25 Secrets Employees Are Forbidden To Share With Customers

Every profession has its secrets, and sometimes, employees are bound by rules and policies that prevent them from sharing certain truths with customers. When a Reddit user asked, “What does your job not allow you to tell customers?” the responses ranged from the mildly amusing to the eye-opening.

#1

Image source: brickhamilton, Pixabay / pexels (not the actual photo)

I’m a contractor, so I guess it’s more of a trade secret. In sports broadcasting, you only see the interviews that have been approved for air. So, all the horrible language, political statements, extremely awkward answers, etc., get screened and buried so nobody sees them.

But I see them, and they’re very entertaining.

#2

The job you applied for does not exist. If the website you applied on has the word job in the url, it’s just data mining, at least 70% of the time. Job applicants will give up some of the most valuable data without hesitation and every fortune 500 spends upwards of 90k a year harvesting this data so I know it’s high yield value content. What they do with the data idk but I do know it’s packaged and sold.

Image source: Pm_me_your_marmot

#3

Image source: Trashiee, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)

We are highly advised against telling parents about milestones like first steps, first words etc happening at our center because it could cause numerous negative emotions in the parent and we know the child will do it again soon! It’s a very special moment and we want the parent to experience it as authentically as possible. I’m a daycare teacher :).

#4

Image source: zackintehbox, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)

I work for a major US brewery and we have one beer that we put into two separate cans. One of them is a “premium” beverage (one of the most popular in the US top 5) and the other is an “economy” beer. It’s the same stuff.

#5

Image source: Simpawknits, Marcelo Leal/ unsplash (not the actual photo)

Your loved one is dead. You should let them go and stop making us fill him/her/it/them with epinepherine just to keep their heart beating.

#6

Image source: lasermole, Christina Morillo / pexels (not the actual photo)

Company I used to work for did live chat support. Unbeknownst to customers the support engineers could read what customers were typing before they hit send… Be careful what you say to tech support is all I can say!

#7

Image source: esoteric_enigma, Yan Krukau / pexels (not the actual photo)

I work at a university and we’re heavily discouraged from telling students to drop out. We’re also discouraged from telling them to change majors if it’s going to make them take longer to graduate. The second one really bothers me.

#8

Image source: dolphins344, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)

Old job but that our “house beer” is one of the most common lagers in the country.

#9

Image source: mongooseme, RDNE Stock project / pexels (not the actual photo)

I sell new homes. I’ve sold about 1500 of them.

Get a home inspection if you buy a new home.

Fewer than a hundred of my buyers have gotten home inspections. Probably fewer than fifty. Every single one has found something important that we wouldn’t have addressed otherwise.

#10

Image source: Kyubimon, Timur Saglambilek / pexels (not the actual photo)

None of our food is fresh. Yes, even the food listed as made fresh daily. No, we don’t actually make the soup, in fact it’s often refrozen and a day old. The food used to be fresh, but corporate phased that out during COVID and raised the prices.

#11

Image source: StunningInfomercial, Mikhail Nilov / pexels (not the actual photo)

That you overpaid on your insurance deductible, co-pay, or co-ins which is a credit on your account. If you don’t know then you won’t ask for a refund.

#12

I used to work for an adult live streaming site. A lot of women would complain that they weren’t getting enough traffic. It’s because we would curate the front page and put certain women at the top. We were told to do this for women with large social media followings or worked for agencies that we had partnerships with. A woman could also get their stream pushed to the bottom of the list for reasons too (looks, bad camera quality, bad wifi connection, etc). A lot of us also had “burner” accounts and the company would load up our wallets with tokens so we could tip certain women and make them think they were getting a lot of traffic/engagement.

Image source: Kalistoga

#13

Image source: Aeokikit, Samantha Gades/ unsplash (not the actual photo)

From my buddy who worked at a factory that boxed and made cereal. The only thing that will change on production lines is the box the bag gets into.

#14

Image source: WhiskeyEjac, CardMapr.nl/ unsplash (not the actual photo)

I worked in retail management for many years, and can confirm that the average consumer has a 2nd grade understanding of math.

**Black Friday sales are not really sales**.

If an item costs $30 normally, they will run a promotion that is “3 for $90,” and people will come in droves to buy out a product.

If a shirt is $20 and is normally “Buy 1 Get 1 50% off,” (so $60 total for 4 units) the Black Friday Sale will be “Buy 3, Get 1 Free!”, which is $60 for 4 units.

You would be genuinely surprised by how many people don’t do simple math and get excited by big signs.

#15

Image source: HotSpinach, Thesab / wikipedia (not the actual photo)

I worked at a historic penitentiary in Phila., PA.
At the bottom of the children’s waiver, in fine print, it states that there are cell blocks that have not been abated for asbestos, and the old lead paint leaves a film of dust on everything. I got written up for pointing this out to a pregnant woman.

#16

Image source: onebowlwonder, Skitterphoto / pexels (not the actual photo)

I was in charge of all of the keys for a navy base. Signing them out to contractors and TCNs, n such. There were probably around 300 keys for the whole base and every single one was the exact same key. When they set up the system no one realized that when they bought the same 300 locks it came with the same 300 keys. So I was basically giving out master keys to the base without no one ever knowing and I’m sure they have never replaced the locks. It passed a high level government inspection, those f****n people didn’t even notice all the keys were the same.

#17

Image source: really_affordable, Mikhail Nilov / pexels (not the actual photo)

I worked at a fancy hotel and was out front to greet people and assist upon arrival.

We weren’t allowed to say “Welcome back!”

This was in place to protect those that decided to bring another spouse/partner/mistress/etc day after day to the hotel during their stay.

#18

Image source: Koi_Fishhy, Photomania World / pexels (not the actual photo)

For reference, I work at a trampoline/adventure park.
We don’t clean the ballpit like ever. Some kid peed in there once, and they just told an employee to stick a mop in there. When we do clean it (like once a year), the number of phones, vapes, socks, ect, is actually disturbing. We’re supposed to clean it like 2-4 times a year.
Also, we never clean the baby changing stations. It didn’t click to me to maybe wipe it down. If I’m on the bathrooms, it’s now added to my to-do list.

#19

Image source: 27xman, Craig Dennis / pexels (not the actual photo)

I worked for a small family owned business that was famous for their old fashioned pies…they were bought in from a large company and baked there. That was it. I had so many customers tell me how we have the best pies ever and that the baker does an amazing job, when in reality all she did was put them in the oven.

#20

Image source: Chili919, Lisa Fotios / pexels (not the actual photo)

In my country there are 2 main distributors of the products my employer sells. Us and the other company..which buys their products from us to sell them as theirs. I deliver a truck full of products every week to them. But we have to deny every connection to the other company.

#21

Image source: dylanr23, Clay Banks / unsplash (not the actual photo)

Our warranty is as long as it is because it will fail after the warranty.

#22

Image source: Purplociraptor, Mr.TinMD / flickr (not the actrual photo)

There’s a sticker in the window that we have ADT security, but we stopped paying for it since covid.

#23

When I was in retail maintenance, I wasn’t allowed to let the managers see the bill. That was for corporate eyes only.

My theory was that if they knew how much I was making to change a lightbulb they would quit and go do that. Or maybe they would be good employees and change the lightbulb themselves, thus increasing the companies liability. .

Image source: Dirk-Killington

#24

If a software salesperson says a feature is “in Development”, that likely means they sent the dev team an email saying ‘wouldn’t this feature be great?!’ 6 months ago. Until it hits the roadmap, it isn’t real.

And once it’s on the roadmap, add 6months to a year for actual delivery. Roadmaps are estimates by management and they align with profit goals, not actual dev time.

Image source: AhFFSImTooOldForThis

#25

I worked for a big Japanese electronics manufacturer in a call center back in the early 90s. We were not allowed to say that a line of our tv’s had bad tuners even though we all knew it and sent out countless free tuners to repair shops all over the country even for out of warranty products. I typed it so many times I even remember the part number, 1465371-11. EDIT: since so many people asked, it was a whole line of Sony tv’s.

Image source: Game72016