Every industry has its hidden side that may be unappealing. It’s akin to visiting the kitchen of your favorite restaurant and seeing how grimy and untidy it actually is from behind the scenes. Much of this insider information remained concealed until someone posted this question on Reddit: “What’s the dark secret about your profession that the general public doesn’t know?”
People didn’t hesitate to respond, revealing what happens behind closed doors among lawyers, healthcare workers, educators, and service industry employees, to name a few. Many of these answers may shock you and make you question the fabric of society. But if you want to read about juicy industry secrets, scroll through this list.
Table of Contents
Dark Secret About Your Profession: 1.
Former heavy machinery worker. Everything from in facility work to road and construction work.
Every single guy…I mean every guy, that operates a backhoe or asphalt roller or bulldozer absolutely LOVES and gets a kick when we see kids watching and being interested in what we are doing. We all want to stop and let them on the machine and allow them to run it, but are only forced to not to because of rules and insurance.
When we get together for lunch we aren’t talking about the women we saw. We’re talking about the little boy in the red hoodie who clapped when we dumped a shovel. And not one guy teases you for thinking it was great, because otherwise the job is just grinding and our bosses suck.
I figured we needed a bit of positivity on this thread.
Dark Secret About Your Profession: 2.
I used to be a police officer: There were a lot of unspoken rules about making sure we had a high number of arrests. Demonstrating high arrest numbers meant we got federal/state grant money. This kept the prosecutor employed along with the entire court system and showed the town/city we needed a larger budget because of all the arrests. The entire criminal justice system is literally a giant business which [profits] off the backs of the public
Dark Secret About Your Profession: 3.
Professors are regularly pressured into passing failing students to keep up graduation levels. I even had the registrar go into the system and change grades. Let’s just say I have seen my fair share of students who failed my science course but were passed by admins who are now building your bridges, interstates, buildings,levees, and multi-level parking lots.
Dark Secret About Your Profession: 4.
I worked at a mental health facility. They were all about image and money. Very few clients were ever discharged. They were far more interested in the money than actually helping people.
Dark Secret About Your Profession: 5.
Journalists for the most part barely make minimum wage. They aren’t playing 3D chess with political messaging. They’re trying to file stories and photos from their phones after a 10-hour weeknight shift covering high school sports and city council meetings.
Dark Secret About Your Profession: 6.
Persuasive design is unbelievably effective on websites.
A little scarcity message there, a little was/now pricing, a big ol’ prominent “buy now” button in just the right place, badly designed filters that limit your ability to see the cheapest products.
Lots of websites are utterly garbage, and some might *look* garbage and have obviously annoying experiences (Amazon anyone?) but it’s like that because you spend more money, and cost the company less money – not to make it good for you.
We know how long you spend on a page, what you look at, what will make you buy, and how to keep you engaged for as long as possible. We know you are using an iPhone – the newest, largest model – and are likely a wealthier prospect, so will tailor our messaging and pricing to squeeze every cent out of you that we can.
These experiments are conducted on you without your knowledge in order to make you part with your money.
