professions

Top Stories

Professionals Divulge Insider Secrets No One Knows About Their Profession

Reddit user pocketcrackers asked: 'What fact is common knowledge in your field, but almost unknown to the rest of the population?'

As much as we know about the world around us, we can't know everything. This is especially true when we think about a field or profession we're not directly involved in or with,

The film industry is a good example. Unless we're directly involved, we really know nothing about what it's like to make movies. How much of that computer hacking scene is based in reality? Is that a real disease? Did the actor do that entire stunt himself, or was there a stunt double helping?

Reddit is full of professionals who know the secrets of their industries and are ready to share.

It all started when Redditor pocketcrackers asked:

"What fact is common knowledge in your field, but almost unknown to the rest of the population?"

Let's Get Out Of Here!

"People almost always try to exit through the same door they entered. In a crowded venue ALWAYS take a second to find your exit and then find a second exit. Mark them in your brain just in case. In an emergency most of the crowd is going to go for the main door they came in through. Knowing where another exit is can save your life."

– Spiritual_Worth

Be Aware Of Symptoms

"UTIs will often cause confusion in people over 70."

– silly-billy-goat

"I work in the mental health field. Often I’m told a loved one has dementia, Alzheimer’s, etc. I will ask about symptom onset and they’ll say “a couple days” or something similar. A round of antibiotics later and the loved one is usually back to their baseline. UTIs in older folks are wild."

– ChicagoOwls

Stronger Than You Think

"When you're taking Imodium you're actually taking an opioid. But it's designed to only interact with the opioid receptors in your digestive tract to slow down your intestines. Scientists were like hey. You know that anti-diarrhea medication heroin? Well what if we made a version of that without the pesky side effects of getting you high?"

– NotMyDogPaul

Come On, Stand

"Your calf muscles act as a pump for your lymph fluid, which is basically the garbage pick-up and immunity doordash of your body. Without flexing your calf, the fluid has no way of moving against gravity. Each time we walk, the muscles contract, squeezing the fluid back up towards the core for processing.That's why sitting for long periods causes swelling in the legs."

– Orange-Enough

If We Could Only Speed Up...

"Trucker here and we don't want to be anywhere near you either."

"Go around or stay back don't just ride right beside us. We can't see you very well when you are beside us and if sh*t happens you're gonna go splat."

"It is very very very rare that any driver wants to slow you down it's not like we get our rocks off on making you late. We work extremely long hours on very little sleep and we just wanna get where we are going without getting in an accident and killing someone."

"Trust me if we could go faster we damn sure would."

"Also if you give us the fist pump to honk our horn you just made our whole week. That's one of the greatest joys in a truckers life."

"Be safe out there!!"

– MissPatricia024

Not Your Fault

"Bed bugs don’t make you a nasty person with a nasty home. An infestation isn’t due to a sanitation issue. They’re an imported pest, which means they hitched a ride on something you brought into the house. Usually luggage or furniture."

– LosPetty1992

Real Or Not Real

"In any given nature documentary, the protagonist animal you’re rooting for is ‘played’ by several different ‘actors’ - i.e. that one brown bear’s story is patched together from footage of a bunch of different bears. And in about 90% of the ‘animal reacting’ shots they’re reacting to the camera crew. Nature documentaries are heavily constructed."

– BootsyRootsy

"Also all those amazing closeups of bugs and small critters burrowing and stuff are done on a set in a studio."

"Honestly, when you learn about all the work that goes into creating such a documentary, it's even more impressive."

– donkeyhawt

"I refuse to believe that one iguana running from all those snakes was multiple iguanas. Little man (woman?) ran its little heart out and earned its place in this world!"

– nozer12168

Gathering Info

"The point of most loyalty programs isn't to give you points so you'll shop more (though that isn't a bad thing) it's to gather data (i.e. where do you shop, how often, how much do you buy there, what sort of things at what price points, etc etc.). For us marketing types, data is king (even small things like if a cashier asks for your zip code)."

–inostranetsember

Grey's Anatomy Lied

"When a person “flat lines” you cannot shock them out of it."

– unassumingtoaster

"Chest compressions!! Chest compressions!! Chest compressions!!"

"- Dr. Mike"

– thedanishgirl02

The Movies Also Lied

"Movie hacking: "I've decrypted the firewall and begun a brute force method on the internal systems, but they have a quantum lock on the googleplex, I'll be sure to upload a dinglehopper and slay the Jabberwocky.""

"Real hacking: "I called a random employee and pretended to be IT, they gave me admin privileges in 5 minutes.""

– wererat2000

Ick.

"When I worked as a barista: how much f**king syrup is in flavored drinks. At the cafe I worked at, we measured flavoring by grams. If you got a large mocha, that motherf**ker would have like 110 grams of chocolate sauce in it."

"If you want a little bit of flavor, I suggest only 1 pump. 2 max."

– miss_queeferson

Verify, Don't Trust

"Historian here: everything you read, regardless of source, has the biases of whoever wrote it woven throughout. I will tell a much different account of a Roman Battle if I am a Roman citizen than if I am a Gaul. Same goes for modern times, I will tell a much different account of an event as a liberal woman than if I was a conservative man. That's why checking and vetting sources is our biggest advice, remember the context that the author is writing from when you're reading!"

– Chutzpah3

"The world runs on MS Excel."

– Boulavogue

How very true!

Do you have any tea to spill? Let us know in the comment below.

In college, I worked as a hostess and server at my favorite restaurant. I thought it would be fun to be a waitress, and doing it at a place where I would see my friends (since they ate there all the time), seemed like an extra perk.

Would I recommend everyone work in the service industry to build character and learn respect? Yes. Would I recommend anyone work in the service industry if they want to continue liking life? Absolutely not!

Working as a server made me realize how entitled people can be. Some people asked to sit at tables that were clearly reserved and then tried to seat themselves when we told them ‘no.’

Others decided to tip less when their bill was too high, and servers ended up losing money.

During football games, people even walked right past us to go into the bar area even when the area was full, and we tried to tell them we were at capacity. Half the time, I felt like screaming at customers, “Why are you coming in here? I don’t want you to!” And I wasn’t the only one.

One of my co-workers kept trying to win the lottery, so she could split her winnings with all the employees, and we could all quit. I had to recite pop culture lists in my head just to keep sane (like listing the first 151 Pokemon in order -- I actually shared this talent with my co-workers, which lead to the first and only fun night I had at the restaurant).

This isn’t the only job people should steer clear of. Redditors are ready to share which professions they wouldn’t recommend people go into.

Keep reading... Show less

When I interviewed for a copy editor position a few years ago, I was asked how much I made at my previous position. Now take note, employers and interviewers are NOT ALLOWED to ask you this, but since I didn't know that, I answered her honestly.

To say she was shocked was an understatement.

My previous position was a writing position, and she couldn't believe how much I was making at a writing job just out of college when people who had several years of experience above me were making less at similar positions.

Basically, she thought I was being overpaid and made that clear when she told me how much I would get paid at her company for a higher position.

We are all aware there are plenty of people that do important work who don't get paid enough. However, there are also people who do important work who also get paid too much. It's not something talked about often.

At least, it wasn't until Redditors broke that dam.

Keep reading... Show less

Some things are deceptively simple.

Oh, skydiving? That's easy.

Love yourself? Simple.

Who can't open a can of pickles?

ME! ME! That's who. I can't do any of the above simply.

It's all hard. And you know it too.

It's just designed to" look" easy only to bamboozle us.

Approach everything as a burden and live by a motto...

Keep reading... Show less
People Confess Which Jobs Are Way Less Fun Than People Expect
Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash

Not everyone loves their job.

And as a result, on particularly slow or demoralizing days, these people might dream of working another job.

Likely one that they've seen glamorized on film or television, such as a doctor, lawyer, pilot, or actor

Jobs that appear to be as fun as they are lucrative.

But if one were to ask people who actually work these jobs for a living, they might discover that they aren't always as fun as they may seem.

Keep reading... Show less