I can't tell you how many times in school I tried to devise cover ups to cover up cover ups. More often than not the planning and execution was a mess but the the stories themselves got so convoluted you'd think I was living in a film parody of The Matrix. Note to self... never steal you mother's jewelry and then try to pass it off as her new birthday present. SMH. I have no explanation or defense.
Never Gone
Erase Parks And Recreation GIF by PeacockTVGiphyEx-UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi paid $175k to have the 2011 pepper spray incident removed from Google search results for the university, which brought the incident back into the public eye and was one of the scandals that eventually led to her resignation.
In the USSR
The soviet union trying to say that Chernobyl wasn't as big a deal as it actually was.
One of my grandparent's neighbors in Poland was a Belorussian guy from one of the closest towns to Chernobyl in Belarus. The Plant is basically on the Ukraine/Belarus border, and a huge amount of fallout happened in Belarus. No one was informed until everyone else was, even though they got almost as much fallout as Prypiat.
The way he describes it, they were across the border, so they didn't want to share. Even when they did, the Belarusian gov maintained the thought process that it wasn't a big deal, like the USSR was claiming. No one was to be relocated. He was a teenager at the time and left for Minsk as soon as he could because of how pissed off the whole thing made him.
His whole family stayed except for him, farming away while he was in the city and then moved to Poland after he met his Polish wife.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of his family died of cancer.
Dark Waters
The water crisis in Flint.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha had been in touch with the Genesee Department of Health for months about Elevated Lead Levels (ELLs), and they went out of their way to obfuscate the data and make it seem like everything was normal. Dr. Hanna-Attisha brings in a research team from Virginia which shows that the ELLs are correlated with zip codes that recently switched water supplies.
They still ignore/deny what's happening. Finally, Dr. Hanna-Attisha says "f**k it", and holds a press conference telling people that their water is unsafe and to stop using it immediately.
A major public health crisis could have been mitigated if the public health officials spent more time doing their job and less time worrying about whether or not it pisses the governor off.
The Papers
richard nixon president GIFGiphyIn 1973 the director of the CIA Richard Helms was worried that the watergate congressional investigations would spill over into investigations into the CIA so he ordered the destruction of all documents related to the MKUltra program.
20,000 documents were incorrectly stored with financial records and were not destroyed. They were later uncovered during an FOIA request and turned over to Congress.
Dodgers
Volkswagen and the emission dodging.
What was surreal was seeing thousands of them sitting in the parking lot of the Silverdome, the old Detroit Lion's stadium. I live just south of there and to see VWs mistake next to the derelict stadium was a trip. https://youtu.be/jJeYEnSD9G0.
Nevermind cover ups, those are some high crimes and misdemeanors. And so many plagued by tragic loss. Just so everyone knows... the Flint water is still poison. Let's continue...
The Graves
Katyn Massacre or Chernobyl.
Katyn Massacre: Red Army troops during WWII killed and buried 22,000 Polish officers. The German Army found this mass grave and asked the local SS Commander if it was his graves. The SS Commander said it wasn't his graves. The Red Army though insisted it was the Nazis that did it. Boris Yeltsin later admitted to grave in 1992.
Chernobyl: Basically, Chernobyl powerplant's reactor in the Ukraine in 1986 exploded and almost contaminated the whole of Europe. The USSR tried to cover it up, but Sweden detected the radiation from the fallout. Pripyat became a ghost town and the city of Chernobyl (the city the powerplant was powering) became semi deserted.
Lips Together and Blow...
Basically any case involving a dead about-to-be whistle blower. Killing someone is a good way to shut a person up. Its also a very good way of drawing attention to the person and what they had to say. The best way to cover something up is discredit the whistle blower.
Babs
fanning barbra streisand GIFGiphyI guess the Streisand effect?
For those who don't know, someone took a photo of Barbara Streisand's Malibu home and posted it online.
The photo didn't get much attention until Barbara Streisand tried to have the photo blocked for the sake of her privacy
Upon hearing that Streisand wanted the photo removed, the image became forbidden fruit and was viewed millions of times across the internet.
If she hadn't tried to cover it up, no one would have looked.
Karen
In 1974, Karen Silkwood was found dead, as a result of a car crash. Silkwood was a chemical technician and labor union activist who was about the reveal the safety hazards. Despite drugs found on the scene, the police and coroner didn't believe the drug claim and went looking for other likely others. After being informed about death threats from her family, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the State Medical Examiner found radioactive contamination in her body.
This prompted an investigation at Kerr-McGee, the company Silkwood was talking about, which reveal the very problems that were about to going to be exposed to the media. Kerr-McGee had to pay up for what was done as they were held liable.
Oh Florida...
bob ross painting GIFGiphyRecent Polk County, Florida deputies losing (stealing) cash evidence, trying to cover it up, and getting fired.
What have we learned? Nothing right? Read again, just lead with the truth. It'll sting but as you can see... the other options will make it all much worse. This is particularly important for any future politicians following along. Don't be these guys.
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So listen ... normally we start these articles with an intro to set thing up ... but fam. This whole thread was such an eye-opening dumpster fire that there really isn't anything to say.
Just look at this mess. Look at it. Look at it and cringe.
Dispatch Lies To Hospitals All The Time
Ambo GIF by St John AmbulanceGiphyWorked for a private ambulance service that would still run high priority calls out of hospitals (if the sending hospital couldn't provide a service, either due to no personnel or equipment) or nursing homes/care facilities that didn't want to overuse 911.
Dispatch would lie ALL THE TIME about our ETA's to facilities. Say one of our units was 40 minutes away. Hospital would call us, dispatch would say 20 minutes, that way the hospital wouldn't call another service that might be closer. And by the time the sending hospital realized we weren't there in the time quoted, it would be too late/silly to call another service.
In other words, critical care was often delayed to make a set number of calls since calls = money.
Specialty Boxes
Many moving companies will force you to buy overpriced specialty boxes--I'm talking like thirty-forty bucks--for things like your tv or mattress so ask about that beforehand. We do charge $10 for a mattress bag if it's unwrapped as a bedbug precaution but that is clearly stated in writing beforehand and price is not jacked up.
Also, especially in NYC and Philly, many movers will charge the client for a parking ticket--that is not legal.
Lawyer's Intimidation Tactics
Lawyers have a bunch of opportunities to be shady. Just going to list one of the worst offenders below. Standard disclaimer that this isn't legal advice and I'm not your attorney.
Shady lawyers bully average people ALL the time with sh!tty intimidation tactics. These bad lawyers count on you not knowing your rights or just shutting down because 'a lawyer' is yelling legal terms (I know it sounds like a commercial but it's absolutely true).
For example, debt collection companies routinely hassle people with debt that is past the statute of limitations (SOL). When a claim is past the SOL, that means its almost impossible to sue someone on the claim. But that doesn't stop them from being cunts and sending scary letters with big red font. They are just hoping you give up, don't ask an independent attorney for help, and pay them.
End Of The Fiscal Year Spending Spree
In case you didn't know, the government is incredibly irresponsible with your money, particularly as the fiscal year comes to a close.
Everybody is familiar with the concept of fallout money or spend down- the idea where you spend your remaining budget in an all out-spending-spree in order to justify retaining the same budget for next year. It's so wasteful.
My office of appx 40 people spent 120k in a week on sh!t none of us need. We had brand new office chairs last year. Bought new ones, the most expensive ones we could find, at that. We all got new monitors (that we didn't need) and four 70' plasma TVs that we're trying to figure out where to hang.
We didn't need any of this stuff. We blew through all of that money and we are a SMALL office. At the end of every fiscal year, the federal government pisses away hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars on dumb sh!t just so we can all say, "Yup, gonna need that same budget for next year."
If we didn't penalize being responsible spenders, we could fund all sorts of programs without needing to raise taxes/draft new legislation/enter the political mudslinging arena, but nope- instead, I have a brand new chair, monitor, and giant TV in my office.
Spotify Is Making Bank
Jimmy Fallon Dancing GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy FallonGiphyOh man - musician here - there are so many layers. But I'll start with the biggest issue. That song you heard on the radio? The artist or band who played it? They're the last people to get paid and often paid the least.
For example, a single Spotify stream returns about .00034 cents per stream to the artist. Meaning if you listened to the song 1000 times they're still not receiving a dollar. While Spotify is making BANK.
Here's Why You Hate Your Bank's Customer Service
When you call your bank, there's a better than solid chance you're not talking to anyone who works for your bank. You're probably talking to someone who works for a company like Fiserv. Any single employee can be answering calls for 20+ banks at a time. Say you're calling Navy Federal Credit union. The Fiserv employee gets your call. Just before you come on the line, an automated message tells the agent you're calling Navy Federal, so they say "Thanks for calling Navy Federal." The call they got just before yours was answered as: "Thanks for calling Bank of America."
And here's the worst part, they can't really do sh!t to help you besides reset your password for your online account or something of that nature. They're trained to just transfer you if you need any actual help with your account. But when they transfer you over to the actual bank, that bank may be backed up. If the wait is really long, they'll just reroute you back to the Fiserv queue. Right back to someone who cannot help you.
If you hate your bank's customer service, this is probably why.
- CDC_
Passengers Mail And Luggage
I work in the airline industry. Heard a story from my coworker about another station going through passengers mail and luggage and stealing any valuables. Laptops, phones, gift cards but mainly electronics. There was a system of maybe 20 workers in on it including people working the cameras. They got busted and there was a deep police investigation. A lot more than 20 people got fired and charged.
One thing that was messed up, the thieves would bribe other workers with the valuables they stole and if that person accepted without knowing what was really going on then they got fired too.
"Hey can you cover my shift? I'll give you this 100 dollar gift card." Unknowing worker accepts thinking its a sweet deal and gets fired during investigation. Smh
Re-Sticker The Store
I used to work for a well known supplement store... Let's say it's 3 letters that start with G and ends with C.
The week before any big sales, we would have to re-sticker everything in the store. The items that were due to go on sale would go up in price, so that "save 30%" was actually more like saving 5%
The Poor Schmuck Who Got Stuck With The Bag
I'm an attorney so nothing shady we do isn't well known but there is one area of law that really bothers me. There's something called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Basically, don't do something oversees that is illegal here.
Big example is bribery. The fines for it are a joke for the company but for the individual can be life destroying. Here is what happens and EVERYONE knows it except for the poor schmuck who go stuck with the bag.
They hire some business student fresh out of school and give him the job of export manager in some country that basically requires bribes. They offer a salary that anyone would jump at. The poor schmuck eventually finds himself in a situation where he pretty much has to offer a bribe in order to meet a quota/deadline. He does.
The company then does an "investigation" and are shocked (shocked, I tell you) to find this guy paid a sunshine payment. They self report to the government and pay some tiny little fine. The fine is less or sometimes nothing since it's just an "oopsie" and the government goes after the poor schmuck instead. And the schmuck get his life destroyed.
The company then goes back to some business school and find another schmuck. Rinse and repeat. I always feel so sorry for these guys.
Through Another Office
I work for a major market research company. We fudge the numbers heavily and do business with countries that are illegal to do business with. The work around is that we have an office in a country that can work with the country that we can't work with so we do business with them through another office.
Driven By Money And Greed
I worked for a cardiac holter monitoring company as a holter technician. In the beginning when I started working there it was a small amount of patients, then our small company got bought out by a large corporation.
This meant that we had more doctors' offices signed up with our service, more patients and a shit ton more reports to do. In order to keep the dollars rolling in and scans rolling out, they basically had asked us to let the program run the EKG with little to no editing, which was literally never accurate due to artifact and interference as the patient wore the monitor. Jeopardizing people's lives in the process.
I brought this up multiple times how this wasn't right and there's just no way we could possibly be sending these reports out to doctors offices. Got fired. LOL.
Also heard by my friend still working there they have gotten in trouble for a patient passing away on the monitor and it was not on the report as asystole.
As much as I had dreamed all my life to get into healthcare, I found it is pretty much always driven by money and greed.
- xccrunky
Attracting Anti-Mark Tourists
I don't work here anymore, but I worked a part time job in the tourist trap part of town until my actual job started this past summer.
They instructed us to not wear masks because it would bring in foot traffic from the anti-mask tourists. It worked, but holy shit did I quit so quickly and have to borrow money from my parents so I could pay rent without putting myself and others at risk.
F*ck that place.
Sure To End Up Sick With Something
I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but as someone who works in catering/parties, it's pretty unsanitary. It's true for most food-oriented businesses, but it's a pretty big deal right now.
We have parties back to back in the middle of a pandemic with no sanitary measurements in between.
Hell, the bathrooms don't get cleaned for days at a time. You're touching stuff potentially hundreds of other people touched before you. Masks aren't enforced either.
I can't fathom how people think they're safe not wearing masks in a room full of hundreds of others not wearing masks. You're just one of many - and if something as basic as masks aren't enforced, what makes you think something as complicated as complete sanitation would be, either?
We're not allowed to leave the floor or wash our hands, so I'm putting straws into your drinks and handing you food right after picking used plates and dirty silverware up. Even if you don't wind up with COVID, you're sure to end up sick with something.
- colakit
Whatever Ashes
I work for a veterinary who also owns a crematory. My boss is a very upstanding person and would never do this, but some crematories will stack a bunch of animals together and give them whatever they scoop out, so you may not even be getting any of your pet back even if you are paying more for individual cremation.
It's All A Scam
I work in commercial construction.
It's all a scam. The price the contractor gives you isn't what it will really cost to do the job. The first price you get is just to get their foot in the door. Then they nickel and dime you with change-orders.
Some contractors are actually honest, but you'll almost always get screwed if you're going low bid. Good rule of thumb:
- Always have 15% extra money for contingency....but never let your contractor know that it exists.
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