25+ Posts That Reveal Industry Secrets From Real People
People outside the industry really should not know.
Every industry has some secrets that we don’t know as everyday buyers.
I love exploring the internet and am also trying to make content consumption purposeful.
The following secrets are from real people who have worked long enough in an industry, and we, as common people, don’t know them.
They seem unethical.
Every industry has a secret to grow; sometimes, the same secret causes them to go down.
Here are some great ones.
1/ Live events
“At any concert you attend, the best sound will be directly in front of the engineer at the main soundboard.”
2/ Book Writing
“It costs about $200k to put your own book on the top of the NY Times Bestseller List. All you have to do is buy a lot of copies yourself.”
3/ Dog trainers
“I don’t train the dog. I’m training YOU. Unfortunately, so many behavioural issues in dogs are caused by the owners. 90% of training dogs is human therapy.”
4/ Retail
“If you ever hear ‘Code Brown’ over the walkie talkies at Target, it means they found sh*t on some of the clothes in the softlines.”
5/ Casino
“I’m not in the casino industry, but I am in the fire service: Casinos pump an extra 1% of oxygen into the air to make you more alert and give you more energy. You stay longer and spend more money. It’s also why casino fires are so catastrophic.”
6/ Airlines
“Your flight wasn’t cancelled due to weather. There’s an equal chance it got cancelled because of maintenance, staffing or scheduling problems. If there’s a cloud in the sky, it will be coded as ‘weather cancellation’ so they don’t have to comp hotel/meal vouchers.”
7/ Jewellery
“Most items for sale have a ‘min’ and ‘max’ price. Don’t take the price tag at face value. Ask straight up: ‘what is the min on this item?’. Say it like you know what you’re talking about and they will usually tell you.”
8/ Recruiting
“IT recruiter here. I redo all your resumes. People add too much ‘flair’ to the CVs. I don’t need boxes and tables. It’s not cute. Stop it. A simple word doc with limited formatting works fine and makes you look a LOT better on paper.”
9/ Childhood education
“I’m a teacher. If you as a parent will read with your child often and early, your child will thrive in school. I’m talking daily books read together from newborn to about third grade. Every single day. No teacher can replace that.”
10/ Dentist
“I’m a dentist. Here’s the lowdown on toothpaste. As long as it has fluoride they are all basically the same.”
11/ Starbucks
“I’ll decaf someone if they are really rude to me. I only do it when the customer is being a REAL a-hole. You have to really earn those decaf shots from me.”
“The shops spend more on dairy ingredients than on coffee.”
12/ Blood banks
“I work at a plasma center. Your bottle of plasma goes for around $1000. We give you $25.”
“Red cross makes a ridiculous amount of money selling plasma to makeup/skin care companies.”
13/ Doctors
“It’s illegal to overpay doctors. However, it is *not* illegal to operate a separate company that all of the doctors have shares in that a health care organization ‘rents’ its offices from.”
14/ Cosmetics
“I used to work in skincare: None of the products cost more than $2 to manufacture, but would retail at anything from $20 to $150 per product. For perfumes, the glass bottles and spraying mechanisms costs more than the liquid inside.”
15/ Job requirements
“I used to screen resumes for small companies. Job’ requirements’ are more of a wish-list situation. Never let some unchecked boxes deter you from applying — you have no idea what the applicant pool is like.”
16/ Insurance
“Liberty Mutual Insurance puts every claim through an algo to determine whether to fight a dispute in court. The algo is able to guess the lawyers and judge that will participate and decides primarily based on their records.”
17/ Spas
“A ‘high class’ spa I worked at used epsom salts and vegetable oil for their $65 salt scrubs.”
18/ Food
“Most sushi places will use the same distributor and have same quality of seafood. The difference between a fancy sushi place and a hole in the wall is pretty much the environment, and the price.”
19/ Military
“The stuff you buy that’s ‘military standard’ doesn’t necessarily mean it’s very good quality at all. It simply means it was made by the lowest bidder. A lot of military-issued kits aren’t that good and gets replaced by personal kits of better quality.”
20/ Hotels
“Used to work in a business hotel. If you get scrambled eggs on Sunday morning, you can be 100% sure it’s left over from Friday morning.”
21/ Film
“When a movie trailer has shots that turn out ‘missing’ from the actual movie, that’s not because they were cut. Those shots never existed. The trailer didn’t test well and the studio inserted scenes specifically made for the trailer during ‘additional photography’.”
22/ Walmart
“Come to Walmart deli after 7–8pm. We mark everything down. You’re welcome.”
23/ Volunteer work
“Cleaning up animals after oil spills is feel good propaganda to make the public think they are helping. 90% of the those animals will be dead within a few days or weeks from ingesting oil. Real work is done by trained professional crews, not volunteers.”
24/ Trucking
“There is a period of time every year that in the US, the Department of Transportation pulls over any and every truck that they can. During this period many trucking cos take vacation time, as the potential hassle is not worth the money made during this time.”
25/ Art World
“A lot of successful artists at a certain level of success do nothing more than create a concept and employ several assistants, who are either current or graduating art students, who actually make the art itself, its reproductions or both.”
26/ RV Vehicles
“RV technician here. Shit is designed to start breaking after around 44 uses. Most RV owners use their trailers on weekends. But not every weekend. So that 44 uses on average stretches between two and three years.”
Sources:
Source — 1 Reddit
Source — 2 Reddit
Stay humble
Stay curious
And keep learning
Book recommendation:
Note — 3: Steve Jobs Gifted This Book to 500+ People
I’m building a community of like-minded, curious people, and I’d love for you to be part of it. Sign up below!
Subscribe here for more helpful insights — 2x Weekly Newsletter, where I provide practical ideas to help you build a healthy, productive, and wealthy life.
👉 If you enjoy reading this post, feel free to share it with your family & friends! Or feel free to click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏