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Industries That Are A Lot Shadier Than They Seem

Industries That Are A Lot Shadier Than They Seem
Photo by Fikri Rasyid on Unsplash

There are a number of industries which, owing to business practices and perception in the media, are commonly associated as being evil.

These include nuclear power, big pharma, and healthcare, at least in the United States, while some retail services such as Amazon are notorious for the poor working conditions in their factories.

However, are any industries or businesses wholly without sin?

We might find ourselves surprised what goes on behind closed doors of industries we've come to trust as ethical and without fault.


Redditor Kneecap_Buchaneer was curious to hear which industries are not as clean and trustworthy as they appear, leading them to ask:
"What industry is a lot shadier than it seems?"

They Make Them An Offer They Can't Refuse.

"My dad knows a story from someone who works for a nationwide grocery chain, they have to deal with an Italian mafia to import balsamic vinegar."- tokyokillswhale

Aroused Grocery Store GIF by TravisGiphy

Life On The Seas...

"The maritime industry. "

"Most of the big companies do things by the book and treat crews well because they’re afraid of lawsuits and unions, but many smaller 'mom and pop' companies break laws and violate safety regulations with reckless abandon because they’re not as visible and can 'stay under the radar' so to speak."

"It’s very common for a small company to ask a captain/crew to do something illegal and dangerous in order to increase profit, and for the captain/crew to comply out of fear of losing their jobs."

"And that’s just the US maritime industry."

"Sailors from poorer nations who work on ships are often fed little more than rice and cheap ramen for months at a time and paid pennies for their backbreaking work."

"I love running tugs for a living, but the industry as a whole is rife with shady business."- AbleTourist6

So Many Fish In The Sea

"A lot of hobby fish importing is pretty shady."

"You have farms of certain types of fish like bettas in some areas of the world that are run with the fish in horrible conditions."

"Which is why a lot of the ones you get in a major chain store are sick before you even bring them home."

'Outside of boutique fish farming, the way some wild fish are caught is just horrible."

"The trappers will lightly poison the water supply to knock out the fish, then scoop them out of the water without a care for that area's ecosystem."

"This has led to depletion of some natural species to the point they are now endangered."

"Lastly, boutique fish sellers/major chains do not give half a rat's a** what happens to the fish in the end."

"This means that people who buy fish like plecos, bettas, goldfish, etc. end up getting sick of them and dumping them in local waterways to supposedly get rid of the problem."

'So in some areas, these fish have completely destroyed the local water ecology because, like other invasive land species, they were never meant to be there."

"One of the worst offenders is the lionfish in Florida."

"It's venomous and has no natural predators so its population has exploded out of control."

"The same is true of plecos and goldfish.

"Basically releasing fish into the wild is a terrible idea."

"Releasing any animal into the wild can have disastrous consequences, but fish are being released into a very limited ecosystem and outside of a few diseases, if they can adapt to the water and have no predators they will survive and breed incredibly quickly."

"I love my fish, I love the hobby, and there's a lot of value to it as global warming may make things like reef tanks a valuable source of coral in the future."

"But there's also a lot of bad to it."- beepborpimajorp

Cat Thank GIFGiphy

One Star...

"Rating services like Yelp."

" Refuse to advertise and your good reviews magically get rearranged."

"Hey, look if you want to do that and be transparent, I get it."

"But most every business owner knows how scummy this is and most clients just have no idea."

"I have a business that isn't something that would usually be looked for on Yelp.'

"They called and I just froze.'

"Luckily I do long term rentals and was sold out."

"Explained I wouldn't have an opening for months, they seemed to leave me alone."

"Yet they have my business on the front page of Google search, under the wrong category.'- chinmakes5

Just Try A Balanced Diet!

"Dietary supplements."

"It's gotten better, but there's still a lot of half-truths and whole lies."

"Not all that long ago it was seriously like the wild wild west."- LaquandaSchutt

Pills GIFGiphy

Trust No One!

"All industries are shadier than they seem."

"I used to work for a flute manufacturer and it was shady as hell."- pajmahal

Take a Closer Look...

"Eyeglasses."

"You have no idea the snow job they put most people through when it comes to buying them."

"It's far, far worse than trying to buy a new car from a dealership."

"Wholesale frames are about $5-20, wholesale lens blanks are another $10."

"Any kind of dip coating, UV, tinting, etc, is negligible cost and effort to apply, literally pennies."

"To top it off, they don't even do a whole lot in house, but send it to 'labs' which are basically sweatshops that can take up to 2-3 weeks when labor time is literally under 5 minutes."

"Instead of training real opticians and technicians, they're just glorified sales staff now."

"Most of the time they don't even bother with proper measurement for pd, frame width, or arm fitting."

"Was an optician in the early 90's."

"I'm horrified at what the business has become."- PolecatEZ

Truck Stop (the Madness)

"Trucking."

"The margins are razor thin and so everyone is trying to nickle and dime each other constantly."

"The drivers lie to their dispatchers, the dispatchers lie to the brokers, the brokers lie to the clients."

"All of this for like $50-100 sometimes."

LaquandaSchutt·

"I worked in trucking and the head HR lady for our distribution center was skimming payroll, shorting the checks of the lowest people on the totem pole, then getting cash infusions to petty cash from corporate to return part of the theft as an "emergency tide over" until the employee's next check, then claiming the rest of the theft as an overage on the next payroll report (I am probably missing a step in her chain but I am not an accountant)."

"It was a scam she managed to work for a couple of years due to a lack of oversight during nationwide management shifts. When she finally got caught, rather than take the bad publicity, the company just let her leave. The last I heard she was working in the same position in an adjacent industry, but still involving transportation. C'est la vie."

silversatire

Green Gold

"Avocado farms. Most of the farms in Central America are taken over by the cartel because of how much money is in selling avocados."

Theseapug

Puppy Mills

Pet industry. Basement puppy mills and dogs that are so inbred they can hardly breathe. There are plenty of ethical breeders out there (and some unlicensed breeders are ethical even if in a legal grey zone) but the conditions of some of the so-called puppy mills can be really bad. Sometimes when breeds are mixed and the pup gets the recessive genes the breeders weren’t looking for.. they straight up euthanize it because they know it won’t sell. Not to mention how many “purebreds” are actually not pure at all... and sold as is. Shady."

Agent-Tiberius

CBD

"CBD, lot of predatory companies making subpar products with questionable raw materials and then marking it way the fu*k up and selling it as a miracle cure to vulnerable and ill-educated consumers. Usually have a high power legal team on deck, but pay their workers sh*t and no benefits."

kindredfold

Take You To The Mattresses

"Worked in the mattress industry for a bit at a startup. Basically 90% bullsh*t. And the worst part? We had a real doctor serve an advisory role for our products. He debunked a lot of nonsense claims about mattresses like “your pillow is 50% of your spinal support” that the salespeople use to sell you accessories. The salespeople would argue with him, like they knew better. Kool-Aid is strong there."

"Some of my favorites I learned are: these hip direct-to-door in a box foam bed companies like Tuft and Needle use the same material, from the same manufacturer. There’s hundreds of them, just put them in different boxes and sell at wildly different prices."

“Side sleeper” “back sleeper” and “stomach sleeper” is baloney. You toss and turn at night on purpose, to help prevent blood clots."

"No mattress will keep you from “tossing and turning” for the reason above. It’s a natural thing you’re supposed to do."

"More layers DOESNT mean better mattress. A lot of companies add in cheap materials like upholstery foam to just claim there’s more layers. Maybe one layer of nice springs then just 10 layers of various types of cheap foam to get the layers higher."

"One that actually IS true is heat. If you frequently are hot at night, foam mattress is not good for you. It’s an insulator and will trap your heat on your body. In general, air and spring are better beds because of heat. Your body needs to dump temperature at night to get into a full, deep sleep. If it’s too hot, you won’t sleep well."

KourteousKrome·

All That Gitters

"Glitter."

"A manager of one of the biggest glitter manufacturers, Glitterx, said in a 2018 interview that most of the glitter they make goes to one buyer for a single industrial use. When asked who the buyer was and why they need so much glitter, she said “Oh, I definitely can’t disclose that.” When asked why, she said “Because they don’t want anybody to know it’s glitter.”

"Ever since this interview people have been trying to guess what company or industry secretly uses most of the world’s glitter and why they want to keep that use under wraps."

stebbi01

It's harder to avoid putting money in an industry to which we have numerous moral objectinons than we would like to admit.

But who knows if our favorite stores, which we frequent with regularity, are any better?

Maybe ignorance is bliss?

Or maybe we need to raise stronger objections....

The Worst Cases Of 'Rich Kid Syndrome' People Have Ever Seen

A Redditor asked: 'What’s the worst case of “rich kid syndrome” that you’ve ever seen?'

We are now aware that the distribution of wealth is severely skewed to the top one percent of the population, and rich people have a completely different perception of how the world works and what's "hard" than middle- and lower-class people do.

But what's so disheartening is how their beliefs and limited understanding of hardship trickle down to their children, and how those children are interacting in society is honestly shocking.

Redditor WaterWire asked:

"What's the worst case of 'rich kid syndrome' that you've ever seen?"

The Jet Doesn't Count

"I used to work with someone who proclaimed to be an environmentalist. She was very preachy."

"Once I had a can of Coke on my desk. She said, 'You're going to recycle that, right?'"

"She used her father's personal jet all the time. Once, just to fly from NYC to Boston to see a baseball game."

- LiterallyOutToLunch

Disposable Cars

"A girl I went to school with crashed and totaled six cars in three years and her parents continued buying her better newer cars because every accident 'wasn’t her fault' and if she had stuff like a backup camera and sensors they 'wouldn’t have happened.'"

"She got into a fender bender in the school parking lot and her dad showed up with a wad of cash and paid the other student off."

- nosenseofpermanence

A Simple Grade Change

"When I was in college for my grad degree and I was working as a T.A. (teacher's assistant), during a specific term I was helping my professor with some admin duties for one of his post-grad courses he taught for a different field than mine, and we had this one student who was arguing that she wanted a higher final grade than the one she had gotten."

"We listened to her explanation to see if there was any merit to her request and there was something that needed to be changed, but it basically boiled down to, 'I think my grade is too low and I deserve a higher grade because I say so,' and we simply told her that after reviewing her performance we could confirm that her final grade was correct and there was nothing to be done about it."

"She completely lost it and transformed into a Super Karen and after arguing for a bit, she stormed off and started emailing me and the professor and copying everybody in the email chain: her program director, the department head, the head of our registry office, Will Hunting, the security guard, the librarian, etc., and every email she sent was progressively ruder and more entitled than its predecessor because everybody kept telling her that she was unfortunately in the wrong and there was nothing to be done about it."

"Eventually, she sent a really smug email where she said something to the effect that since everybody was a dumba** and incompetent at our jobs, we had forced her to copy her father who was really close friends with the dean to the email, so we were f**ked and we had to do as she said or daddy would get us all fired. Keep in mind, this was a grad student in her mid-twenties."

"The highest ranking person in the email chain replied, reiterating that we were all very sorry, but she was in the wrong, her grade was correct, and it would not be changed."

"Then her father replied to the email chain and just said, 'There you go, dear. I hope you learn from this.'"

"She didn't reply anymore after her daddy's email, and the matter was closed. To this day, I like to imagine that dear old dad tore her a new one for dragging him into her bulls**t and making him look bad in front of a bunch of professors from a well-known university where his BFF was the dean because she, his grown-a** daughter, chose to behave like a spoiled brat."

- Tough_Stretch

First. World. Problems.

"I'll never forget a former friend stamping her foot and crying because 'Dad sold the jet and I have to take a commercial flight to our raaaaanch.'"

- tnrivergirl

The Cost of Priorities

"An 'Influencer' wondering why other people in their home country don't spend their life traveling like them."

- OrderIntegration

"I love the 'I’d rather have a passport full of stamps than a house full of expensive things!' schtick."

"Most of my furniture is from the free section of Craigslist and I would be thrilled if I ever get to a point where I can afford an international trip every few years."

- TogarSucks

No Help At All

​"Not me, but a friend of mine was an assistant trainer at a Panera store. They hired a teenager who was only working there to meet people, and one day had a group leave a huge mess in the dining room."

"Apparently the teen turned to my friend and said, 'Should we get the help to clean that?'"

"My friend had to explain that they were the help. He quit not long after."

- SailorVenus23

Garage Entitlement

"I was complaining about having to clear off my car from the foot of snow we'd gotten. A guy at work told me there was no way I had to clean off my car. I definitely did and it took a long time."

"Him: Well then, it's your own fault for not parking in the garage."

"Me: I don't have a garage."

"Him: Everyone has a garage."

"I'm like, look out the window next time you are driving?"

- Okay-Cheetah-9125

The Intrusive Thoughts Won

"A senior rich kid in my HS was driving his dad's Jaguar when his buddy asked him what would happen if he threw into reverse at 60 miles per hour. So they tried it and essentially blew the transmission and the motor up."

"A few months later, he got a Porsche for Christmas."

- New_Section_9374

Humbling Experiences

"I had a guy work for me in the military. He thought he didn’t have to do anything because his parents would just 'call their friends.' He ended up getting kicked out for LSD and cocaine use."

- ElfLordSpoon

"I did my mandatory military service when I turned 18, seven years ago. I cleaned s**t more than once, and my father had prepared me for it by saying, 'In the military, it doesn’t matter who you are, you’re still going to clean toilets.'"

"Only a few of my mates from back then knew who my family was and that was after a lengthy, alcohol involving, conversation/interrogation, lol (laughing out loud). You don’t wanna be standing out."

- RolexWearInGray

Unrealistic Shopping

"A therapist once asked me how much money I spent on clothes each year."

"I told her about 100 to 200 dollars, depending on the year and what was needed."

"Her response was, 'You can’t even get one dress for 100 dollars' and then proceeded to tell me that maybe I didn’t value myself enough."

"All I was thinking was, 'This b***h has never been to TJ Maxx?!'"

- FortunaLady

Very Different Backyards

"When I was in elementary school, this kid lived in the only gated community in the area, and the houses were all mansions. He was telling me a story about his tennis court in his courtyard."

"I said, 'Wait, you have a tennis court at your house?'"

"He looked genuinely shocked, and responded with, '…you don’t?'"

"It blew my mind as a little kid who had to share a room with my single mom, lol (laughing out loud)."

- Spare_Invite_8191

College Tuition

"Some girl in my college classes was genuinely shocked there were students who had to take out loans because their parents couldn’t afford to pay the 65 thousand dollars a year for tuition."

"I have a lot of extended family out in California who I’ve never met, but I sometimes hear stories from my parents who keep in touch with a few relatives out there."

"One of my distant cousins, who was like 17 at the time, intentionally totaled the new BMW his parents bought him because he wanted a Mercedes instead. Can’t remember if they ended up buying him that Mercedes or not, but they probably did. Sadly."

- Scortor

Exam Buyouts

"Rich Dude in my high school chemistry class flat out asked how big of a check his dad could write to get him out of taking a major test. He was serious. Nothing happened to him."

- GrayBox1313

Poor Packing Skills

"I had a friend who worked as a counselor at an American summer camp somewhere in Pennsylvania. He said that these kids would leave so much of their belongings because they couldn’t be bothered packing them up and they would just expect their parents to replace what they had left."

"He came away with Beats headphones, brand new shoes (although a few sizes too small), and gaming equipment."

"He also said that one day they were playing a game of flag football and one of the kids fell and grazed his cheek. This kid was some child model, so his parents had him HELICOPTERED OUT OF THE CAMP so he could get plastic surgery over the injury."

- amerika0210

Messy Kitchen Dilemma

"I had a roommate who would cook huge meals and destroy the kitchen. She would eat her meal and head to her room."

"A couple of hours later, she’d come out and be fully p**sed off that the kitchen was still a mess."

"She’d had servants most of her life and was now on her own."

- msjammies73

Though we know that the rich are often incredibly out-of-touch, these examples were still really surprising. Not only is their perception of money so different, but the disposable nature of big purchases, like vehicles, is just wild to think about.

It's easy to take our lives for granted and to forget how lucky we are in our own scenarios, but perhaps the rich experience this even more so.

Pair of scissors
Markus Winkler/Unsplash

According to the Cleveland Clinic, over 50 million men have had a vasectomy.

Although avoiding sexual intercourse is the only effective way to avoid pregnancy, the male birth control procedure still has a low failure rate.

Those who are apprehensive about having a vasectomy fear the following: pain, impact on sex life, effectiveness, and side effects like cancer. (The National Cancer Institute and the American Urological Association have found that the procedure does not increase the risk of prostate cancer).

To seek some reassurance, Redditor GaleNotTheWind asked:

"Men of Reddit who have gotten a vasectomy, what was your experience?"

Guys discuss what happened after the snipping.

Making Sure

"For the love of God, do the follow-up appointment. The last thing you want is to be accidentally playing with a loaded gun."

– sleepypanda59

Wise To Wait

"The paper work I got for mine which was done less than 2 weeks ago said that you could have sex 2-3 days after but... definitely said to wait another few days."

– SisterPhister666

Follow Post-Surgical Procedures Or Else

"Had it done twice while living in Japan no less. Why twice? The first one failed."

"... apparently, so did the second (says my now 6 year old daughter)."

– shoelessmarcelshell

These men found that the procedure itself wasn't a big deal.

Assurance

"I was super anxious, but I had a great procedure. I was more freaked out about the shot of numbing agent to the balls, but it was legit nothing to worry about."

– Reddit

Normal In No Time

"Little operation, blue balls and no wanking for a week, then back to normal but without getting anyone pregnant."

– Bright_Composer_3901

"Made the mistake of having a pop after a couple of days. Jesus, the regret."

– Alante

Best Money Ever Spent

"When I woke up after the anesthesia - yes I asked to be put under, best $55 (after insurance) I ever spent - the caffeine headache I had upon waking was the most painful part. The preoperative instructions were nothing but water the evening before, no water for 4 hours before going under. The Safeway brand cola that the angel aftercare nurse brought me was pure refreshment."

– HarrumphingDuck

Cherry On Top

"Local anesthesia stings for a second or two then all you can feel is tugging after all is done the pain I would describe is like blue balls for like 2 days tops. I took a week off work recommend by doctor since I’m a construction worker and the heavy lifting but I felt like after day 3 I was good to go. Cons: minor pain discomfort, no hanky panky until last semen sample came out clear. Pros: , no unplanned pregnancies(it’s still possible very rarely)."

– Secure_Requirement84

Some final thoughts.

Only Pros

"To me, the only bad part was the smell of the cauterization of my vas deferens.. the procedure was fine. Local anesthesia before and during just felt slight tugging no pain. Recovery was easy. No pain. No cons. Only pros. And if absolutely need be it’s reversible. Much easier and less invasive than a woman getting her tubes tied and significantly less harmful than birth control. I’m an advocate. Get it done!"

– PunchARacist

One Unsettling Thing

"For me, it wasn’t the smell but watching the little puffs of smoke during the cauterization. That was truly and deeply unsettling."

"Otherwise, yeah, nothing major to report. Stayed in bed for a day watching old horror movies and assembling a Lego plant. Pretty much business as usual after that."

– GuestCartographer

The One Constant

"Got a vasectomy, it worked. Got it reversed, that worked.... twice Got another vasectomy...17 years later, all good. Just go to a legit great Dr. I mean top of the field Dr. For ANY messsin around down there. Vasectomy is WAY easier now than 25-30 years ago. In/out in an hour... The only thing that hasn't changed? ... The bag of frozen peas ..😂"

– richwat00

Vasectomies are performed via two methods, the incision vasectomy or a no-scalpel vasectomy, and both use local anesthesia to numb the scrotum.

Always consult a healthcare provider before undergoing the procedure and–most importantly–make sure you don't want to have children or that you and your spouse don't want to add additional family members.

Based on the anecdotes above, there's nothing to fear, so feel free to man up and get to snipping.

gray conveyor between glass frames at nighttime
Tomasz Frankowski on Unsplash

I've always enjoyed a good scare on film and my Mother indulged my preferences as she also loved a good horror film.

While we thoroughly enjoyed a good Disney movie together, I was also allowed to watch Jaws, The Exorcist and The Omen before I was 10 years old.

Slashers and sci-fi frights were good, but to me the most effective scares involved nightmarish scenarios that might easily happen in the not so distant future.

For me, growing up Roman Catholic meant demonic possession and the AntiChrist were on the list of plausible fears.

But what films offered possible Hellscapes for others?

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wedding bands on dictionary
Sandy Millar on Unsplash

Infidelity in marriages isn't as widespread as people think. While some cynics would have us believe faithful partners are scarce, they account for over 4 out of 5 spouses.

Still, 16% of married couples in the United States admitted to being unfaithful at some point in their marriage.

And 57% of divorces were due to cheating.

In marriages where infidelity occurs, but doesn't result in divorce, the loss of trust is still a problem. It can make emotional and physical intimacy challenging.

So why do people cheat instead of ending their relationship before moving on?

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