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Local People Share Their Lesser Known Urban Legends In Their Community

Local People Share Their Lesser Known Urban Legends In Their Community

Local People Share Their Lesser Known Urban Legends In Their Community

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Where we live, there are tons of urban legends. Home happens to be in a town with a history of mob murders, drug smuggling, transients, and a seven-foot-tall sasquatch thing that lives in the swamp and supposedly smells kind of like feet, kind of like intense sour cream. When one Reddit user asked:

What is a famous Urban Legend of your country or town?

We wondered, are other people's urban legends as seemingly ridiculous as this one? The answer is yes. They're also sad, funny, kind of terrifying, and really interesting. We grabbed 20 of our favorites, including one about out precious "Skunk Ape", and put them here for you guys.

Poludnica

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Poludnica is like banshee's hotter sister that lives during the day. She's a spirit from Slavic mythology who's name can be translated to "Noon-lady". Basically she wanders on the fields during noontime and if she catches a farmer sleeping in the crops, she kills him by decapitation with a sickle. Also she kidnaps lost children and puts them in a large sack.

Virgin Graduation

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Kiev, Ukraine.

There's a ww2 monument with an old tank near main building of one of the universities. They say when a virgin graduates from the university, the tank makes a shot. Up to this day I've never heard of it shooting once.

Monkey Hangers

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Hartlepool, England.

During the napoleonic wars, allegedly a ship sank off the coast of my town. All of the crew supposedly died, with the exception of a monkey, who was dressed in a uniform. Having never seen a French man before, the kind people of Hartlepool held a tribunal on the beach and sentenced the poor monkey to death by hanging - for being a French spy. I went to college in Hartlepool and I was told by someone from the town that the 'monkey' was actually a little boy, and the story had been altered so people could tell it to each other without talking about kids dying.

Since then, people from my town, including myself, are nicknamed 'Monkey hangers'.

What makes it more amusing is that our local football team mascot was a monkey, and the guy in said outfit ran for mayor of the town.

He won.

Suicidal Dogs

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Overtoun Bridge.

There's a old house to the north of my hometown in Scotland called Overtoun House, and the legend goes that walking your dog along the bridge that leads up to the house will cause it to spontaneously leap to its death from the bridge.

This is an observable thing that actually has happened at least 50 times.

People will refuse to cross the bridge, as there are also people who report feeling suddenly and unexpectedly depressed after crossing.

There's an old Scottish myth of a "Thin Place" where the afterlife and the physical world are very close together; Overtoun Bridge is said to be one of these places.

There was a documentary on this bridge on National Geographic. If i recall correctly, there is a little stream below and the running water produces some kind of sound frequency which dogs can hear but not humans.

Also, from the bridge it looks to dogs that the bottom is not far down. The treetops just look like shrubs to them, and their curiosity about the sound frequency causes them to jump to investigate it - often to their deaths. There was one case where a dog survived after jumping off. An acoustic engineer went to the bridge and confirmed no strange sounds or tones - however an animal expert went, found a load of mink living there and did a field test with dogs. 80% of them went straight for the mink smell, the bridge blocks out the dogs hearing and sight, so their sense of smell goes into overdrive - they jump off the bridge looking for the minks

The Town That Fooled The British

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St. Michaels, Maryland. The legend is that when the British came in the war of 1812, we hung our lanterns from the trees instead of our houses and their cannonfire overshot our town entirely. The only house hit, the "Cannonball House", is a tourist destination. We are referred to as "The Town That Fooled The British", right on our sign welcoming you into the town.

Sadly, none of that happened. The house totally got hit, but we made up the bit about the lanterns to make the story cooler. We're the town that fooled the tourists.

Old Man Belfield

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Our University campus has an old homeless man that lives on it. He is absolutely harmless, never speaks, but always gives you a smile and a nod. He gets free meals and coffee in the canteen and spends his day ambling about the campus. There are loads of origin stories, He was a professor who had a break down/ When the restaurant came under new management they refused to feed him for free, the entire student body boycotted the place and he got his dinners.

No one knows who he is, what he did or why the university lets him stroll about. Every new generation has a new story and everyone loves "old man Belfield" In the 20+ years he's been about many people have tried talking to him, he never talks back, just smiles and nods.

Replacement Drowning

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If you see something in the water (like a lake or a river) that looks like human hair and you think it could be a dead body, you get the hell away from it. If you go check it out, you will drown. Dead bodies cannot stand upright in the water, so if it's a real dead body you'd see more than the hair.

Drowned spirits are stuck on earth and they have to get someone else to drown to 'replace' them in order to be free, so they lure people like that and drown them.

Kuldhara

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Urban Legend of Kuldhara, India.

Kuldhara village in Rajasthan, India was abandoned overnight leaving behind an entire village of crumbling homes and buildings. Legend has it that the ruler of the region took a keen interest in the daughter of the subjugated village chief, and to escape humiliation the entire village of 1500 disappeared overnight. It is said the village chief cursed the abandoned village, in a way that anyone who tried to inhabit it would die. Even today, visiting the village is only something the brave would try and staying the night is at one's own risk.

Members of the Paranormal Society of Delhi stayed the night and reported supernatural happenings such unexplained moving shadows, footprints, noises and touching.

Calypso's Cave

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I'm from Malta -- one of our islands, Gozo, is said to be the location of Calypso's cave in Homer's Odyssey. Gozo also hosts the world's oldest free standing structure, which is called Ggantija because it was believed to have been built by giants ("gganti" in Maltese).

The alleged cave isn't actually that impressive, even though Gozo is full of beautiful stone formations -- the most notable being the Azure Window in Dwejra, which served as the backdrop of Dany and Drogo's wedding

Purple Aki

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Purple Aki.

This one is really strange since EVERYONE in Liverpool has heard of or has stories of meeting purple Aki. It's even weirder that he's not really a myth, he actually exists. But everyone "knows someone" who was assaulted by him at one point or other. He's basically a huge gay black dude that's obsessed with bodybuilders and the likes who once made some young men literally squat him and that's where his infamy came from. It led to him being banned from a whole town and also not allowed to visit any gyms.

He's also banned from touching, squeezing, or measuring muscles. He's also responsible for the death of a young man who ran onto a train track to get away from him. Grizzly stuff. My favorite part of the BBC article is that after he was confined to prison, he insisted on measuring the inmates muscles with a shoelace.

Relentless!

The Cult

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In my town we have The Cult.

It's a really big house with super tall fences topped with barbed wire. There's hedges planted around it so you can't see into the property, gates with cameras and guards at the front. Armed guards walk around (or at least used to, I haven't been out there in ages) the fences and none of the neighbors mow all the way to the fence line. Supposedly vans come and go out of the place all hours of the night certain times of the year.

The place has been an urban legend here since my mom was a kid, and for the life of me I've never been able to figure out who owns the place.

Charlie No-Face

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Raymond "Ray" Robinson (October 29, 1910 -- June 11, 1985) was a severely disfigured man whose years of nighttime walks made him into a figure of urban legend in western Pennsylvania. Robinson was so badly injured in a childhood electrical accident that he could not go out in public without fear of creating a panic, so he went for long walks at night.

Local tourists, who would drive along his road in hopes of meeting him, called him The Green Man or Charlie No-Face. They passed on tales about him to their children and grandchildren, and people raised on these tales are sometimes surprised to discover that he was a real person who was liked by his family and neighbors.

Ol' Green Eyes

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Green eyes. I live near the Chickamauga Battlefield and there is an old story of a ghost soldier. You can ride through the battlefield at night and sometimes you'll see a pair of green eyes and that's the dead soldier. It's actually just deer.

It's a fun story that parents tell their kids so when they drive through at night, they look for green eyes and then freak out when they see them. I LOVED driving through at night trying to spot Ol' Green Eyes.

The Library

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The library in my hometown is attached to a 200+ year old mansion that was said to be haunted. Specifically, the attic, which is huge and shadowy and tends to collect dead pigeons. The local paper even did a story about the supposed haunting, with photo 'proof'. The library did lock-in nights in the summer and they'd tell scary stories in the attic, which wasn't so bad because you were with a group.

I ended up working at the library and would have to go up in the attic, alone, at night to make sure no one stayed behind after we closed. The attic had a gated stairway with a lock, and a few times when I was up there, alone in the house, I'd hear it bang shut.

"Tabi-tabi Po"

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Here in my country, there is a legend that if you pee in nature (i.e. bush, side of tree, mound of soil) you have to say "Tabi-tabi po" which means "Step aside please" or "Excuse me please" or else the mythical creatures residing there will curse your genitals and make you sick until you die.

Jersey Devil

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The Jersey Devil. Mrs. Leeds had 12 children, out of frustration she cursed the 13th. When it was born it changed into a devil, flew up the chimney, and has haunted Jersey since.

I live in the middle of the Pinelands and have ALWAYS been terrified of the Jersey Devil. My dad once took us out to watch a meteor shower. We went out into the middle an areas with absolutely no lights, just scrubby pine trees all around in order to see the sky better. The second I got out of the car, you could feel something else there. I made it ten steps out of the car when I heard cracking branches in the woods not far behind me. At first I thought that it was a coyote, so I spun around.

Through the trees I saw the flash of something run away mostly upright, so definitely not a coyote. I wasn't willing to take a chance that it was my imagination, I turned around and legged it back to the car and stayed there for the remainder of the time. I still won't drive down that area at night.

No way, no how.

Fairies

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I grew up in a small rural village in Ireland (still in Ireland, just in the city now). There's some woods up the hill across from my parents' house that has a fairy ring it. Our elderly neighbour Jim once told us that he wandered into the woods one night when he was a teenager, and wasn't able to find his way out until morning because the fairies trapped him. There's also a story of a banshee residing there, which terrified my sister.

I think every town in Ireland has a story about fairies that trap them in fields. My great grandfather claimed fairies trapped him in, had nothing to do with the fact that he was pissed as a fart, nothing at all.

Loup Garou

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In Louisiana, we have about a hundred of these urban legends. When you combine the Creole voodoo culture with the folk-tale-loving Cajun population with the still-standing plantation homes and reminders of slavery's legacy here with the former War of 1812 / Civil War battlefields with the fact that our capital was largely built on Native American burial grounds, you're going to get a nice medley of the supernatural. The haunted plantation homes, the Civil War ghosts, the pirate ghosts, the haunted tunnels under LSU (a secret CIA base?), and Scooby Doo on Zombie Island all come to mind.

My favorite is the Loup-Garou (also called Rougarou). It's a werewolf that would prowl the swamps of south Louisiana and outside New Orleans and prey on bad kids. It would also hunt down and kill Catholics who weren't following the rules of Lent. And if you were attacked by the loup-garou, you would become one (but only at night) if you told others about it.

Skunk Ape

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Skunk Ape. Imagine a kind of Bigfoot dude that looks more like a gorilla and lives in the Everglades of Florida and smells like sh!t. Yep.

Moonrakers

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People from my home county of Wiltshire are sometimes referred to as "moonrakers". There's a legend stating that during the 18th century when smuggling was common in the west country, smugglers would hide barrels of French brandy in a local pond or lake, which they would fish out of the water after dark using rakes.

One night, the smugglers were caught in the act by the police and when asked what they were doing, they said that they were trying to rake in the wheel of "cheese" that was floating in the water. The "cheese" was actually the reflection of the moon in the water and assuming the smugglers were simpletons, the police went on their way, oblivious to what the smugglers were really doing.

H/T: Reddit

Secrets About The Food Industry They Don't Want You To Know

Reddit user Lilyxrx asked: 'What’s a secret the food industry don’t want you to know?'

Assortment of various food
Photo by Jimmy Dean on Unsplash

Whenever we go out to eat, be it at a fine dining establishment or a quick service window, some of us tend to wonder what the journey was for the food that we are looking at on our plates or in our take-out bags.

Many have similar thoughts when buying frozen or pre-packaged dinners at supermarkets.

The answers aren't always readily available, often because the food service industry will go to great lengths to keep them under lock and key. Well aware, most of the time, that current or former employees will spill the beans at one point or another.

Redditor Lilyxrx was curious to hear some of the most well guarded secrets of the food industry, leading them to ask:

"What’s a secret the food industry don’t want you to know?"

Next Time Your Craving Bananas Foster...

"The 'natural flavors' are just big jugs of glycerin with hyper concentrated flavoring in it."

"Banana flavoring is fairly flammable."

"Source: Worked in food manufacturing."- irony_in_the_UK·

Cholesterol Be Darned!

"Chef here."

"It’s salt and fat."

"If you have a question about anything it’s salt and fat."- LongRest

For Efficiency's Sake...

"Olive Garden makes all their necessary pastas for the whole day from 8-10am every morning."

"Partially cooked."

"So when an order comes through, they grab a serving of the needed pasta style and flash cook them in hot water."

"Also, it’s just the brand, Barilla."- Deerhunter86

Justin Bieber Food GIFGiphy

Before You Pay The Extra Money...

"Beekeeper checking in."

"There is no such thing as organic honey."

"I do not treat my bees with chemicals, but I have no idea where they get their nectar."

"A bee can fly up to three miles from a hive to get nectar."

"It is virtually impossible to guarantee they have not gotten nectar from a chemically treated source."- toad__warrior·

If You Ever Wonder What Makes It Taste So Good...

"Unless it’s a health conscious food joint you’re eating at, the food we serve is designed for maximum taste."

"It’s either dense with fat and sugar, or fat and salt "

"E.G. Those mashed potatoes you like?"

"Made with cream, butter, and salt."

"The quiche?"

"Made on cream, not milk."

"Etc, etc."- petuniasweetpea

Before You Start Bragging...

"Dragon fruit isn’t an exotic Asian fruit."

"It’s a cactus fruit, and as such are native to the Americas and can even be grown in the US."- ferretmonkey

dragon fruit GIF by Feliks Tomasz KonczakowskiGiphy

In Case You're Wondering why That Taste Is So Familiar...

"A lot of the processed cheese and cream cheese is all the same recipe we just switch the labels and packaging for the different brands we run."

"Source: I work in a cheese factory in a company that services 75% of America's domestic market."- anon5678903276

Another Reason To Have No Guilt Over Take Out...

"Well."

"I work at Dominos, and we are kept afloat by the people who don't coupon and pay full menu price."

"You people are the unsung heroes of labor."- LoweeLL

Unlike Any Chocolate...

"When I worked at a mass production bakery the chocolate for the chocolate covered doughnuts came in giant frozen blocks of 4x4 pieces and contained no actual chocolate what so over."

"When unfrozen it was like some sort of nasty smelling paraffin wax that I would break up with a hammer and place into a melter that would then pour over the doughnuts."- gil_beard

Chocolate Dessert GIF by HuffPostGiphy

What Do Orange Juice And Whiskey Have In Common?

"The reason orange juice tastes consistently the same year round, even though it's a crop harvested once a year, is because citrus oils and citrus flavor are added back to different batches and blended all together."

"Similar to how whiskey is blended from multiple barrels to make it consistent."

"The difference is that even though extra stuff is added back into the OJ, it doesn't need to be labeled because the flavors contain all ingredients from oranges (FTNF-from the named fruit) so the FDA doesn't mandate labeling additional ingredients."- PensiveDoughnut

Does That Explain Their Shape?

"Pringles (and baked Lays/similar) are made of rehydrated and compressed rejected/excess parts of potatoes that go into regular chips."

"I learned that from my dietician at work and thought that was odd."

"I still like them over regular chips."- bluesasaurusrex

A Secret Better Not Known...

"The 11 herbs and spices secret recipe."- NemoTheOneTrueGod

Food Pouring GIF by Great Big StoryGiphy

Just Pop It In The Fryer...

"I was a young lad working at Church's Fried Chicken during the summer, many years ago."

"The owner refused to throw out chicken that had already gone bad; to the point where you'd gag if you smell them."

"Apparently if you batter them bad boys up and deep fry them, the rancid smell goes away."

"His customers never knew they were eating spoiled chicken."- Dirt_E_Harry·

Sweet... But Safe!

"The amount of sugar that goes into Costco bakery products is absurd, especially the apple pie."

"That being said; Costco does not f*ck around when it comes to food safety."

"Every area that is responsible for producing food is most likely cleaner than a white room for producing computer parts."

"There are virtually zero roaches, we found one in the bakery once and shut it down until the exterminator did his thing that very night."

"Someone returned a package of dinner rolls because their child had bit into one and a sharp piece of metal was in it, within less than 2 minutes every manager in the building was doing an investigation that led all the way up to the regional manager and his boss for several hours and determined that it had come off of a piece of machinery before it reached our location."

"We throw away rotisserie chickens if they have left (even for a few minutes) the shelf and someone tries to put it back."- Deathnachos

Costco GIF by hero0fwarGiphy

We'd like to think that everyone who works in the food industry shares the same high standards.

But, as in any industry, there are those out there who will cut corners for speedier results.

On the bright side, it does save you the trouble when deciding what cream cheese to buy...


Two people look over paperwork on a desk
Photo by Romain Dancre

Loopholes are everywhere.

But finding them can be time-consuming.

Or they can be a straight-up accident.

Sometimes corporations don't even realize the ways they've given out great deals.

In the early days of the internet, scheming for loopholes was a favorite pastime, but companies caught on.

They're still out there though, just waiting to be discovered.

Redditor Aarunascut wanted to discuss the best "deals" they've stumbled upon and utilized, so they asked:

"What was a loophole that you found and exploited the hell out of?"

I love a good loophole.

I would always use the free gym trial memberships.

They've caught on now by using better tracking.

Alas...

Rinse & Repeat

coins GIFGiphy

"You used to be able to order dollar coins from the mint."

"Pay for it on your credit card, free delivery."

"Get sky miles."

"Take dollar coins to the bank, deposit, and pay off bills."

"Repeat."

AMLT1983

I Love Pizza

"I run a recycling center and when Mountain Dew did the win an Xbox One with codes under the soda bottle caps we got a total of 20 Xbox ones. Every worker got one that year. Also, Casey’s Pizza had a thing going that you collected 10 tabs off the large pizza box you’d get a free pizza. We had free pizzas weekly for years till they stopped doing it."

Otis_Firefly

Her Code

"During my first year teaching, teachers were each allowed 1500 photocopies a month. I had 150 students. That wasn't enough. One day, a coworker announced that she was leaving for a different opportunity. I asked her for her copier code. They never deleted her code, so I had 3000 copies per month for the last 5 months of the school year."

driveonacid

Sacagawea

"Older vending machines like the ones in my high school and car wash used to take golden dollars (yes, the Sacagawea coin), count them as a dollar and then spit them back out. You could buy the whole machine with one golden dollar. My friends and I exploited this for 7 months senior year until they swapped all of the machines out."

MapUnitKey

"Interestingly almost all of the US dollar coins ended up in Ecuador as they also use the US dollar. It was super weird but convenient as an American going there and I guess it really messed up their economy. I had always wondered where they disappeared to though. Major issues with counterfitting them too, any shiny one was basically useless even if it was real."

ember3pines

Coded

Girl Cheese GIF by Pizza HutGiphy

"When Pizza Hut first started online ordering they gave me a code for a free pizza for ordering online for the first time. Turns out the code also worked if you just ordered as a guest and kept working."

Stone_Reign

I miss the Pizza Hut deal days.

Online coupons used to give away the whole company.

$1.50

Make It Rain Loop GIF by Chris TimmonsGiphy

"My bank thinks the vending machine at work is an ATM and refunds my 'atm fee' automatically... Chase bank if anyone wondered. I noticed I was always getting like $1.50 returned to my account here and there and then I realized what it was."

homerinthebushes

Past Services

"Back in the 80s, we found vending machines that were not regularly serviced that would overflow the coin box and spill quarters on the floor. We used to scrape them out from under the machine with a stick. Was a good time to be a latchkey unattended minor."

weakplay

"Vending machines in college (Ireland early 2000s) had a flap at the bottom that was supposed to stop you reaching your arm up to steal. But it also had a sensor used to determine if had something been dispensed. So if you held it shut, the machine would think nothing had dropped and you could order as many things as you wanted, then refund your coins and release the flap."

BrianHenryIE

Senior Year

"My senior year of high school a Chick-fil-A opened in our town and to advertise the grand opening they put a free chicken sandwich coupon in the yellow pages of the phone book. No purchase, no stipulations. For whatever reason there were like 1,000 phone books stored in a storeroom off the gym. Me and my buddies ate a chicken sandwich damn near every single day of senior year."

Panther90

Switched with Michelle

"At a former job management rearranged the schedules to expand our call center hours from 7 am to 9 pm. It was still an 8-hour day, you just started later. We had a meeting to discuss if we could pick our own hours so employees didn’t run the risk of working until 9 pm then having to be back the next day at 7 am. Management gave us a hard no-on that. But we were allowed to swap with a co-worker."

"A few of us got together to review the monthly schedule and noticed that 5 people were in the rotation who hadn’t worked there for years. (Seriously!). So, whenever we had to work a late schedule that we didn’t want we 'switched with Michelle.' This went on for almost 2 years before management scrapped the whole idea."

Crazy_from_the_heat

The King

burger king GIFGiphy

"Burger King used to have an app where you’d shake your phone and it would sometimes display a free item. A guy at work wrote his own app that looked identical to Burger King, but would only ever show a Whopper Meal. Every lunchtime he’d go to Burger King and get a free meal."

RedLeader7

I love a free meal.

Especially a free meal at any "cost!" LOL.

couple painting room
Roselyn Tirado on Unsplash

A pet peeve is defined as something a person finds especially annoying.

These tend to vary from person to person which makes them a frequent issue in relationships. From small habits to major personality traits, it's hard to know what will set someone else off.

A partner's interesting quirks or routine habits might inadvertently get on their significant others last nerve.

Keep reading...Show less

It feels like the workplace is constantly changing, especially since the pandemic, with more people working from home, more systems being automated, and more social pressure for workplaces to evolve.

But it's even more jarring to think of how much the workplace has changed for those who have been in the workforce for many decades and how seemingly every aspect of their work has changed... at least once.

Redditor LightningStrikes818 asked:

"Redditors who are 50 years old or older, what has changed the most about working when you started working vs. working nowadays?"

Dress Codes

"Skirts/dresses and pantyhose required of women in many offices through the 1990s."

- hhhmmm0

"Flipside: suits and ties, buttoned-up shirts. Brutal in summer."

- ridleyfiredome

"Pantyhose were high maintenance. I had to have an extra pair in my desk drawer in case of a major run. I had clear nail polish at home and work to stop any runs above the hemline."

"Pantyhose were expensive, I had nice department store hose for special occasions, and bulk mail order hose for daily wear. They had to be washed in mesh bags and hung to dry."

"In the summer I’d get swamp crotch when it was hot and humid, and heat rash on my thighs where they rubbed."

"Heels had to be polished and the heel tips replaced at the shoe shop. Most office clothes were dry clean only, and it was expensive, and yet another errand. Office clothes were expensive, I didn’t have many clothes, I had to plan what to wear and time the dry cleaning."

"I don’t miss the nightmare of heels and hose from the 80’s."

- phineasminius

Electrical Transfer, Who?

"Having to go to the bank to cash my paycheck."

- Cndngirl

"Oh my god, yes, and we needed to wait until after 3:00 PM to cash it."

- Big-Reflection-104

Work and... Strip Clubs?

"We took a company van with a logo on it to take out-of-town guests to a strip club. I don’t even think I can say that out loud at work today."

- scruffles360

"Strip clubs were standard practice. Especially in sales. Many deals closed in those places over my career."

- YOU_WONT_LIKE_IT

Smoking Spaces

"People smoking indoors. Clouds of smoke everywhere in the office and no way for a nonsmoker to avoid it. That was the norm so you just had to suck it up."

- andBobsyourcat

"Yes, at one stage I had the misfortune of sitting next to someone who used to smoke a pipe. I could barely see my computer screen at times for the clouds of smoke."

"Also, the IT support guy would come over to do something and he always had a cigarette dangling from his lips, dropping ash into my keyboard. Urgh! Different times!"

- MickSturbs

Office Parties of Old

"Man, in state government, all the older employees have similar stories of work parties in the 90s. Booze everywhere, smoking, people dancing, and having fun. Everyone brought their spouses, etc."

"Now you're lucky if you see a Christmas cake. People wonder why everything feels like it's coming apart at the seams and people are so unhappy. That aspect of being a human being fun, even at work is gone."

- t00sl0w

"I'm a millennial in industrial equipment sales, and it genuinely feels like you showed up to a party about an hour after everyone was gone."

"Nowadays, I can't even have a beer with dinner and expect to expense it."

- titsmuhgeeee

"Oh man, the office Christmas parties then, versus now?? Forget about it. Like comparing a wedding to a funeral."

- Schyznik

Safety Precautions

"I'm 42 but feel like I want to chime in."

"Health and safety has changed loads. You wouldn't get away with half the sh*t we did when I was 17."

- section4

Constantly, Always Sitting

"I watched office work go from sedentary to virtually immobile. We used to retrieve paper files, pass memos around, and consult with coworkers in other sections and floors."

"Now everything is available on the screen in front of us, everything can be shared with a few clicks. It’s convenient, but so unhealthy."

- MathematicianWitty23

What's a Pension Again?

"Hardly anybody has a pension anymore."

- whitewolfdogwalker

"That's where I feel really lucky to be in Australia, we have mandatory superannuation (a percentage of your pay plus employer contribution goes into a fund for your retirement) and most people will also qualify for an age care pension in addition to their super."

"The pension isn't really enough for our current seniors who don't have much super (due to the timeline of when it was introduced) but generations after that should be relatively well set up for retirement."

- TheGardenNymph

Work Availability in General

"I'm in the UK."

"It was a great deal easier to find work. You'd get vacancies posted in various places and could go down to the Job Centre, browse vacancies posted on postcards on boards, pick out the jobs you were interested in, and get a member of staff to arrange an interview for you. Just like that."

"Dress codes were more formal and you actually had to go to work. If you worked in an office for the right company work finished Friday lunchtime when you'd go with your colleagues to the pub. You'd go back after the 'liquid' lunch hour and work Friday afternoon, but no sh*t got done and work piled up for Monday."

"You got paid either direct debit, cash or if you were unlucky by cheque. You had to deposit your cheque in the bank or building society and wait for the cheque to clear, usually four days, but sometimes 10 days. If you got paid cash you'd get it in a small brown envelope known as a wage packet which listed all deductions on the outside. It still felt good to tear open the wage packet and take out the cash."

- ElvishMystical

The Value of Employees

"That you chose a career, and you worked for an employee, and they valued your experience. You rose in the ranks of your profession, you became a valued team member, and you stayed until you retired."

"Changing jobs often is frowned on; if you make a job commitment, you follow through on it. People get bothered and quit/move/change really quickly now. That's not necessarily bad, but it has created a gap in expertise; everyone is new all the time, and there isn't any value in having experience."

"If you happen to be an elder in your field with some level of legacy knowledge; it doesn't seem to matter because your boss is likely younger than you and less experienced."

"There used to be jobs what you did to get paid and live, and careers, what you did because you wanted to invest time into being good at something, AND that was how you made a living."

"Moreover, you went to school to be in a career. So you put time and energy into attaining your job, therefore you'd want to stay in it and grow. In theory."

"I'm not sure anyone cares about being in a career anymore. Because we all feel so betrayed by the system; wages not keeping up with COL, inflation, (and inflation subsiding and prices staying high because it's what the market will bear), and when everyone is replaceable, then no one is an expert."

"I'm GenX. I work in healthcare. I work in a broken system that no one actually wants to fix. Those of us working in this system are now just grist for the mill. It's too bad because we spent a lot of time and money going to school to be able to work in our chosen field."

"In contrast, my mom was also a nurse. She had a career. She worked in it until she was 70 and retired. She worked with a team that mostly stayed the same, over decades. I don't work with anyone I started with at my job six years ago."

- bunnehfeet

Business Phones

"People used to answer their business phones."

- BornFree2018

"Oh my god, work landline numbers. I never see those anymore. I don’t even have a phone number in my email signature at work anymore."

"And business cards used to be such a big deal. I used to get really excited to see my name and title in print. I would always send my parents one when I got a new job. What a dork!"

- ptpoa120000

What Work-Life Balance?

"There was a lot more understanding back in the 80's and 90's that each employee had a life outside of work, and work would end at 5:00 PM. You could leave work and go do something that you liked, maybe a martial arts class or some learning workshop somewhere."

"There were no phone calls. Text messages and email hadn't happened yet. Pagers were rare. People were in better shape. They had time to workout and were encouraged by their bosses to go do something to keep in shape."

"These days, it's the opposite. There's no encouragement from your boss or your coworkers other than to just work around the clock. You're never 'off.' Emails, text messages, Slack messages, video calls, and 'tickets' from your company's internal issue tracking system come in at all hours of the day."

"You're tracked in every way possible these days. You're given impossible deadlines. It now takes incredible willpower to break free and 'sneak' away to go workout. You're exhausted all the time, so you lose the desire to workout. You just want sleep."

"Instead of meeting up with friends somewhere for dinner, you are happy to just get home, get something hot to eat from your microwave, and numb yourself by watching YouTube and Reddit."

"What you do now during your downtime is very low quality and is just done to unwind from the stress that follows you no matter where you are. They call this Flex Time, and its purpose is ostensibly to give you the ability to walk away from your work and go enjoy life. Funny."

- mhv64sj

New Measures of Success

​"Working for a company for many years was seen as honorable and a sign you were a good worker."

"Now it’s viewed as someone complacent, scared of change, and stupid for not salary hopping."

"I don’t disagree, though; I’ve been at my company for a long time and it’s anything but complacent and always changing."

- MysteryMeat11

"This is why we in-betweeners especially (between gen-x and millennial) have been conflicted and confused about it all. We were raised by older boomers and heard it's best to stay with companies because it looks bad on resumes to not and can even affect your buying things like houses and cars."

"But then when we did, we were let go during times like the recession and cutbacks having to start all over again, on top of not getting raises like the new hires and then confused because we were told staying and being loyal looked good and led to success."

- fidgetypenguin123

A Literal Paper Trail

"Paper. Lots of paper."

"Before email, there were people (secretaries or admins) who would take a memo someone printed out on their computer, make physical copies, and either walk around to every executive’s desk, or put into inter-office mail. This memo could be to a few people, one person, or for a general announcement needed to go to everyone."

"For expediency, these memos would also be posted in public areas (lunchroom, messaging board) if it was a general notice. These memos were often routed from the head manager throughout the department if it was more for general information."

"We once had a wave of new hires (about 20 people in our company of 400) and each got their own announcement. So, 20 people and 50 copies was two reams of paper. Copied. Hand carried or inter-department mailed. For one set of announcements."

"Oh, and each department admin had their own routing slip (small piece of paper with each person in the department’s name) that was stapled to the announcement. When you got the memo, you read it, crossed your name off, and gave it to the next person on the list."

"That’s where 'they must not have gotten the memo' comes from."

- UncleGizmo

It's interesting to look back on how things have changed. While some things have definitely improved, like improved safety precautions and more relaxed attire, other things like a sense of work-life balance have certainly declined.

If people were able to choose their working conditions, it'd be interesting to see if they'd choose today's working conditions or a different work-life balance...