Top Stories

People Divulge The Most Little-Known Disturbing Facts

CW:Suicide

There is so much to learn in life.

And once you acquire certain things mentally, you regret it.

How much 411 have you come across over time that made you think... "How can I unlearn that?"

Yeah, not possible.

Knowledge is power and sometimes it's a nightmare.

Don't we have enough to keep us up at night?

Damn curiosity.

Well let's do some learning.

RedditorRedBoyFromNewy wanted to shed some light on creepy issues we need to be discussing. They asked:

"What’s a disturbing fact that not a lot of people know of?"

So who is ready to spill, and where do you find the info?

From the Guts

Basketball Wives Ugh GIF by VH1Giphy

"Without mucus your stomach would digest itself."

Ddubsquizzee

"The reason you body produces more saliva before vomiting is your bodies way if protecting your mouth from the acidity of the vomit before you actually throw up."

-AntiVegan-

Death

"There are more suicides than homicides in the US every year."

tmsanch

"60% of all gun deaths in fact are suicides. It is estimated that someone offs themselves with a firearm every 20 minutes in the US. And 80% of them are males."

hymnsees

"And what's worse (knowing, as my family just went through this.)... 70% of suicides have no note. It's a common misconception that most people leave a note and it just isn't true. Mainly because a lot of people who write notes realize they don't want to go through with it. Those who are 'successful' just do it."

jdward01

After...

"You can give still 'birth' if you die while pregnant. The decomp process will force the baby out. It’s rare but it does happen."

MelissaAthalie

"This is usually what ends up happening when a pregnant woman gets murdered. They usually find the fetus either completely separate (like in the Lacy and Connor Peterson case) or in the same location as the mother, but clearly birthed (like with the case with Shanann Watts). It's something I never knew happened until very recently and I think it's one of the most horrifying aspects of death."

rivlet

Disaster

"The deadliest ship disaster was the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship built during the Nazi Regime. In January 1945, she was evacuating 10,000 German citizens ahead of the soviet Invasion when (albeit ironically) a Soviet Submarine spotted them, and fired three torpedoes. The ship was on the freezing cold Baltic Sea, and the davits (ropes) for the lifeboats had frozen over."

"Not only that, but the ship was only meant to carry 2,000 people normally. These two factors, coupled with the harsh angle the ship was sinking at, meant only half of the lifeboats could be deployed. 9,400 people drowned to death that night, and nobody knows about it."

TheNonbinaryWren

I See You

Kung Fu Wtf GIF by A24Giphy

"Your eyes have a separate immune system than the rest of your body, and if your normal immune system ever learns about your eyes, it will target them and you'll go blind."

hiruko_uchiha

Oh my eye. How do we protect them? As if I don't have enough stress.

Launched

Stanley Cup Nhl GIF by GIPHY Studios OriginalsGiphy

"Penguins can launch their poop out of their butts like 5-6m far."

Bela_hrn

Despair

"Cotard's delusion, also known as walking corpse syndrome, is a neuropsychiatric disorder in which the person is in eternal damnation. They literally believe they are dead or dying [or don't have organs], the amount of despair is unimaginable and simply can't be grasped by people not suffering from it."

SweetTimpaniofLogic

'hard problem'

"It may seem like we know a lot about the human brain, but our standard way of studying brain activity is an fMRI, where a single pixel contains over 3 million neurons. That is more than many vertebrate animals' entire brains. The truth is, we really have no idea how the brain gives rise to consciousness."

"Edit: Even if we somehow perfectly worked out all the neural correlates of consciousness so we could say a mental state happens if and only if some exact pattern of brain activity happens, we would still have the 'hard problem' of consciousness: Why do these physical processes give rise to raw subjective experience, rather than just happening 'in the dark?'"

zeugenie

2 Minutes...

"If your esophagus closes and you cannot swallow, you have about 2 minutes before saliva starts reaching your windpipe. It is not a long time, but it is long enough to panic..."

grat_is_not_nice

"I have Eosiniphillic Oesophagitis and have had food stuck in the oesophagus for up to 24 hours before. And it’s horrible. You don’t realise how much saliva you swallow, to be constantly choking and vomiting that back up isn’t the best experience!"

AwayFollowing554

Get Lucky

Prayer GIFGiphy

"You’ve probably been closer to dying multiple times in your life then you even know. Just got lucky, or unlucky depending on who you are."

GingeBeardManBro

Well that's enough to disrupt sleep for life. Thanks y'all.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

Want to "know" more?

Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.

Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.

Weird Jobs Almost No One Knows About That Pay Surprisingly Well

Reddit user Rynoop asked: 'What are weird jobs nobody knows about but they pay well?'

woman writing on notes on window
Magnet.me on Unsplash

Growing up, kids talk about the jobs they want as adults.

Once they become adults, they select career paths or cycle through a variety of jobs.

Most people find mainstream jobs, but some luck into really unique professions.

Keep reading...Show less

We've all made our fair share of mistakes; it's in our nature, honestly.

Sometimes we mess up so badly, it can ruin other things in our lives, like important relationships or our jobs.

But some people have messed up so badly at work that they lost their jobs in record time.

Ready to hear the tea, Redditor mango-chocolate asked:

"What's the quickest way you saw a coworker get fired?"

Check Your Pride

"In my old law office, a firm-wide email was sent out announcing the arrival of a new employee. We will call him Paul."

"So Paul decided to reply-all to let all of us know that he was aware of our recent legal defeats, that many people should be fired for these failures, and that his hiring was the first good thing our firm had done in years."

"The dude was a legal assistant right out of college with no experience."

"A minute after the email went out, I heard a crazy shout and then watched one of the senior partners run past my office towards HR (Human Resources)."

"And five minutes later Paul walked past with the HR manager and a security escort. He lasted less than 45 minutes."

- Left_Apparently

Lotto Fraud

"I worked at a lotteries company. A guy working in testing got access to production data and printed off some test tickets with some unclaimed winning numbers."

"He only did low amounts, like 500 dollars, and claimed three of them in three completely different locations around town."

"Of course, the company was interested in the story of someone who found a six-month-old lottery ticket and claimed it, but they were even more interested to find it was the same person going to three locations."

"Needless to say, when they realized the guy actually worked in the company, he got pulled into a room with cops a-waiting him."

- ThroughTheHoops

Weird Brag

"I worked at a bank, we were robbed at gunpoint. One of the tellers was quick to tweet out, 'Woooo, got the rest of the day off!! Feel free to visit me at work with a gun and ski mask anytime!'"

"They were fired upon walking in the next morning."

- seastrat

Totally Stopped Production

"An id**t pressed the emergency stop for fun on his second day at work."

"The emergency stop that he hit switches off all drives on the 100-meter-long paper machine. This means there is a loss of production for three to four hours for the entire paper mill."

"He was immediately escorted from the factory premises by two colleagues."

- daHawkGR

No Point Taking That Test

"I had a coworker get picked for a random drug test. She went back to her desk to grab her purse, and just left the building, never to return."

- brytewolf

Yes, That's What We Meant

"The boss sat her down to talk about her recent behavior at work."

"She whipped out her phone and started taking a video, saying that it was her right to record for 'when it goes to court.'"

"The boss said, 'Okay, this is the kind of stuff I’m talking about, you’re fired.'"

"This was at a Domino’s Pizza."

- kenb99

New Definition for "Side Hustle"

"Evidently, they robbed a bank on their lunch break."

"They came back like nothing happened, and then the cops showed up and took him down. It was crazy."

- Bob_the_Brewer

Quite the First Impression

"Pulling into the parking lot on the first day, she ran into a light pole that took out electricity to the whole site."

"She wasn't wearing a seat belt and was thrown into the front window."

"When we went out to see what had happened, she reeked of booze and there were empty liquor bottles in the back of the car."

"She never even made it to the front door, got a guest badge, or started her orientation training."

- LowBudgetViking

Haunting Upcharges

"When I was in high school, I used to do seasonal work at haunted houses which I did for four years."

"A new guy that they hired was supposed to help with parking. Now, in the three years that I worked at this haunted house, they never once charged people for parking (it was a very dark parking lot off of a cliff so had to make sure no one drove off of it trying to park)."

"This cheeky son of b***h started charging people five dollars to park."

"It was only found out after someone complained because they didn't have the money to go in with their friends because they had to pay for parking. I think the guy was only there a couple of hours before he got fired."

- rpgmomma8404

Missed the Training

"They got hired and then fell asleep during a meeting their first day and were asked not to come back."

- Snowstorm-3

"Same here. At a tech company, they hired a new developer, and the owner caught him napping at a desk on day one when he was supposed to be reviewing training materials."

"The owner had a chat with him, and told him whatever the reason, it was really bad form to fall asleep on the job on the first day."

"The new hire apologized, understood, and went back to the training materials. Not 20 minutes later, the owner walks by again and the guy is passed out once again, so he walked over, woke him up, and told him he was fired and to get out."

"I don't even think he made it to his fourth hour of employment."

- badtz-maru

Highly Questionable Explorations

"Early in my career I was an engineer at a refinery in the UK, and I was in charge of the QC lab. By law, we had to have external independent testing on the refinery fuel products to confirm they complied with government regulations."

"It seemed getting a job for the testing company was that you had to be an adult and had a driving license. The lab had a lot of very nasty chemicals either being tested or used in the testing or cleaning of the oil products."

"A new young girl turned up for the testing company and was dipping her finger into a chemical called phenol and stating that 'it makes your hand and arm go numb.' Phenol is a severe muscle relaxant (including your heart) and can kill you at very low concentrations."

"One hour into her employment we had paramedics on the scene monitoring her vitals and was released after eight hours. She didn't last the first hour of the first day and the testing company was fined pretty heavily."

- Nerdymcbutthead

AKA: Paid to Advertise

"A guy got hired in the first firm I ever worked for. He turned up for his first morning at work, and within an hour he had emailed the entire company (6,000 people) about his band and their availability for birthdays, weddings, etc."

"He was dismissed by lunchtime."

- BDATriangle001

"So he got paid half a day's wage to advertise his band to 6,000 people?"

"Man's a freaking genius."

- Oakcamp

Not-So-Quiet Quitting

"One day, Tim announced that he wasn’t paid enough and was going to basically sit at his desk doing nothing until he was paid what he wanted."

"20 minutes later, the boss walked in and asked Tim if he could have a word with him."

"Five minutes later, the boss walked back in and announced that Tim no longer worked there and if there were any questions."

"There were no questions."

- Few_Horse4000

Don't Be That Guy

"Interviewed a guy that was replacing someone who was leaving. Offered the job and was supposed to start the next day."

"Just so happened that we were having a going away party for the leaving dude that night so new guy was invited as a chance to 'get to know the team.'"

"The new guy shows up and proceeds to get absolutely s**t-faced and asked the head of HR if she wanted to go back to his place because he 'got a vibe' during the interview process."

"Next day, the new guy was a no-show so we were thinking bullet dodged. He showed up just before lunch clearly hung over making up some excuse for being late."

"The big boss came out and told the guy to get the f**k out."

- tizod

Optional Hours? Optional Employment.

"I fired someone who decided her second day that she was going to go out to lunch and not come back. The next morning she told everyone all about the shopping she did. She seemed confused about the expectations."

- dunwerking

Some of these stories are absolutely worth shaking our heads over, while others are truly shocking.

It's crazy the lengths people will go to in the workplace, despite the expectations that had already been clearly set.

If you view the rules as optional, your boss might view your employment as optional, too.

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.