Non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, always have some sort of fascinating information behind them.
Some people use these agreements for evil, to cover up their own transgressions by paying people large sums of money.
Others use it to protect their products or their information.
u/gabz09 asked:
People no longer bound by their non disclosure agreements, what can you now disclose?
Here were some of those answers.
Ruby Or Ruse
My best friend worked at a roadside attraction near Chattanooga, TN, called Ruby Falls (there's something else called Ruby Falls elsewhere in the country). It's supposedly a waterfall inside a cave. Of course, the trail to the cave is re-done with all sorts of rock brought in from around the world - I think they've owned up to that part now.
But the "waterfall" itself is barely a trickle naturally, and then only in the wetter season. They've run a pipe up there to supplement the falls, hidden by cracks and crevices and cemented over, and powered by a pump off to the side, which you can't hear when the water is splashing down from 100 feet overhead. It's 99% from the City of Chattanooga (or maybe Lookout Mountain) municipal water supply.
Of course, with such a wet area, old electrical wires going back to the Great Depression, and 300 feet underground, it sputters, or shorts out and stops every now and then. The first rule in the Falls Room is "make everybody leave immediately if the power goes out", not for safety, but because the fable agreed-upon will be shown as fake.
Manipulating Numbers
The book you're reading might only be a "bestseller" because the author had enough money to buy thousands and thousands of copies, have them shipped to a warehouse for storage, and eventually destroyed.
Capital On A Name
I worked at a small bakery in New York City when I was younger. Every morning the bakery would take their day old cup cakes and deliver them to a tour company that did Sex and the City tours. The tour company would pass our cupcakes off as cupcakes from Magnolia, and significantly much more popular bakery.
A New Pretzel Decade
When i was fired from Auntie Anne's in 2010, I signed a 10 year non-compete/NDA contract, promising not to detail the baking secrets or work for another pretzel establishment.
Well that ended this year so now I can run out and start a pretzel store because the secret I was keeping was making pretzels literally requires 2 products, one of them being water and the other a large bag of pretzel meal/dust/powder. Quite literally anyone with $2500 can start a pretzel stand and make perfectly fine pretzels, it's not difficult whatsoever.
This Is, On Top Of Being Gross, Illegal
That married grocery store manager in his late 40's was , indeed, having sex with that 17 year old courtesy clerk in the compressor room.
This was 15 plus years ago when I was a Person In Charge, and not yet a full Assistant Store Manager. Our store in the backroom had a couple of rooms upstairs: a large room that housed all of our electrical breakers and back up generators, and a room that housed all of our compressors that kept our freezers and coolers running. Both were locked at all times for security reasons. They were accessible only through the backroom.
The 17 year old courtesy clerk (bagger), had worked there for a while. She was, uh, not the best worker. She had a habit of disappearing for a half hour or hour at a time. I, and the other PIC's complained and tried discipline, but the store manager blocked it. So, we just dealt with it. Yes, she was an attractive blonde.
I was in charge one night and we got an alarm that one of the compressors was low. It was my job to check the level, record the compressor number, and turn it in. When I went up to the room, the door was propped open with a bucket. I assumed whoever worked in the room last left it open. If you have never been in a compressor room before, I have to tell you that it is LOUD! Our store had several diesel engines that powered the compressors.
I proceed in to the back of the room, come around a corner to see the girl, not quite naked, but not fully clothed, being...serviced by our store manager (who had left for the day hours ago). Neither saw me and I hightailed it out of there.
I wrestled with what to do. I was worried about my career at the time, so I called the security hotline and made an anonymous call and told them in vague terms what happened and that they should contact me about details. I'm 100% certain that they knew it was me that called.
A couple of days later, the store manager is suspended, and I'm interviewed, the Assistant Store Manager is interviewed, and the PIC's. They tell us not to discuss it, so of course we did. I was a little late to the party. Almost everyone knew.
The store manager would use his store keys to come into the backroom, meet the courtesy clerk, and then would hook up in the compressor room. She was not the first teenager he had done this with at this store and others.
They fire the store manager, and like an idiot, he sues. Dozens of people are deposed, NDA's are drawn up and signed. He thinks better of it, drops the suit and that's the last I ever heard of him.
The girl quit right after the store manager was suspended.
These Conspiracy Theories Are Easy to Debunk | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Competing Within An Agency
I was a contractor for NASA. I still fully support the agency, but I was extremely bugged when I learned that each separate NASA center (e.g., JPL, Kennedy, Ames, Goddard) hides many of its inventions and breakthroughs from the other centers so that when HQ is ready to assign a big mission (and a lot of dollars) to one center, they have a better chance to compete over the others. "Look what we invented! Ames can't do this over there! Give us the next moon orbiter!"
The downside is that there is a ton of reinvention and duplicated efforts going on. Sometimes years of work go down the drain when another center does the same thing faster. My perspective was: you all work for NASA. Share knowledge, collaborate. I was frequently ordered to tone down anything revealing when speaking to other centers.
Rhymes With "Case"
I signed an NDA after negotiating a six figure settlement with my mortgage lender. Back in 2013, the bank illegally sold my home, while I was living there and making monthly payments. I discovered this when "new owners" evicted me and my three kids.
At the time, I thought someone was trying to steal my identity, etc. I spent the next two years writing legal documents and had to represent myself in court. (The bank "owned" every legit legal firm I contacted. Also, the first lawyer I hired took my last $7,000 and was promptly disbarred for misconduct with previous cases.) I had no money, no home but I had a laptop, printer and access to the county court law library.
We were about a week away from selecting a jury, when we came to a settlement agreement. In the end, each of my kids (now in their twenties) got an inexpensive new car and I live at the beach. "Which bank?" you ask. I can't tell you the name, but might I suggest that it rhymes with "case."
They settled because they were worried that if the case went to trial, it would become public. Then, everyone would know, for certain, that they had lied, cheated and swindled to steal homes from hardworking people. The bank would lose when no one took out new loans with them.
I received a posting on my front door. I went to the eviction court and lost, because technically the new owners paid for my house. I was given 7 days to move all my stuff (had lived there 13 years) or face the sheriff. I had three kids. I didn't want the drama of handcuffs. So we packed and moved, then sought "relief" through the court system.
Slime Everywhere
This is something I could spend a lot of time diving into, but the sub-prime lending company I used to work for as a software engineer spent a lot of time and effort manipulating the UX of our various applications to encourage customers to accept loan terms that were not necessarily in their best interest. I quit pretty quickly after realizing that the people in charge had very little interest in actually supporting us in making a product that would be better for our customers.
Why Don't We Heed Warnings????
I was once an IT contractor for a now defunct bureau within the Department Of The Interior during the Event Deepwater Horizon disaster. Since the department has its hands in off-shore drilling, they were part of the response team and boots on the ground.
Anyway, it's a little known fact that all the extra stress + aging IT equipment during the first 48 hours after the blowout took their entire authentication and email infrastructure down (Active Directory & Exchange) for two days. There were also other weird glitches from offices around the U.S. not related to the outage. A switch going out here; building automation there. It was a disaster. This was, of course, after years of emails and documentation stating they were heading that way.
I was directly involved with recovering that infrastructure and the aftermath of dissolving the bureau... which really wasn't anything special. They just became three different bureaus, got new email addresses, and continued on in their role under a new title.
Secret Super Secret
I once had to sign an NDA to get a price on a printer for my sign shop. This was a printer that was only sold by one distributor, by the way, so there wasn't even any direct competition on this particular model. I think they gimmick was that if they make a really big deal out of giving you this super secret pricing that you'd be lulled into thinking it was really something special.
It's highly believed that it is important to learn history as a means to improve our future.
What is often overlooked is that what is taught in history class is going to be very different depending on where you went to school.
And this isn't just internationally, even different regions of the United states will likely have very different lessons on American history.
This frequently results in our learning fascinating, heartbreaking and horrifying historical facts which our middle or high school history teachers neglected to teach us.
Redditor Acherontia_atropos91 was curious to learn things people either wished they had learned, or believe they should have learned, in their school history class, leading them to ask:
What isn’t taught in history class but should be?
The Irish Troubles
"The troubles."
"Too many people in America do not understand why a wall straight through Ireland would be a BAD idea."
"I’m referring to the Brexit referendum and possible outcomes."
"If people were wondering why we were talking about walls through Ireland in the first place."- CLCVS.
Forgotten elements of World War II
"What the Japanese did to the Chinese during WW2."
"Unit 731."- CaptainMcBoogerJew.
"Japan gets off easy for their war crimes in WW2."
"They killed an estimated 16mil Chinese civilians and another 8mil soldiers"
"Also, Pol Pot."
"Didn't know who he was until I was like 25."
"Worst dictator all time (in terms of percentage of population he decimated)".
The truth about the American Revolution
"That the American Revolution was part of a wider cold war type of conflict with France."
"The American Revolution was basically the UK's equivalent of the US version of Vietnam."- vinsant7.
The Dark side of Swedish history.
"As a Swede, I'd like to know more of all the horrible sh*t my country has done throughout history."
"It's a damn shame we're trying to hide our history."
"For example, Swedes killed a metric sh*t ton of all Polish people when we were at our strongest."
"That's the kinda sh*t we don't get to learn."- mogwandayy.
Colonization
"Basically what Belgium did to the Congo."
"A lot of people are telling me that they are taught about this actually."
"I'm glad to hear it because I wasn't taught about this in the USA during my public school days (1995-2008)."- EconArch.
The truth about "heroes".
"While teaching about historical Heroes they should also tell students about the unspeakable things some of them did."
"Many famous figures throughout history who are pillars of morality actually did many terrible things." - User Deleted
Intolerance for Mental Illness
"The dark history of mental illness treatments."
"I think it's worth learning about."- 7dayexcerpt.
Slavic Mythology
"Slavic mythology in Slavic countries."
"Don't get me wrong, I love both Greek & Roman mythology and as a person from the Balkans both of those cultures are part of my country's history and had great influence over not only my region but the entirety of the continent & the western world but I wouldn't mind knowing more about Slavic mythology as well."- ShorsShezzarine.
The truth about the CIA
"How the CIA was made and all the shady things they did over the years."- ALargeChip.
There is a lot about the history of our world, not to mention our own country which shouldn't be ignored.
And it's from learning from our mistakes that we really improve our future.
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So apparently we are in the endemic phase of this nonsense.
We have light at the end of the tunnel.
So what now?
Where do we go from here?
Normal seems like an outdated word.
How do we get back to normal though?
Is it even possible?
What are reaching back to?
Life pre-Covid.
Those were the days.
If only we could bring them back.
Redditor hetravelingsong wanted to discuss our new normal in this hopeful "endemic" phase. So they asked:
"What’s something random you miss about pre-COVID times?"
I miss people being sane. Though that maybe election cycle issues not COVID. We'll never know.
I thought I was Alone...
"Being able to grocery shop after 11 pm."
Reading_Rainboner
"Hell yes. I miss the days where the Walmart across the street was open 24 hours."
Small_Tax_9432
let's just go...
"I miss spontaneity... everything now seems to have a barrier of difficulty."
iidosee
"I live very close to Disneyland so I have an annual pass. My friends and I would just go there after work and hang out and grab a bite to eat."
"Now, we have to reserve a day to go. And most of the time, the days are at 'full' capacity so we couldn't even reserve. I don't want to schedule to hang out at Disneyland for a couple hours for July. So yeah, I definitely miss the 'lets go eat at Disneyland tonight?' texts."
mymymissmai
Not til 24-25
"Functioning global supply chains. Ah, the product you want has got microchips in it? 9 month wait."
richard-king
"Minimum, I'd been saying for a while now that I wouldn't expect a true return to normalcy in terms of electronics prices till 2024-2025. Although Crypto crashing through the floor really took some of the pressure off graphics cards which I really appreciate."
statiiic
WTF?!?!
"How affordable everything was!"
Disastrous_Hour_6776
"Yep. Today I was bagging up my things at the grocery store and I heard the cashier say to the lady behind me 'thats $78.12.' She had -- 2 boxes of Kellogg's corn flakes, a carton of 12 eggs, milk, strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, a small cheese cake, English muffins, coffee, and a small whole frozen chicken that could maybe feed 3 people if the meat portioning was small."
SnowyInuk
Sushi
"My favorite sushi place. It was good quality, close by, kid-friendly, and not too expensive."
InannasPocket
All of this... it was a simpler time.
NASTY
"As a retail worker, just how f**king NASTY some people have gotten."
DmitriPetrov*itch
"They applauded you for being an essential worker but won’t vote for policies that’ll raise minimum wage while insisting a wage cap for heavily paid employees."
sketchysketchist
CHANGES your DNA...
"Some of the people closest to me became very bitter and petty over the last 2 years. So many people have the 'crazy eyes' now."
__--__7
"So true and holidays with the family is like who has the biggest tinfoil hat building contest. How many jumps does your brain have to go through to think that the Covid vaccine CHANGES your DNA into the patented DNA so that the government now controls your body."
"So like vaccinated people now have a singular DNA set. I feel like I still have a chunk of my brain just broken off due to that comment alone. I was also told by same family member that I could never donate blood again due to the vaccine. I guess it is so my patented DNA doesn't affect people?? FYI my vaccinated butt just donated today fine and multiple other times after the vaccine."
tyreka13
Homeward Bound
"House prices."
adrianinked
"I'm resigned to never thinking I have a chance on owning property where I live. I'm 30 and just can't imagine it anymore. And I don't want to live anywhere else so, whatever."
Osdab2daf
"That didn’t happen because of the pandemic. That was already happening regardless."
CH11DW
Oh Mickey
"All Day Breakfast at McDonalds."
hutch2522
"It was honestly hell to do, and not very popular. ITs margins aren't anywhere dinner and lunch specials. ON top of that, the temperatures are such that They require its own grill, meaning that if you have 2 grills in shop, you are down 50% of lunch capacity."
Freyas_Follower
Way back when...
"Hanging out with friends. And I mean waaaaaay before Covid. Like 2006 back when I had some friends."
LoocsinatasYT
I miss the old days. Maybe we'll get back there.
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What do you believe?
Is there a GOD in the sky?
Is he guiding us and helping us?
Life is really hard. Why is that is a big entity is up there loving us?
Atheists have taken a lot of heat for what feels like shunning GOD.
What if they've been right all along?
Maybe let's take a listen and see what they really think.
Redditor __Jacob______ wanted to hear from the people who don't really believe all that "God" stuff. They asked:
"Atheists, what do you believe in?"
I'm waffling between G-O-D and nothing. So please give me some education.
911
"We need to look out for each other because help isn't coming."
cknipe
Peace Out
"More than 2 decades ago, a priest was giving a sermon in my church and he said 'our faith requires you to believe without question. Why call it faith if you have to ask questions?' I haven't returned to church. Not until my wedding day but you know what I mean."
asiangontear
Delusion
"When I was young I used to think that after death you would have access to a PC that you could see absolutely anything about your life. Stats, any question you had no matter how obscure, replays of moments, perspectives of others in relation to you. No matter what you wanted to know, if it was relatable to you, you could see it. I know it's silly, but as time goes on I just want it to be real, and I don't think I'd have any issue allowing myself to fall into that delusion."
eggwardpenisglands
I think nothing happens...
"Realistically, I think nothing happens. We literally experience nothing after death. Same thing that we experience before birth. We don't exist, so it's nothing. I think the tenant that we should follow while living is to try to be happy and healthy while minimizing the damage we do to each other."
"What I would LIKE to happen after death is whatever you believe in, exists. I think Christians should get to go to heaven if they truly believe in it, Hindus and Buddhists get reincarnated, and everyone else also gets to experience what they believe they will experience."
"'I would still experience Nothing. Maybe it's one of those things where at the moment of death their brain makes them experience what feels like an infinitely long moment in time where they experience their afterlife. I just think it would be neat for everybody."
Better_Meat_
Shrug
"Best advice I received from a dear senior on their way out. 'You win some, you lose some' shrug. Nothing divine, life is that simple and wonderful, accept it and move on."
Tune_Kindly
It all sounds pretty simple. Why are people so up in arms about Atheists?
Whatever
"I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do."
imCIK
Cool with Empty
"Nothing. [Serious]."
rumblingtummy29
"I feel this way about death. When I was 5, my grandfather died and my cousin simple said, he is dead, that means you are gone forever. Everything ends up dying, even plants and animals. I'm now in my 40's and still have this simplistic view of life and death. People think I'm ambivalent to life and death but it's just what it is."
thepigfish82
puppet-masters...
"I think a lot of religious people struggle with the fact that we are all just swirling units of chaos. There is no grand plan or great orchestrator. I think that’s why people who are prone to religion are also susceptible to things like Q anon and the Cabal and all that. They REALLY want to believe that there is some almighty puppet-master who determines all of humanity’s fate."
Lngtmelrker
“we’re living in a society!”
"Just be a kind and empathetic person not because you’re worried about some cosmic justice, but because it’s the right thing to do. If there is some being that created us there’s no way they actually care about believing in it or adhering to some rules from over 2000 years ago."
"Also a big thing for me is that I find the idea that you need religion or the Bible in order to have morals and ethics pretty dumb. It’s pretty f**king clear that most evangelicals have neither. But my main thing is being a good person simply because, as George Costanza once said we’re living in a society!' If you’re only a good person in order to make it to heaven you probably aren’t actually a good and moral person."
conservative_genius
That's All
"You're born. You live. You die. That's it. After you die you cease to exist, the same as before you were born."
serefina
Believe what you want. We're all here together. So let's focus there.
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The list of what irritates me is endless.
I mean... breathing too loud or dust can set me off.
I'm a bit unstable, yes.
But I'm not alone.
So let's discuss.
Redditor Aburntbagel6 wanted to hear about all the times many of us just couldn't control our disdain. They asked:
"What never fails to piss you off?"
I feel like this article can go on forever. Let's get some highlights.
Wasted Time
"Meetings that could and should have been an email."
Sirena609
Lotto People
"Getting stuck behind people playing the lottery at a corner store."
thenuggetlover
"I also used to work in a gas station and you’re SO right. I f**king hated the lottery people. Especially since my store had a small staff and there was usually only one of us working at a time, which meant that I couldn’t get any of my other work done as long as they were there."
"And you’re right, it’s also pretty sad to watch. I had one lady who used to come in every day and spent hundreds and HUNDREDS of dollars on scratch tickets. One day, she won $200 after spending probably around $600 and she was so excited and saying she can 'finally pay her bills.'"
i-am-your-god-now
Aware...
"No situational awareness. Job, home, shopping, driving. Think for one minute and go about. OBSERVE!!"
Dizzy-Foundation8122
"My mom is one of those people who leave the shopping cart in the middle of the damn aisle and proceed to walk twenty feet away. After correcting her a million times to no effect I just walk away now so people don’t know I’m with her."
OutrageousEvent
Shut Up!
"Endless barking in the middle of the night, I love animals but that sh*t I can't stand."
Acceptable-Lemon2924
"Endless barking in general drives me up a wall. One of my friends dogs was barking almost an entire gaming session the other day. I wanted to reach through the computer and smack him for letting it go on."
bangersnmash13
Kindness
"People being mean to service workers, especially if the workers are very young."'
scaryboilednoodles
All of these things. I hate them all.
Admit It
"People who never accept fault when they mess something up. Like, why blame a million people when it was clearly you who did it???"
Quirky-Area-8978
From Above
"My upstairs neighbors."
lutzow89
"I had terrible neighbors at my previous apartment. It was a one person studio for students, but her boyfriend was clearly living with her illegally and he was loud."
"One night we knocked n the door at 3 AM because of the loud music and an unknown girl opened the door. I just thought they were having a little party. But the next door I saw the girl living there come home with a suitcase after having been away for the weekend... Her BF was cheating on her in her own apartment."
Th3_Accountant
Move Away
"People who sit directly next to me at the airport, movie theater, any other place where you can choose a seat when there is PLENTY of other seating."
BacardiPardy33
"I can’t YES this enough and the ones who can’t park for crap so they park so close you can’t open doors on one side of the car or the ones who park directly behind when you pulled through so the door won’t open to load groceries."
BacardiPardy33
It's Over
"People who try to restart old drama. Like I'm done with you, just leave me alone."
Tired_Potatos
"Yep, half the reason I've basically quit playing one of my favorite online video games. People keep bringing old crap up or sh*tting on on someone who used to be our friend. I got tired of it so I just ejected the game out of me."
CaucasianHumus
AHHHHH!!!
"People walking too slow in front of me with no way to get around them. It’s even worse if it’s a couple or group taking up the whole sidewalk. HAVE SOME SPATIAL AWARENESS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!"
_-v0x-_
Life in general pisses me off. I'm easy.
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