Dirty secret about an industry that you have worked in?
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Anonymous
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What is a dirty little (or big) secret about an industry that you have worked in, that people outside the industry really ought to know?
I work in IT and have seen lot of "under the table" exchange happening to win contracts. |
Anonymous
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I work in Accounting and I've worked at two places with... questionable practices.
One place was a family owned business and the owner had two of his teen kid's on payroll. Both came into the office pretty frequently to use the amazing gym facilities we had, but neither actually worked there. Every so often you'd see one of them making a copy for the boss or couriering a contract over to another office. Also, the owner's adult kid's and some of their spouses worked at the office and all of their cars were paid for by the company. Not only the monthly payments, but they each had $100/week gas cards and all routine maintenance was charged to the company. The other place did a LOT of padding the books, so to speak. It was my first job out of college and when I told my mom (CPA) some of what was going on, she told me to start looking ASAP. |
Anonymous
| Family owns a construction business and maintains two sets of books. Because of Davis-Bacon, his employees can't work more than 40 hours a week. The owner lets them work 40-60 hours a week and then puts their extra hours in the second book so that they can have paid time off when they want it. |
Anonymous
| Not where I worked but a family member did high end restaurant work. Don't ever order chicken. |
Anonymous
Explain. |
Anonymous
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I worked at a fairly high-end store in college. These are pretty obvious if you think about it, but:
- Assume everything is filthy. It falls on the floor, gets ground into the dust on the gross stockroom floor that no one cleans, and gets tried on by who knows how many people. Always wash clothes before you wear them. - Sales associates have pretty wide discretion (at least at some stores). Be nice to the person who's ringing you up, make small talk, etc. Obviously I couldn't do this all the time, but if a customer was super nice, I'd do what I could for them. E.g. notice a loose thread or tiny issue with their garment and preemptively offer a 40% damage discount, pass out 20% off cards (we got them to give out to loyal customers), would offer a 20-30% "customer service" discount if they had been waiting in line for a few extra minutes, would honor a promotion that expired the day before, waive shipping charges, etc. For people who were mean or even just average, I'd follow store policy to the letter. Be nice, it's easy and can pay off. |
Anonymous
| I used to work in a press office. Despite his reputation as "beloved" and a genius and all around wonderful, the time I had to work with Bill Cunningham (former style writer at the NY Times, now deceased) was the nastiest, most unpleasant interaction of my life to date (in my 40s). I couldn't believe the horrible stuff he said to me (and about me) when he didn't get his way (access to a famous person after the time slot said famous person had agreed to for photos). |
Anonymous
| This is probably not a secret BUT I worked in a retail store and we all pretty much had sex all over the place in there. |
Anonymous
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For many years I worked in the Entertainment Industry - TV and film. There are too many secrets and they aren't worth spilling on this forum. i wouldn't even tell them if you were offering money.
I expect most people in truly interesting industries would feel the same. |
Anonymous
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I work in IT at GSE and know of 3 people that have been fired for getting kickbacks for hiring H1Bs from contracting firms they had relationship with.
2 were for testers and 1 was for developers. All were Indian and green card holders. |
Anonymous
+1 in restaurants. Also, lots of drinking & drugs. Journalism--probably 50% of the stories you read are advertisements in disguise. Child care--oh, Lord. Let's just say parents only see a TINY sliver of what goes on. |
Anonymous
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I worked as a DJ at bars, clubs, weddings, parties, etc...DJs are known to play prerecorded mixes any chance they get and make it look like they are selecting and cuing up songs to play. I occasionally did that early in the night when the place was dead.
When you hire us to do weddings and we charge you an industry standard arm and a leg because DJ'ing weddings are HARD to do in general, especially if we have to MC the event and at the mercy of the bride/groom playlist, usually it's the bride. No one wants to screw up a wedding. When you want us to play a request and if it's a random, obscure song that will scatter the dance floor, we will politely tell you "I will see what I can do" and will not play that the song the whole night, I don't care if it has sentimental value. DJs are generally cooperative since they have to deal with drunk people night after night. DJs sleep with women after gigs? Yes or at least get their numbers. Women love DJs. I will leave out details, whatever happens at clubs, stays there. If there is too many people on the dance floor for a length of time and the bar area is empty we will deliberately play a song so it gets people off the floor and ordering drinks. We are there to support business as well as entertain. |
Anonymous
| Analyst at financial firm did boss's kid's homework. I think just once. Ivy kid, some spreadsheet thing. |
Anonymous
| Worked for a business in the area that had two sets of books. Didn't work for them very long. |
Anonymous
I know someone that worked at a Montessori and I kid you not she's the dumbest person I know. Very sweet and means well but I mean DIM. We are talking lacking both intelligence and common sense. Cannot spell common words. Scary that she was an assistant teacher. She worked for a long time at a school out-of-state and could not keep a job at the schools here so at least she was weeded out. Bless her heart. |