and Tell a couple of months after I had brain surgery. I had a shaved head, gnarly scar, and a crazy eye. He made sure I showed everyone my crazy eye up close. It was funny to me and made me happy. He had a hard time seeing me like that in the beginning.
16. Danger To Some, Collectibles to Others
One Show and Tell, I brought two knives. My dad is from a region in France where they make famous knives, Laguiole, and I owned two of them. One was made of horn and one was bright orange. At the time, it didn't cross my mind that it could be a problem, but they called my parents who weren’t mad at me for bringing them.
17. An Innocent Interest
I'm a preschool teacher in a state that allows the use of weed. One of my students brought in a plastic tube the local dispensary uses for pre-rolled joints. He said he found it in his parents' room and he brought it because he liked the popping sound it made when he opened it.
18. A Strange Thing To Keep
File:Replacement surgery - Total hip replacement -- Smart-Servier ...commons.wikimedia.orgWhen I was in the fifth grade, my friend brought a metal hip replacement piece from a human body for Show and Tell. It was from a human body that her father had cremated and kept. It was for a "What would you like to be when you grow up?" sort of Show and Tell. She wanted to be a mortician like her dad. And do you want to know the worst part?
She allowed for this piece to be passed around the class before telling everyone, including the teacher, what it was. Obviously, chaos ensued afterward.
19. A Poor Description
When I was in second grade, I brought this multitool thing that I got from a nearby aquarium. It had things like binoculars, a compass, a mirror and I think one or two extra gadgets. It was cool because each part of it folded back nicely! The binoculars were ingenious. Anyway, the only word second grade me knew how to describe the multitool was as a “pocket knife.” My teacher had a panic attack and wouldn’t let me show it.
20. Exposing Bad Habits
My wife is a teacher in a major US city. One of her fourth-grade students brought in a packet of his mom's illicit substances to show the class during drug awareness week. He got some visits from the principals and school counselor, maybe even the men in blue.
21. Case Of Mistaken Identity
white rabbit on green grassPhoto by Satyabratasm on UnsplashThe teacher whose classroom across the hall from me had a student who brought what he thought was a lucky rabbit's foot to show to the class. He had excitedly announced he had enough for everyone in the class. The rabbit's foot was a tampon.
22. A Different Type Of Rock Collection
At my school, some kid brought in his collection of “laundry rocks” which were crumpled up pieces of paper that he put in his pockets. When his mom did the laundry, they would turn hard like rocks. He said he did it by accident once, liked it, and started deliberately putting crumpled paper in his pockets to make more.
23. Different Animals For Different Years
A student of mine once brought in a taxidermied bear from the shoulders up that his dad had hunted with a bow. The best part was that his parents didn’t know he brought it. He snuck it to school in a huge black garbage bag. A couple years later, he brought homing pigeons that he and his dad are raising and training and did a whole presentation with a headset mic and everything for the school.
The whole family is full of the nicest and coolest people I’ve ever met. It was easily one of my top three favorite families of all time.
24. Show Us Your Hands
Walnuts on marketplace | 🇩🇪Professional Photographer 🔴Twi… | Flickrwww.flickr.comA teacher once made me the subject of a Show and Tell. My parents, for reasons understood only by them, thought it'd be a great idea to get raw, still-in-the-husk black walnuts by the bushel. Taking the husks off resulted in all of us getting our hands dyed a nice, deep walnut brown color. I guess it never occurred to anyone to wear gloves until it was too late.
The teacher said, "Ocelot, show the class your hands and tell them all why they look that way!" It was so humiliating to walk around with what looked like dirty hands and black fingernails for a week.
25. A Secret Not To Share
Once, I caught some live salamanders in our basement to bring to Show and Tell. I put them back when I got home. My dad had helped me do it. When mom found out later, she went ballistic because she didn't want people to know that we had salamanders in our basement. It was an old farmhouse with a really damp cellar. It's actually really funny looking back at it now.
26. Practice For The Future
When I was about eight or nine, I brought a pill case containing mouse organs preserved in olive oil to Show and Tell. Monday was the heart, Tuesday the liver…you get the idea. My cat had caught the mouse, I confiscated it, and then our exchange student and I dissected it on the back porch. I swear neither of us are psychopaths!
We were both aspiring doctors/surgeons, so we thought it was super cool. My teacher did not agree, and my parents definitely got a call home. The happy end of the story is that our exchange student is now a cardiothoracic surgeon, so the mouse’s sacrifice was not in vain.
27. Scaring The Substitute
a knife on a tree stumpPhoto by Dominik Sostmann on UnsplashWhen I was in the fourth grade, I once got in trouble for bringing two bayonets and a pistol to Show and Tell. One bayonet was from WWI and the pistol and other bayonet were from WWII. I had okay’d them with the teacher beforehand and my parents knew about it, but alas, there was a substitute teacher that day. What 4th-grade boy wouldn't think those would be awesome Show and Tell items?
This was the same substitute teacher that requested a parent-teacher conference about how I was "influencing his peers by talking about Satanism." My Dad politely told her that I was reading The Lord of the Rings at the time. Those weren't spells, they were elven script. He's not drawing violent images, he's drawing Helm's Deep..." If you were familiar with English Literature, you would encourage him to read TLotR instead of the garbage you have on the preferred reading list."
28. They’re Back To Life
My husband and young daughter found a pretty big wasp nest one fall. We brought it in, and I put it in a big ice cream pail, into the freezer. After Christmas with school back in, my daughter took the wasp nest for Show and Tell. Everyone really thought it was cool, including the teacher, and it got placed on a counter by the window. About a month later, I got a call from the teacher telling me the wasp nest had started buzzing, and could I come and get it. So I did.
29. A Souvenir From Dad
My mother is a teacher and back in the 80s, a kid brought a baseball bat to Show and Tell. When my mother asked why, he explained that at the weekend, his parents had a huge party that spilled onto the street and the officers turned up. When his dad got told by the officers to turn down the music and pack up the party, his dad grabbed the baseball bat and said to the cop, "If you don't leave, I'll ram this so far up your butt you'll be a copsicle" My mother shut down Show and Tell after that.
30. Simply Not School Appropriate
gorillaz | mobu27 | Flickrwww.flickr.comWhere I was schooled, we didn’t do Show and Tell, except for on one occasion at age 10. I brought in the 2001 Gorrilaz album and I honestly thought it was the best thing ever. My school was a Catholic school and they obviously confiscated it. It could possibly have been the “worst” thing that they saw.
31. Keeping An Eye Out
When I was in the first grade, one of my classmates brought her dad's glass eye and a photo of him holding it with his eye socket all empty. First grade me didn't really fully understand the concept, so I went home and told my parents that my friend's dad could pop out his eyeball and I fully believed it was real.
32. Third Time’s A Charm
I brought my life-size Speedy Gonzales stuffed animal on three separate occasions to class in the second grade. It was so old and beat up that the foam pearls were spilling on the floor every time, and I had "sewn" it shut with staples to no avail. The third time my teacher asked why on earth I needed to bring it over and over again and I tried to lie and say I'd never brought it in before.
No one cared when the kid brought his boa constrictor that desecrated on the floor numerous times. I felt cheated.
33. Great Pieces Of History
grey metal fence at the other side of the roadPhoto by Claudio Schwarz on UnsplashThis was a great Show and Tell item gone wrong. A girl in my class brought a piece of the Berlin Wall that her grandmother gave her since she was of German descent. A kid dropped it while passing it around and she went home that day with several smaller pieces of the Berlin Wall.
34. Unconventional To Say The Least
I am a teacher, but avoid Show and Tell like the plague because I don't want to see booger collections or whatever. I do remember in fourth grade, we had a bring your pet day. Everyone mostly brought normal pets, but one girl brought in her pet skunk. It had had its scent glands removed and was like a puppy or a kitten and really quite cute. Sadly, my mom refused to even entertain the idea of our own skunk.
35. An Incident Waiting To Happen
When I was in Kindergarten, my mom used to call my aunt or uncle to come over and babysit me every once in a while. This was the 70s, so they were the really "cool" aunt and uncle since they were significantly younger than my mom. They were always more than willing to play with me on the swing set or in the sandbox.
They would smoke and it smelled really funny. One day, while we were playing and they were smoking their smelly cigarettes, I noticed a barrette on it with really pretty fluffy white feathers. I wanted it so bad. My aunt gave it to me and put it in my hair. I LOVED IT! It was like no other barrette I had ever seen.
I brought it with me to school the next day for Show and Tell. The teacher asked if she could see it, so I showed it to her. When my mom came to pick me up from school the teacher wanted to talk to her for a minute. She told me to play outside and wait for her, so I did. When we got in the car, my mom asked me, "Do you know what a roach clip is?" I was like, "I don’t know?" She said, "Where did you get that barrette from?"
I said, "Auntie V gave it to me." She just said, "I knew it...ok, Auntie V and Uncle M will not be babysitting you anymore." I was absolutely devastated.
36. When Toys Are Scarce
white strings on blue surfacePhoto by Josefin on UnsplashWhen I was in kindergarten, my mom would occasionally let me play with tampons by putting them in water and watching them expand. Clearly, there was no TV or Internet in my house. I called the tampons ‘water flowers’ and snuck one into my backpack for show and tell. My teachers were in hysterics when they called my mom about it.
My mom was in good spirits, she even teased my teachers by saying I’d bring some condoms or pads the next week
37. He Can’t Be Tamed
We looked after a small Joey after we hit and injured his mother while driving when I was in grade four or five. It wasn’t the worst animal to bring to Show and Tell...until he thought it would be a great idea to go for a skip around the school. At the end of the day, he was a wild animal. My mum fed the little fella and whatnot until he got large enough. Then, he went to a small zoo just outside of Brisbane to live.
38. The Living Artefact
When my cousin was a little kid, he brought my 100-year-old great-grandmother in for Show and Tell. She still had her mind intact so it ended up being a hit because she told them stories of how she lived before electricity was in every home.
39. An Innocent Piece Of Jewelry
shallow focus photography of woman sitting on stairPhoto by Tamara Bellis on UnsplashI had a student bring in a jelly "bracelet." He was so excited to show it to all of the other first graders. What made it so special was that it vibrated when you pushed a little button. Upon further inspection, I saw that it was a ring, not a bracelet. And it definitely wasn't for a wrist.
40. Just To Be Sure
I was in the fourth grade when the Cedar Fire happened in San Diego County. There were two or three inches of ashfall on our driveway, so I picked some up and put it in a baggy. Two years later, we moved to Florida and we did an "introduce yourself with one thing" presentation at the beginning of the school year. I brought my bag of ashes. The teacher made me verify, several times, that I had not brought in a baggy of cremains.
41. Some Love More Than Others
On the first day of class, everyone brought something they loved. One sweet girl brought a teddy bear her boyfriend bought her for their anniversary and was talking about how good and caring of a boyfriend he was. The boyfriend, on the other hand, brought an iPhone that he bought himself. Everyone was kind of uncomfortable and I was trying not to laugh.
42. Not The Best Choice
orange and white light bulbPhoto by Tamas Pap on UnsplashIn fifth grade, we had to Show and Tell a recipe we had made, with or without parental help, explain the recipe, how it’s made, etc., and bring some in class. Someone homemade sushi about three days in advance, and brought them to school on a super hot day, with the Show and Tell in the afternoon. I didn’t eat sushi for ten years after that because I thought this is what it was supposed to taste like. It’s a miracle people didn’t get sick.
43. Sharing The Wealth
My wife is a kindergarten teacher. One year, a kid in her class brought in his parent’s drug money. The problem was, he didn't wait until Show and Tell time to show everyone. The kids were having a little free playtime in the classroom. My wife was getting things together for a lesson. One of the kids came up to show her the money the other kid gave him.
It was $50 in fives and tens. Then she looked around and half the class had handfuls of money. She gathered it all and called the mother. The mother told her it was the rent money, and they kept it safe under a couch cushion. My wife said she counted almost $2,000 in fives, tens, twentys, and fifties. Yeah sure, rent money.
44. Not So Popular With The Kids
When I was in grade 6, I brought in a photo of my grandfather shaking hands with Winston Churchill. My grandfather was in low-level politics and met him. I didn't think it was that cool but my dad promised me it would be worth bringing in. Nobody in my class cared at all. But my teacher called in other teachers to show them and they all asked me a million questions. I have no idea where the photo went.
45. Take Your Dad To School Day
man playing cardsPhoto by Fengyou Wan on UnsplashWhen I was in the 1st grade, I forgot to pick something out for Show and Tell. So, in the morning, I panicked. Just so I had something to bring, I asked my dad if he would be my Show and Tell. He was so excited and happy, he called out of work and went to the basement to grab some stuff. 10 minutes later, he came running up with a weird-looking briefcase and told me to get ready for school.
He was so excited. He drove me to school, went inside with me, and asked when Show and Tell was. After finding out it wasn't until before lunch, he got a little disappointed, but he went to go get coffee. The time came around for Show and Tell and he came in right as it was my turn. I tell everyone that this is my dad. He raised me.
Then, my dad told me to take a seat because he wanted to show everyone something. I had no clue what to expect—but he still shocked me. He opened the briefcase and, to my surprise, he brought magic stuff. He put on a show for the whole class and finished up with some cool yo-yo tricks and gave my teacher a bouquet of roses. She ended up blushing and everyone teased her for liking my dad. The whole class was in awe and my classmates wanted him to be at their birthdays. It was great.
46. And It Was Never Seen Again
When I was in Kindergarten, I brought in all my Power Rangers toys. They were the transforming ones where the head would flip around to show them normal, then in their ranger helmet. Some kid asked to have a play with the black ranger. Then, he threw it over the back fence and I never saw it again. I was so devastated.
47. A Tragic Turn Of Events
I tried to bring my goldfish. Unfortunately, I didn't tell anyone I wanted to bring him and tried to take him out of the tank with my hands. My parents caught me before he croaked. My sister, whose fish shared the tank with him, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky.
48. A Strange Food From A Strange Kid
broccoli vegetablePhoto by Reinaldo Kevin on UnsplashWhen I was in kindergarten, I brought cheesy broccoli to Show and Tell because it was my favorite thing that my mom made to eat and I wanted to share it with everyone. I was really excited to bring it and helped her prepare it the morning of. I thought everyone would think it was cool. I brought something everyone could eat instead of my favorite toy.
The rest of the class was not as excited as me and no one, except the teacher and I think maybe one other kid, ate any of it. I was a bit disappointed that nobody liked it, but at the same time was happy because it meant there was more for me. Looking back, it was a really weird thing to bring, but I was also a really strange kid.
49. One Girl’s Junk Is Another Girl’s Fun
There was a girl in my brother's year whose dad owned a junk/salvage place. The girl once brought in an old thermometer. It seemed like it was cool, whatever. She then goes, "And then this is the most fun part," and proceeds to smash the thermometer on the desk and play with the mercury. I don’t know how that situation got resolved, but I do know that by the time I got to first grade, we no longer had Show and Tell.
50. Relaying A Deeper Meaning
In grade six, we had a girl off a farm bring in, “The Most Powerful Weapon in the World.” We were so excited to see what it was because it fit in a shoebox. It turns out the “Weapon” was a cow tongue from a beast her father had hunted recently. She went on to say something to the effect of that, "The words that come from your mouth and tongue are so powerful they can be a weapon for good or a weapon for destruction. And that's why a tongue is the most powerful weapon in the world." I have never forgotten that show and tell.
51. Released The Beast
a person holding a spider in their handsPhoto by Philipp Lansing on UnsplashWhen I was in the fifth grade and going to school in Arizona, this girl in our class brought in a glass jar with a tarantula and a black widow. I have no clue how she caught both in one day, or why. Within an hour, the tarantula was upside down in the jar, not moving. On the same day, there was a fire drill and yes, someone knocked it off the girl’s desk, breaking the jar and releasing the black widow.
We never found the black widow, but the teacher made sure to stomp on the dead tarantula just in case. The same thing happened with our glass fire ant farm in the second grade, now that I think about it. I don’t know why people kept bringing these kinds of insects into school, or why our teachers let them.