Category: Professional Confessions

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Teachers Divulge The Creepiest Things Students Have Brought In For Show And Tell

When I was young I LOVED show and tell. I would bring in all sorts of nonsense.

I loved to “present” to everyone. It’s still one of my favorite childhood pastimes.

Of course there would always be those few kids who ruined it for everyone, and left the teacher scrambling to cover.

Let’s talk show and tell…

Redditor Salmonerd_ wanted to hear from educators out there about the times students made show and tell weird.

They asked :

“Teachers, what’s the worst thing a kid brought for show and tell?”

Let’s hear all about it…

Diamond in the rough…

“When I was in elementary school there was a kid from a different class who brought his mom’s diamond engagement ring to show and tell.”

“I know this because I found a Diamond engagement ring in the wood chips under the swing set.”

“I turned it in and later got a $10 reward, dumb 7 year old me probably should have pawned it!!”  ~ GoBuffaloes

MOOOOOO!!!

“In 5th grade, we were studying human anatomy.”

“When we got to the eyes, a kid brought in a bag full of cow’s eyes. His dad worked in a slaughterhouse. Teacher was horrified.”

“I should add that my classmate brought them in, unannounced. The teacher had no plans for dissection, was going to show us a filmstrip about eyes or something.”  

“I should add that the teacher put them in the staff refrigerator for the day (this was in the Arizona heat).”

” Afterwards, when teacher returned the bag of eyes to my classmate, he took them home, and on the walk home, gave them out to any kid who wanted one.”

“I’ll leave all that to your imagination.”  ~ alvinathequeena

The Dead

“Wasn’t show and tell but once during morning break while I was a student teacher, two 6 year olds came to find the class teacher in the staff room.”

“They had something to show her.”

“She came back with pictures, these boys had found half a dead and decomposed hedgehog and decided to pick it up and put it on her desk.”

“Needless to say hands were thoroughly washed and drenched in sanitiser.”  ~ drwhogirl_97

“I took a skeletonized animal from my back yard in for show and tell. I don’t know what animal it originally was and I think I kind of sneaked it past my mother.”

“The teacher was a bit surprised!”

“My cousin took a dead bat in a jar to school once. It was in the house.”

“They hit it with a broom, which killed it, then they put it in the jar.”  ~ whatyouwant22

Too Sharp. Too Dangerous.

“I brought 2 knives.”

“My dad is from a region in France where they make famous knives (Laguiole) and I owned two of them (one made of horn and one was bright orange).”

“It didn’t cross my mind it could be a problem, but they called my parents (who weren’t mad at me).”  ~lyscity

“My dad tells a story about when he brought his dad’s bird hunting shotgun and ammo to school for show and tell.”

“It was rather uneventful.”

“My grandpa walked out to the bus with him and told the bus driver that he was taking it in for show and tell.”

“Dad got to school, put the gun in his locker, and went and got it when it was time for show and tell.”

“He put it back in his locker after the presentation, then took it home on the bus.”

“Very different times.”  ~ wedapeopleeh

Lucky

“The teacher across the hall from me had a student who brought what he thought was a lucky rabbit foot to show to the class and excitedly announced he had enough for everyone in the class.”

“The rabbit foot was a tampon.”  ~ Saerica22

“My brother sent me a picture the other day of a sword one of his younger boys made out of the plastic part of a tampon applicators.”

“They have 2 teenage daughters and my friend that was on the text asked if he washed them.”

“The consensus was probably not.”  ~ Nate0110

“This reminds me… as a child I had an actual rabbit’s foot. My step dad at the time got it (I don’t know from where), but it wasn’t taxidermied (?) properly, basically just cut off, so there was still some blood and meat inside.”

“I carried it around in a plastic bag for at least two weeks, showing everybody very proudly, until the stench just got too much!”

“To this day I don’t know where he even got it from or how he or I thought this was a good idea.”  ~ Reddit

High Alert

“My brother found a scorpion at our house and captured it to bring for show and tell.”

“The scorpion got out somehow and the teacher had everyone on high alert to look for it and capture it.”

“Several children returned to the teacher having ‘found’ the scorpion.”

“That was the day we found out our school was infested with scorpions.”  ~ Youaresoogoodlooking

The Skull

“I had a student bring in ‘her grandfather’s skull.’”

“The class was horrified. It turned out that he was a doctor and it was the skull that he kept in his office as a model.”  ~ NinjaGinny

Got Tide?

“In my school some kid brought in his collection of ‘laundry rocks’ which were crumpled up pieces of paper that he put in his pockets and when his mom did the laundry they would turn hard like rocks.”

“He said he did it by accident once, liked it, and started deliberately putting crumpled paper in his pockets to make more.”  ~ Pro_Gamer_Queen21

Rotten on the inside…

“I taught 5th grade in a school with really rich kids and really low income kids bussed in.”

“One of the low-income kids brought a coconut for her show and tell about Trinidad, where her dad was from.”

“She cracked it open — it was completely rotten inside and smelled awful.”

“I was so worried about the kid being embarrassed, but then one of the rich kids (who was also of a pretty low intellect) looked at it with wide eyes and said “It’s like the earth: the core, the mantle and the crust!” which is something I think he had never really understood before.”

“So it actually turned out pretty well.”  ~ sanmateomary

Gas

“1993, grade 3 primary school in Australia.”

“My show and tell was rotten egg gas, I had a class mate hold a test tube that contained sulfur power while I added hydrochloric acid, no protective gear used. None of the adults saw any issue with this.”  ~ Unshavensmoe

Show and tell sounds like a game of survival in some of these cases.

But it’s clearly never dull.

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911 Operators Describe The One Call That Haunts Them To This Day

WARNING: mentions of violence, suicide, death

Though many of us have difficult, exhausting jobs, most of us are fortunate enough to be able to say our work is not especially scarring.

Emergency dispatchers, on the other hand, have terrible stories they could tell.

Redditor Onatic420 asked: 

“911 Operators, what call scares you till this day?”

Some remembered being there for someone’s worst moment.

“My sister called 911 and while she was trying to do CPR, she was begging, ‘Daddy, please wake up!’ and that’s something that’s been branded into my mind ever since then.”

“I still think about that a lot, even though it was 4 1/2 years ago already.” – Enuke2003

“Every call where someone is reporting an unresponsive relative. Some will let you walk them through the CPR process if they don’t know it, some won’t.”

“Every one of them, you hear the caller at some point pleading with the patient to not leave them. Most times they do though.”

“Parents, spouses, children, I’ve had them all call. Never gets easier.” – RaisinBranCrunch

“My husband died of a sudden heart attack. I feel terrible for the 911 operator who took my call.”

“He had passed by the time paramedics got there, so the guy on the phone with me had to listen to me scream and cry and beg. I cannot imagine having to hear that at my job.” – LivingDeadCode

Others had gutwrenching stories about children and families.

“I was a 911 operator.”

“When I asked for the address, I got an angry man yelling, ‘Just get the f**kin’ ambulance here!’”

“When I asked what happened, the caller said, ‘You don’t need to f**kin’ know that!”’

“‘I just need to know what happened so I know who to send and what equipment to bring, sir’.”

“‘Just send a godd**n ambulance, my kid’s having a seizure! Don’t send any f**kin’ police’.”

“‘Don’t send police’ coming from a caller is basically them telling on themselves. Please send police, because the patient or the EMS crew or both could be in danger.”

“So I passed a note to my partner, who was dispatching: ‘Send PD. Extremely uncooperative caller’.”

“I tried my best to get through the rest of the questions (how old is the kid, are they conscious, are they breathing, has the seizing stopped, etc…). I got nothing but verbal abuse.”

“All I knew is that a pediatric patient had a seizure when the call started, there was yelling in the background, and there was some terrible yelling in the foreground.”

“‘PUT YOUR HANDS UP’.”

“‘HEY, WHAT THE F**K, B***H’.”

“And that was it. Police had the caller.”

“The patient ended up being a toddler, who had been beaten to within an inch of their life by that a**hole. That was terrifying and sad and I hugged my own kid a little tighter that night.” – insertcaffeine

“Not scary, but I think about them often.”

“Mother of 4 called in saying the trailer was on fire and her bedroom door was locked from the outside. I could hear her kids screaming and coughing in the background.”

“I asked her if she could open a window, but they were nailed shut for some reason. Then we had her shove blankets under the door to stop the smoke from coming in before the fire department gets out there.”

“After about 5 min the coughing dies down and she stops responding to me. Nothing at all.”

“Then the fire department comes over the line saying the homeowner came out and that no one else was inside so we could slow the ambulance. We kept telling them we’re on the phone with people inside but they assured us there was not.”

“Eventually, they pulled the people out, mother and 2 of the kids died. The man who came out was letting this family stay with him and he torched it and left them in there.”

“The second was a woman calling on her husband while they were fighting, she was screaming, saying he was in the room and had a gun and wasn’t sure if he was going to shoot her or himself.”

“Seconds later I hear a gunshot and blood curdling screaming. I asked who had been shot and she said he shot himself in the head.”

“Impossible to get that 1 minute of chaos out of my head and it was months ago” – raegirlheygirll

“Got a 911 call with just screaming. Nothing intelligible, just the loudest screaming you’ve ever heard. I started officers to the house.”

“Then a kid started yelling that her uncle was trying to kill her, her sister, and her grandmother. She started screaming again, there was a thud, and then no more sound.”

“Officers got there and a man walked out into the driveway and said, ‘I did it. I killed them’.”

“He was mentally ill and lived with his mother. She had been trying to get him committed, with doctors saying he wasn’t a danger to himself or others. His 9-year-old twin nieces were visiting from out of state.”

“He snapped that morning. Bludgeoned them all with blunt objects, including a large vase. His mom and one niece died. One twin survived with extensive injuries. It was a horrifying call.” – IWantALargeFarva

“A guy in my neighborhood killed his whole family, then called 911 and told them what he had done before killing himself.”

“I always wondered what it was like for the person who took that call and the cops who showed up to find the scene.”

“I knew the son pretty well. I was on my way to school that morning when the cops were rolling in and blocking off the street.” – markitf**kinzero

There were awful break-ins.

“A family member worked as a police dispatcher and received a call from an elderly woman.”

“Her husband had just been killed in their garage by an intruder. She heard it happening. She’s wheelchair-bound but the phone was next to her.”

“She frantically begged my family member to help her. While he was on the phone with her, the criminal cut her throat. My family member stayed on the line three more minutes until the cops got there.”

“He could hear the sounds of the attack, her gasping and gurgling noises. He kept telling her help was coming and to hold on.”

“Amazingly, she survived.”

“The criminal was later caught. A 17-year-old who just wanted the thrill of killing someone and picked them at random. He’s on death row now.” – peeweemax

And there were tragedies.

“My neighbors when I was a kid, Mrs. C had dementia, possibly Alzheimer’s, and Mr. C was like a third grandfather to me.”

“We hadn’t seen him in a week so my mom went over to see if they were ok. Mrs. C told us Mr. C was still asleep, so my mom called 911.”

“I’m glad we didn’t go in there because apparently Mr. C had passed in his sleep a few days before and Mrs. C didn’t realize.”

“Very sad for us, but I’m very grateful for the police officers who were so kind and made sure a little kid like me didn’t have to see the details. Great memories of him, though! He taught me a lot about gardening that I still use today.” – ahw34

“Former 911 operator here.”

“Sometimes the calls that stick with you aren’t the most physically traumatic. I once had a call from a 17-year-old kid who came home from a sleepover to find that his mother had moved.”

“Just packed up his sister and everything in the house and left while he was gone with no forwarding address or information. She also turned off his cell phone that morning so literally, the only number he could call was 911.”

“He was trying so hard not to cry and his voice was shaking as he kept apologizing to me for calling 911. He just didn’t know what else to do and had no other family.”

“She also took everything so all he had was a couple of things that he had taken to the friend’s house. He told me his 18th birthday was in a couple of weeks and he literally had nothing.”

“The officers that responded took him to a shelter. I think about him often and I hope he’s ok. Even if he was a kid who got in trouble or had behavioral issues, I can’t imagine coming home to find your mother has abandoned you.” – gabbobbag

These stories will surely stay with us for a while—we can only imagine how the dispatchers felt.

These are the kinds of stories, whether horrible or heartbreaking, that make us want to hold onto our loved ones a little tighter.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

 

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People Who Work For The Super Rich Share The Craziest Thing They’ve Seen On The Job

Rich people, meaning those with an excess of money beyond the average person, will do some unthinkable things simply because of their wealth privilege.

Psychologically, people with incredible amounts of money often don’t see their own privilege. They think their wealth, and the lack of wealth in others, was simply due to their own morals, character traits and abilities.

The filthy rich are also at a high risk for depression because wealth can cause a relentless need for more that has been linked to unhappiness.

Redditor NeighborhoodTrolley asked:

“People who cater to the super rich; what things have you seen?”

We want to know what money really does to people.

They forgot a whole car.

“I’m a driving instructor and one group rented the track to drive their supercars for the day. At the end of the day they all partnered up and got into the cars to leave. After they were gone we realized that they had forgotten their Lamborghini Aventador at the track.” – skell15

“That was the tip.” – TheBokononInitiative

“If I had a nickel for every Lamborghini I forgot somewhere, I tell ya, I’d be rich!” – ShaughnDBL

“‘Dude… where’s my car,’ for the super wealthy.” – giddyup281

Just get it catered.

“Family friends were having marital issues. Their marriage counselor figured out a lot of their problems were over cooking meals.”

“The counselor reminded them that they are rich and can just cater all their meals, and it would be cheaper than getting a divorce. They listened to the counselor and now are happily married again.” – waterloograd

“‘Aren’t you guys like…you know…fabulously wealthy.’”

“‘…oh yeah, we’d completely forgotten about that.’” – Foxsayy

“This is some real curb your enthusiasm sh*t.” – emsok_dewe

“Until they get divorced anyway because someone falls in love with the at-home chef.” – bakarac

“‘Money does make you happy HAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA.’” – poopellar

“Money doesn’t make you happy, but poverty can certainly make you miserable.”

“According to a 2010 study, a salary of around $75k – money buys security, after that there’s no measurable increase in happiness linked to money.” – Fraerie

“Oxygen is a better analogy honestly.”

“You know when you don’t have it.”

“All your priorities immediately shift to getting it.”

“You want an unlimited supply of it to never think about it again.” – PhotonResearch

Wouldn’t spend money on coffee.

“Client was a mega millionaire in the 60s so even richer when I met him. He’d ride the bus to the office to have free coffee. Every day.”

“He was the founder of a company that had it’s named emblazoned on shipping containers being transported via big rig trucks in the states, but also international shipping and logistics. Came into financial offices daily for the free coffee. Didn’t even talk about his finances, just for the coffee and then would skedaddle.” – sunlitglo

“He probably grew up in the 30s and knew to be defensive with his money.” – bingboy23

“My grandpa is one of those born in the 30s people and they’re a weird breed man. He owns a bunch of real estate all around Seattle and he cannot refuse a bargain of any kind & would be the one to ride the bus to get free coffee. Probably has 50 million in properties but still goes to the thrift store 3x a week hunting for a good deal.” – slapstellas

“Old neighbour had 7-8 mil. in cash and lived off of cooking potatores once a week and burning both ends of matches, hadn’t gotten a toilet installed in his house, still used one in the barn.”

“Was more than 90 when he splurged on a radio and tv. Dude would have been unhappy living a ‘wasteful’ life.” – Chiliconkarma

Private jet for a dog.

“A woman who owned a small private jet business told me one time someone paid them to fly their dog (by itself) to NY for about $45,000 for some training. No other passengers.” – aticho

“It’s silly to imagine an untrained doggo trying to manage at the baggage claim.” – tdriser

“I’ve had coworkers (in avaition) fly across the country for a lobster roll and coffee beans.”

“The trip there and back probably cost 60k minimum..”

“Unreal.”

“Private aviation is unreal. Let’s say you fly from New York to South Florida. (About 3 hours…give or take a bit). That’s 6hrs round trip.”

“Private jets can range from a few thousand an hour to 15k plus. Our company has larger planes..so let’s say 8k/hr. Round trip TRAVEL is $48,000. JUST AIRFARE.”

“That is more than a lot of people make in a year and these folks are spending that on airfare.”

“Private aviation has gone gangbusters since Trump’s tax cuts…. Good to know it helped some people….” – Guppy-Warrior

“See, this is why I roll my eyes when they tell us we all need to drink through paper straws to deal with climate change.”

“The problem isn’t me drinking through a plastic straw, it’s freaking Rupert Léopold Farnzworth III over here dumping massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere just to fly Sparky across the Western Hemisphere for an hour of dog training and some lobster bread, while Jeff Bezos launches a damn penis into space.”

“The straw thing was a bad example.”

“But still, even if Private Jets are only a small percent of global emissions, you gotta admit, the people that own them are probably the same people running the 100 or so companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, and if they’re cool with flying cross country because they’re too snooty for a damn cup of Folger’s, they’re probably spending a lot more time figuring out how to get out of paying taxes than figuring out how to make their companies stop burning the planet alive.

“I got no problem trying to reduce my own carbon footprint, but it feels a little disproportionate if those guys aren’t doing jack about their sh*t.” – adamislolz

Quite the tip.

“Old high school teacher of mine is an extremely successful private tutor and does a lot of work in the wealthy neighborhoods in the area.”

“He told us once he was tutoring a kid and helped him get prepared and pass his college level physics class and at the end of their last session the kid told him to wait there and went into his dad’s office and came out with his payment and an extra $1,000. My teacher tried to deny it, saying it was too much but the kid said his dad asked him to give a tip.” – TexasFordTough

“I used to deliver Pizza and this big ass house was ordering 4-5 pizza every Sunday, the lady (a worker at this house) was giving us $100 tip. The first time, when I tried to refuse it, she told me the ‘master’ of the house insist on tipping $100 to the pizza guys.” – hos7name

“I tipped a pizza guy $100 once for bringing me a corkscrew. Not rich just drunk.” – rhet17

“Check out old fancy pants here, drinking wine from a bottle that needs a corkscrew.” – a**_scar

The shadow yacht.

“I live near a company that builds yachts. One day there was an odd looking yacht. A crew member explained to me that was a ‘shadow-yacht’.”

“You see, when you get hyper rich and have multiple yachts. You wouldn’t want to ruin the astetic of your nice yachts with jetski’s and helicopters.”

“Nor would you want your crew to sleep on the nice yacht. So you buy a shadow yacht to store your toys and to house your crew. This shadow yacht follows your fleet of nice yachts around.” – Doppar

“I was hoping ‘shadow yacht’ meant it used stealth technology or fought the pirates.”

“I am disappoint.” – HOA-President

A special sales person.

“When rich people want to buy a Jaguar in the UK they get assigned a special sales person who is incredibly knowledgeable, they meet in a special fancy office, and special arrangements can be made.”

“This was my friend Chris’ job, he had access to things that a normal Jaguar sales person wouldn’t have. Like he could ring up the manager of the factory for special requests level of access.”

“Well a Saudi Price wanted to buy this new Jaguar that had been released, so they met up and spent a full day specing the Jaguar out. I believe the final price was something like 125k for the vehicle.”

“Then came the decision for color, at the time the factory had 16 different color choices for this model. The Prince asked if he could sleep on it as it was getting late and almost time for dinner/prayer my friend Chris says of course and they set a time to meet the next morning.”

“The next morning the Saudi Prince is like, ‘I figured out an acceptable solution to my color dilemma,’ to which Chris goes, ‘And what would that be?’ the Saudi Prince goes ‘I’ll order one of each color’.”

“And my friend Chris is like, ‘Oh, well of course.’ They quote delivery time, Saudi Prince was fine and asked for his options and was presented with ocean travel options to which the Prince said, ‘What about air cargo?’”

“Chris thinking maybe they’d do 1 or 2 by air cargo and the rest by boat, the Prince was like, ‘No I want all 16 vehicles loaded on a plane, and flown to Saudi Arabia’.”

“So that’s the story on how 16 of the same Jaguar with different colors ended up being flown to Saudi Arabia. All in the total cost was around 2.5 million. Please note the prices should be £ not $.” – luther_williams

Gift giving as a form of love.

“I became personal friends with my boss and his wife; super nice people. The wife turned out to be an heiress and would buy me whatever I mentioned, like in passing during a conversation. I learned gifts were how she was raised to show love.”

“I’ve trained myself to only talk about things I already own, unless I find something useful she might like and suggest it for her.” – Lazya**bummer

“Can you talk about a new house for your new reddit friend?” – mollested_skittles

“I’m not super rich or anything, but I think gifts are kicka** and I’d much rather spend my money on a cool gift for a friend who can use it than on something extra I don’t need.”

“I was a software engineer while most of my friends are/were in grad school/med school/working low-paying jobs, so I’ve enjoyed being able to chip in or get nice things for them when they said they couldn’t.”

“I do always make sure they’re ok with it and ask if I can in advance so nobody ends up uncomfortable.” – Zephaerus

Down to earth rich people.

“My grandpa was a piano tuner. He couldn’t drive due to epilepsy so family would take him to jobs.”

“One day dad took him to a job and got talking to the owner. He said the guy lived in the biggest nicest mansion he had ever seen. Everything in the house was crazy expensive. But the owner and his wife were very down to earth and normal. If not a bit rough around the edges.”

“Finally his curiosity got the better off him and dad asked how they made their money.”

“The guy said he used to drive a truck and got tired of needing to carry around bottles of ketchup.”

“That’s how my dad met the creator of the ketchup packet.” – blitzbom

An acute sense of time.

“Some extremely wealthy people I have been around have a more acute sense of their own time and mortality, leading to impatience. Like they understand how awesome their lives are and therefore how short they feel.”

“I knew a guy whose vintage yacht broke down before summer so he bought another one strictly for that upcoming Summer. His reasoning was he likely had 20 full health summers left in his life and didn’t want to spend one of them without a boat considering he had the means to. Honestly can’t argue with that logic.” – cholula_is_good

“I am beginning to feel the awareness of being able to count the healthy years left and I’m not mega rich. Must be amazing to know you can pack those remaining years full of wonderful and wild experiences.” – Earthan

It’s wild to think that there are people out there, using their money to privately fly dogs to training or buying expensive cars in every color.

All the while, people are going on strike for better working conditions and fair wages across the U.S. Half a million workers walk off the job in South Korea in a general strike.

If we’re not paying attention to the ultra rich, we might end up in a real Squid Games.

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Housekeepers Divulge The Biggest Secrets They’ve Learned About Their Employer

Being a domestic servant is a difficult job, no matter what position you’re filling.

People who work personally and privately for others in their homes always seem to have a mountian of tasks.

These jobs can also be tedious and humdrum. But they can also be intriguing.

One of the perks of these types of jobs can be the secrets and information you become privy to.

Honey, there are just some lives you learn about that could rival storylines on “Dynasty.”

After all, truth is stranger than fiction.

Everyone on Reddit wanted to drink up the hot, hot tea delivered by Redditor Hunterofshadows when they asked:

“Housekeepers of reddit, what do you know about the owners of the houses that they don’t know you know?”

Now this ought to be scolding darling…

What a Stinker!

“Not a house keeper but a nanny. A family once took me on vacation with them so I could watch their kids while they‘d go out and explore the area.”

“That week, my bed was the couch in the living room. It’s late at night, the kids are sleeping, I’m laying on the couch and the parents get back.”

“The dad says, “is she sleeping” referring to me? I didn’t say anything so apparently he assumed yes.”

“He then started farting very loudly.”  ~ sisof2

One Day at a Time…

“Dog walker, here. I was dog sitting for an older work friend once and saw her “days sober” calendar.”  

“I was simultaneously sad, because I had no idea she was struggling, and happy for her because she had almost a full month marked off.”  ~ cleanandclaire

“I will hit 3 weeks on Sunday. This is the longest I have gone without alcohol in 10 years.”

“The only times it was longer before that were the 3 times I was deployed overseas and no alcohol available.”  ~ RSchnars

Not so loud next time…

“I’m a nanny. The last family worked for I overheard the Dad calling his insurance asking if a certain Rehab was covered.”

“He talks LOUD naturally. I heard what he was going for and everything.”

“Nobody knew not family not friends. Just me and them. They never knew I knew.”  ~ Thesugarsky

Some special announcements…

“Our maid service found our positive pregnancy test in the bathroom trash, after presumably finding negative pregnancy tests in the bathroom trash for the previous 12 months.”

“Left us a nice little congratulations note on my wife’s nightstand.”  ~ fizzleguy

“Mine found the “Best new daddy” mug I gave my husband.”

“Bless them, they hadn’t said a word about what had been in the trash.”

“Unfortunately, I had to follow that up with the miscarriage news a month or so later.” ~ ttcanuck

A Passage to Nowhere…

“House I used to work at had a secret passage from the master bed to the attic, also a secret passage from a cabinet in the great room leading to the exterior of the garage.” ~ madiet6uwu

“I grew up in a house with a trap door in the pantry floor that led to a bricked in “cell” in the basement.”

“The house was built in the early middle 19th century in an area that became known for Underground Railroad traffic and then as a Prohibition smuggling route.”

“So I’m sure that little room had some history to it.”

“Edit: Unless you guys know more about my house than the people from the university that came and checked out the house, please stop telling me it’s a cellar or root storage. It isn’t.”  ~Capt_Hawkeye_Pierce

“I just worked in a house a few months ago that had this!”

“10 million dollar mansion built in the late 1800’s.”

“They started in the kitchen/servants quaters and ran behind the walls coming out in each room with staircases that went up to the second floor and down to the basement.”

“Some of them were sealed off but the ones in the living room, master bed and basement still had their functioning pocket doors.”

“It was really awesome and made me feel like a kid again exploring them.”  ~ iHateMonkeysSObad

A Whole New World!

“A bit of an innocent one but while I was cleaning I saw this cabinet that was very large.”

“Like someone could fit a body in there. So, being curious, I opened it and saw A WHOLE ROOM.”

“It was crazy! Inside there was a bed and lights attached to these tall wood pieces.”

“Then a mini bookshelf with some books and a desk and computer. It was absolutely amazing.”  ~ LemmeHear

Well that’s a surprise!!

“Where she keeps her sex toys. It’s not obvious.” 

“One day I noticed that whenever I used the toilet the water was barely enough to send away my “deposit” so I opened the water tank to adjust it and I found not only one but several.”

“Well they are waterproof I thought.”  ~ yaarty

“I’m not a housekeeper but my late aunt used to be. One of her clients, who was fairly well-to-do, had a whole closet full of genital themed toys.”

“And when I say “toys,” I’m not using a euphemism for “sex enhancement items” or anything like that. Literal genital toys.”

“Windup penises with googly eyes on them, PEZ dispensers shaped like the most browsed pages of a skin mag (I suspect these weren’t official PEZ brand).”

“Rather risque variants on “pin the tail on the donkey”, a Nerf-like gun that fired foam phalluses.”  ~Times_Hunger

“My aunt is currently a house keeper.”

“The had this one client who would throw used feminine hygiene products under the bed; pads specifically.”

“No matter how I think about this I just can’t imagine how someone can get to that level of grossness.”

“If you’ve ever had a heavy menstrual cycle and wore a pad, you know sometimes not everything is absorbed into the pad.”

“You need to immediately sit down in the toilet or it can quite literally go everywhere.” ~ aamirazeal

She’s a Whole Hot Mess!!

“That she got a DUI. Typical religious white collar family; husband, wife, and 4 teen kids.”

“She had one of those at home breathalyzer tests from the court sitting in the master bathroom, it takes your picture as you blow into it and it sends it to your probation officer.”

“I only know because I was on probation a few years ago and had one too.”

“Curiosity got the best of me and I looked at her public record… yup.”

“DUI and she messed up on probation too, had another court date. After that I started noticing 12 step books and such.”  ~ LunaTheFerret

The way people live

“Working in hotels is similar to cleaning someone’s house, because those comfortable will lay it out for you.”

“You can tell if someone is messy or tidy at home, how well they take care their things, what they eat, how much they drink, what medical problems they may have.”

“And if you get the chance to meet them you can piece together why they live the way they do by telling their stories.”

“I never made fun of our guests or judged them. That would be so unfair and intrusive.”  ~ silly-noodle

I See You!

“My cleaning guy caught me leaving the house once.”

“Said he knew I smoked pot because he’d find stuff for it a lot and asked if he could find me some for a camping trip with his wife.”

“I freaked a little after he just said “I know you do marijuana”. I was like am I catching a lecture.”

“We moved like a month later so I never really saw him face to face again. Hope he enjoyed it.”

“They were good people and appreciated us more than they ever had to.”  ~ 420Minions

See, if you have people in your house—personal or staff—assume you’re always being watched.

I’ve always wanted to be able to afford cleaning help, and if I ever can, I’m going to make sure to be on alert.

The walls really do have ears.

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Chefs Share The Best Cooking Tips All Amateur Cooks Should Know

If you’re anything like us, this pandemic means you’ve had a sharp spike in your cooking show viewership.

We’ve spent the last year and change being baking champions, totally nailing things, chopping our way through challenges, and scoffing at everyone who tries to make a risotto in round one (that rice is totally going to be undercooked!).

For most of us, our culinary training consists of sitting on our couches munching on grown-up lunchables while we “learn” from TV chefs. There are, however, some brave souls among us who have actual kitchen experience and real room to talk… and they’d probably tell you not to try a risotto in round one.

Reddit user BigBadWolf44 asked: 

“Chefs of Reddit, what’s one rule of cooking amateurs need to know?”

Risky risotto aside, chefs have tons of cooking tips and tricks to share with we mere mortals. So let’s put down the remote, pick up a pan, and get this party started.

First put on pants, though.

Safety over everything—nobody likes burned bits.

Hold The Salt 

“A lot of the time when people add salt to a dish because they think it tastes flat, what it really needs is an acid like lemon juice or vinegar” 

– Vexvertigo

“Agreed. These are what I sometimes use to add acid depending on the recipe:”

“white/red/rice/malt vinegar, some chilli sauces, lemon or lime, wine, sherry, dry vermouth, preserved lemon.” 

– MayaSummerX

“Ah the discovery of citrus and vinegar was a great turning point in my cooking. I always call it the ‘tang,’ so I’ll hit it with a splash of vinegar/citrus and it just brightens up the flavors.”

“This was very important when trying to achieve proper Asian and Latin flavors.”

– Sheruk

We Like To Call It “Smaste” 

“Smell is very similar to taste, and if you’re not sure about combining various spices, open the bottles and smell them all together.”

– SuddenSenseOfSonder

“Smell literally is taste because of retronasal olfaction. The receptors on your tongue can only do the 5 basic flavors: sweet, salty, umami, bitter, sour”

– ChonglerV

“Oh, that makes a lot of sense!”

“I cook for myself with no training, but whenever I’m seasoning anything I always judge what to add based on how it smells. People often think I’m weird for it, but it always turns out pretty good.”

– AerialSnack

“WHAT? ITS THAT EASY?! IMA TRY THAT WHEN MY ROOMMATES ARE UP NORTH!”

“Its cookin time. I’m gonna make hella snacks.”

– Zenketski

“I’ve cooked professionally for years and I still do this.”

“If I’m not sure what a soup or dish needs, I take a bit of said soup to the spice rack and take a small taste, then smell a spice, seasoning or what have you.”

“Go down the line tasting and smelling til you find a combination that makes you go ‘mmmmmmm.’ “

– disgruntledcabdriver

Subtraction Isn’t A Thing, Unless You’re Adding

“You can always add, but you cannot take away.”

– El_Duende666

“I decided to put a couple globs of Mad Dog 357 in a pasta sauce. It’s like 300k something scoville but figured in a crock pot worth of sauce it won’t be too bad and add a little spice.”

“Made about 15 mason jars of sauce.”

“I regretted that decision. You cannot make something not spicy if you make it too spicy.”

“I made another pasta sauce but kept the mason jars from the other one too since I don’t like to waste. Now it’s Russian roulette every time I decide to eat pasta.”

– RedSquirrelFtw

“To build on that – when cooking, you must add to take away.”

“Say for example you add too much salt. Not to worry, just double everything else in the recipe and you’ve now halved the salt content.”

– MayaSummerX

And While We’re Talking About Too Much v. Too Little…

“Chill out with the flames.”

“If you’re not ready for high-heat, cooking many things at once, or if you simply can’t imagine staying by the stove for a long time to give the food your FULL attention then please, for the love of salt, turn the burner down!”

“You can always cook it more, you can’t un-burn it.”

– Lett3rsandnum8er5

“You can also always add more heat, but it is impossible to uncook something that is overcooked.”

– ForgettableUsername

“For grilling, I’ve always said you can undercook, then cook more, but can never uncook.”

– facelesspirit

On Fumbling A Knife

“Not really a cooking tip, but a law of the kitchen: A falling knife has no handle. Meaning don’t try to catch it, there is no safe way.” 

– wooddog

“I’m always so proud of my reflexes for NOT kicking in when I fumble a knife.”

“If I drop anything else, my stupid hands are all over themselves trying to catch it (and often failing).”

“But with a knife the hardwired automatic reaction is jump back immediately. Fingers out of the way, feet out of the way, everything out of the way.”

“Good lookin out, cerebellum!”

– sonyka

“Speaking of KICKING in…”

“On my first full time cooking job I had a knife spin and fall off the counter. My (stupid) reflex was to put my foot under it like a damn hacky sack to keep it from hitting the ground.”

“I’m insanely lucky; the blade went through the shoe, somehow between my toes, and into the sole somehow without cutting me.”

“Lessons learned: (1) let it fall; (2) never set a knife down close to the edge or with the handle sticking out; (3) hacky sack is not nearly as cool as it could be.”

– AdjNounNumbers

The Critical Click

“When you grab a pair of tongs, click them a few times to make sure they are tongs.”

– Kolshdaddy

“People really overlook this one. You’ve gotta tong the tongs a minimum of 3 times to make sure they tong, or else it can ruin the whole dish.”

– BigTimeBobbyB

“It’s also critical that you giggle and call yourself a crab when you do it.”

– CommodoreCliche

“It’s also good practice to sing ‘tong t-tong tong tongs’ a la Sisqo’s ‘Thong Song.’ It helps cement the idea that you are holding tongs.”

– larj_Brest

You’re Probably Making Veggies Wrong

“Really think about what size you’re cutting your vegetables in relation to cook time.”

“It’s better to have a perfectly cooked larger vegetable that you have to use fork and knife a bit to eat at the table than a bunch of overcooked, mushy bite sized pieces.”

“Generally speaking, the best simple preparation of cooking a vegetable is usually roasted on a sheet pan with olive oil, S&P.”

“And for god’s sakes, make your own salad dressings fresh!”

“It takes no time, you likely have what you already need in your pantry, and it tastes 10x as good as the crap in the bottle. You’ll be surprised even how much better Ranch dressing tastes if you get the dry seasoning packets and mix it with some fresh milk and mayo and let it set for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.”

– JasonK87919
“Roasted vegetables are great. I used to hate them, and my problem was I wasn’t roasting them long enough.”

“They’d either be hard and undercooked, or mushy. The key for me was to cook them past the mushiness stage to get them to where a lot of moisture is out of them and they have browned a bit (or more!).”

– putsch80

“One of the main reasons people saying they don’t like roasted veggies is not fully preheating their oven before putting the sheet pan in.”

“Yeah you put your timer on for the right time, but the first 5 maybe 10 minutes don’t really count. Now everything is just weird.”

– wickedzeus

… um, okay yeah that last comment might have hit a little too close to home. I promise from now on to actually wait for the pre-heat to be over before I put things in the oven.

Or at least to TRY and wait.

And to sigh and go “Reddit was right” every time I forget and my veggies come out gummy.

It’s the least I can do.

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Doctors Share The Funniest ‘My Patient Googled Their Symptoms’ Stories

We’ve all heard the advice to “not Web MD” our symptoms, as in, to not do a deep-dive of our own symptoms on the internet before seeing a doctor.

We could easily become misinformed or even scare ourselves with a disease we don’t have.

Fortunately for doctors, some of the situations they find themselves in are pretty funny.

Redditor squishy0930 asked: 

“Doctors of Reddit, what was the dumbest ‘I read on the internet…’ moment you had with a patient?”

Some doctors took issue with homeopathy.

“I once had a lady come in who clearly didn’t believe in modern medicine, but had to see us for an official diagnosis for her disability application.”

“I remember she probably had fibromyalgia, admittedly a very difficult condition to manage. She presented me with a report written by a complete quack (and I use this term very rarely but it applies here).”

“This ‘practitioner’ had taken a strand of hair and run a ‘DNA’ test on it for some significant amount of money. The whole report went through all her symptoms and decided that because the patient had lived in a moldy house 10 years ago, all her symptoms were caused by residual mold in her body.”

“Specifically named her kidneys, heart, nervous system, and brain as having mold in. Then recommended a homeopathic remedy to fix it. The patient had swallowed this story hook, line, and sinker, and nothing I could say would dissuade her.”

“It’s the only time I have tried to track down a therapist of any kind to try to report them. Funnily enough, they chose not to respond to my e-mails or telephone messages.” – clickygirl

“Not a doctor. As a transplant recipient, I have to take immunosuppressant medication for the rest of my life. There are studies that some people do come off them completely, but it’s such a huge risk to take that it may trigger organ rejection.”

“A family member of mine still can’t grasp how a life-saving surgery provided by western medicine which initially saved my life, is still keeping me back from living my life. He suggested that I get off my immune suppressants because I am a cash cow for big pharma.” – mango_invasion

“You’d be amazed at how many people tell me (type 1 diabetic) that I could get out from big pharma and my dependency on insulin if I just eat right…”

“I’m skinny and otherwise healthy. Type 1 is autoimmune disorder that must always take insulin due to the pancreas no longer creating any on its own…”

“These conversations are often met with a blank stare by me.” – BearXW

A few had experiences with Gout symptoms.

“Conversation I had with a doctor a few days ago:”

“Me: ‘So I was told that if I can identify what food I am eating that is giving me gout I can avoid it and won’t have as many flare-ups, is that right?’”

“Doctor: Literally laughs out loud ‘Aaaaaaaaaaa no. Evidence for dietary-based management of gout is very sketchy at best. Take the pills. Where did you even hear that?’”

“Me: ‘Your nurse said it to me…?’” – reverendmalerick

“I suffer from gout. I was diagnosed with it last summer and had to go through various combinations of pills to work out strength and dose I needed to manage it.”

“Anyway, my Mum tried telling me it was because I drank too much beer. I ate too much red meat. All stuff she’d googled.”

“Doctor told me that they don’t fully know the cause and that he knows professional athletes that have struggled with it. I’m not saying I’m a professional athlete. But it made me better knowing it can be literally anybody.”

“On the downside. The bouts I have had have been some of the worst most consistent pain I have ever endured. I literally wanted to chop my foot off to stop it. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Gout is horrific.” – highlander2189

There were stories about using medical products… wrong.

“Had a pt prescribed NuvaRing for birth control to be inserted vaginally. Ring lays around the cervix. She came in complaining it was too tight and needed a bigger one. Shows wrist, pulling on a tight ring to show how was cutting off blood supply to hand. “ – wereallmadh3r3

“Not a doc (nurse) but my doctor friend who works in the ER had a patient with a few garlic cloves stuck deep in her vagina because she had read on the internet it helps with certain infections and yeast.”

“(I realize garlic does have antibacterial properties but needs to be used appropriately and with caution.)” – Professional-Quote59

“As a general surgery resident on the colorectal surgery service, we do a lot of hemorrhoids, anal fissures, etc.”

“One of my colleagues prescribed a cream for a middle-aged woman and she later called back and asked if the cream would still work while she was on vacation in Hawaii.”

“Uh, yes it will, why? She replied, ‘Because I was told to apply it locally.’” – TypeADissection

Some instances were actually horrific. 

“I’m an RN. A patient with diabetic foot ulcers read on the internet that salt would dry them up.”

“He put his foot in two plastic shopping bags w/rock salt & turned his foot into prosciutto basically.”

“Had to ‘carve/amputate’ most of his foot. He has forever been nicknamed ‘hammy’ by me.” – scottylynn77

“Had a patient come in with horrid cellulitis because they thought they read that putting dirt in a cut would help stimulate their immune system. It did for all the wrong reasons.” – captainspalding232

There were also some interesting stories about alcohol.

“I’m not a doctor, but I did take my very elderly Nana to the hospital after I showed up to her house and found her slurring her words and behaving very strange overall.”

“Now, my Nana is a major hypochondriac, and when she was admitted the first thing she told the doctor is that she believed she was experiencing the beginning signs of Parkinson’s.”

“It turned out that she had mixed up a bottle of non-alcoholic wine with a bottle of regular wine, had drunk the entire bottle, and was completely hammered.” – Pygmalion335

“My grandmother was not an alcoholic, per se, but she was accustomed to having a glass of wine in the evening. As the years passed on, one glass turned to two, two glasses turned to three, probably to help her sleep.”

“Given that she was living alone, we didn’t actually know how many glasses she usually drank, except that it had been increasing over time.”

“She ended up at a nursing facility at one point, and it was pretty clear she was deteriorating and would pass away in the coming months. The nursing facility wouldn’t allow alcohol.”

“With the anger and stubbornness that sometimes shows itself with advanced age, my grandmother was livid and just refused to accept this.”

“My mom talked to the nursing home staff. My mom basically said that she’s really sorry but grandma is adamant, she’s at the end of her life so a 12-step program isn’t really in the plan, and given that no one really knows what her previous alcohol intake was, they also weren’t sure what would happen in terms of detoxing.”

“The nurses said it was against their policy and they didn’t really have a choice, unless it was prescribed from a doctor.”

“So, my mom talked to her doctor, and the doctor ended up writing a prescription for 1-2 glasses of sherry every evening, which she had for the rest of her days.” – longjumpcamel

Though it’s important for us to be informed about how we can better take care of ourselves and stay healthy, there are certain instances when it’s better to talk to a doctor instead of the internet.

Clearly from these stories, there are instances where research will cause more harm than good.

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Lawyers Break Down The Pettiest Reasons They’ve Ever Seen A Couple Divorce

It’s by now common knowledge a profoundly high amount of marriages end in divorce in the United States.

Bearing that upsetting news in mind, we’d like to think each of those relationships meet their end for a worthy reason, full of movie-like passion and the strong convictions of both partners.

But a recent Reddit thread squashed those lofty hopes.

To bring us all back down to earth, Redditor KarysMR asked:

“Lawyers of Reddit, what is the pettiest reason you’ve ever seen for divorce?”

Many lawyers interpreted “petty” to mean “mind-bogglingly trivial.”

“Definitely the fridge Story!! A woman filed for divorce because her husband would eat everything he can find in their fridge whenever the wife was out for work.”

“So she came back to a basically empty fridge each night.”

“He also cheated on her but she was less angry about that. The fridge was what pushed her to the point she wanted a divorce.” — wrenisanecklace

“the husband kept putting wet/used towel on their bed.” — automind

“Wife wanted divorce like 2 months into marriage because the husband would squeeze the toothpaste from the top and not bottom.”

“She claims to have told him a millions times over to stop. Would have been easier to get 2 toothpastes i thought.” — Infamous-Offer6342

“Not a lawyer- but apparently my brother divorced his wife when McDonald’s forgot to put bbq sauce in with her chicken nuggets at the drive through and she asked him to go back and get some.”

“He didn’t and then I guess she started smashing up food and throwing it at him/out the window….. so yeah…. McDonalds how could you ruin a marriage 😅…….” — WITCH_glitch_I-hex-u

“Not a lawyer: My Mom’s coworker divorced over dishes in the dishwasher.”

“The wife would get so frustrated over the husband (coworker) not rinsing dishes before he loads them in the dishwasher.”

“To compromise, they bought a super nice, top of the line dishwasher. Solves the problem, right?”

“She yelled about the dishes that night. He filed for divorce the next day.” — weberster

“Not a lawyer but this happened to my wife’s cousin.”

“Her husband came home one day asking her to give a higher financial contribution on the groceries, because she, as a lady, was using more toilet paper than him.”

“She took it as a joke and had a good laugh. He got mad, and asked for divorce.”

“Worth mentioning that his salary was 3 times higher than hers.” — Yashky

Many people witnessed bizarre breaking points.

“Nobody ever believes me about this one, but it’s true.”

“A man wanted a divorce from his wife because – and he gave this example as the ‘last straw’ – his wife ate those nasty pumpkin Halloween candies, like candy corn but pumpkin shaped.”

“He had been looking forward to them all day and when he got home, she had eaten them all. He snapped.”

“Swear on my life this story is true.” — Brkiri

“My father-in-law and mother-in-law’s breaking point was when he threw a breadcrumb at her from across the kitchen.”

“The divorce took 4 years to settle.” — ITS_JUST_LOW_T

One Redditor offered up another version of that story.

“My ex thinks I divorced him because my friends told me to.”

“What actually happened was I was bitching about him to a friend and she said ‘you know, he really is a passive aggressive piece of garbage. He does this all the time’.”

“And then I started thinking about how he really did pull that crap all the time and how I wasn’t actually depressed, I just hated living with him.”

“She opened my eyes, but I divorced him because he treated me like crap, not because my friend told me to.” — scaly_friends_4me

Other times, the divorce was prompted by a surprise discovery.

“I remember one episode of a TV show here in my country, similar to Jerry Springer, the woman didn’t know her husband used dentures until marrying and living together.”

“She said she couldn’t handle anymore, she was disgusted.”

“They both cried, she said a lot of ‘I’m sorry’ but she couldn’t go on. They were married for a few months.”

“Don’t know if it was true though.” — nerdy_latino

“The weirdest I’ve ever seen is a coworker of mine.”

“His wife saw a picture of him at a pool when he was in high school and really athletic. Toned, muscular, tan and so on.”

“Over the 10 years after high school he stopped lifting and lost his muscle tone and just became skinny.”

She told him she wanted him to get back to working out because she really liked the way he once looked and he said it was something he missed doing and agreed to get a gym membership.”

“He was going to the gym four days a week but was only really working out for two of them. On the days he didn’t work out he would sit in the sauna to get sweaty, watch Netflix and then go home.”

“When she asked about him going to the gym and accidentally let it slip that he was fudging workouts twice a week. She apparently found that to be a deal breaker and filed for divorce.” — SafewordisJohnCandy

“A woman came in wanting to divorce her husband. He had just gotten a new job and a pretty big raise.”

“It turned out that this new job of his also required that he work from home but he was working in an office before.”

“She was having an affair with their next-door neighbor and him being home more meant that she couldn’t cheat on her husband easily.”

“That was definitely a twist. I was expecting something like him being the one having the affair but nope!” — red_duke117

“A teacher I had in HS got divorced because his wife didnt like how much sex he had before they had been married.”

“To put in context how petty of a reason that was, they had been married for 12 yrs and had three kids together.”

“She had also met him a few years into his teaching career which didn’t start till he was 32.”

“But to say both sides of the argument, he did have a staggering large amount of sex, he was an Olympian and had been going to the Olympics to compete since he was 18.”

“He was the best teacher to ever have as a homeroom teacher as the stories he could tell were just surreal.” — TarvidD12

So there you have it.

Even if you find yourself in the throes of a dying marriage destined for failure for the least legitimate reason possible, you will not be alone.

I guess there’s some comfort in that, right?

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People Who’ve Done Top Secret Work Finally Divulge What They Were Working On

Most of us will work a fairly wide variety of jobs over the course of our lives, and some of us walk away with some pretty interesting stories while trying to pay the bills.

The most fascinating jobs, though, have to be the ones that we’re not supposed to talk about.

Redditor Charcoals7 asked: 

“People who did super-secret work, what is something you can share now that you couldn’t before?”

Some had worked with dermatologists and plastic surgeons.

“Interned for a plastic surgeon who is very well known and does work on celebs. They sold their skincare line for hundreds of dollars and touted it as having highly advanced ingredients of the highest quality.”

“They bought most of it from a wholesale retailer who stuck their name on the bottle. The website looked sketchy tbh (to be honest).”

“They also had ’24k gold face masks’ that were purchased in bundles off of Amazon for cheap.”

“These fancy skincare lines are such a scam, don’t waste your money.” – monkeylioness

“Dermatologists do this too.”

‘A lot, if not all, don’t really formulate their own products. They buy it in bulk at a discounted price from pharma sales reps, repackage, and mark up by a ridiculous percentage.” – streakfolmlore

Others had experience with security.

“Friend had to get heaps of security clearance at one of his first jobs. Inventory reporting that fed into customs databases.”

“I had to speak to an FBI agent as part of his background check and the job really just amounts to tallying information almost like tick sheets.” – tdasnowman

“Worked at an engineering department at a university that had an aviation engine testing shop. We got military surplus stuff all the time through industry agreements.”

“Some stuff that got dropped off were cruise missile engines with pretty advanced thrust vectoring and some stealthy design features.”

“All the aviation geeks were like, ‘We didn’t know that those missiles had that on them.’”

“Then some serious-looking men came to the department and took them back, and kindly reminded us not to talk about whatever it was we thought we saw but actually didn’t see because it had never happened.”

“I saw some of it published a few years ago in the open so I figure I’m good.” – gunmedic15

“My grandpa worked for the NSA. Had to say he answered phones his entire life.”

“Went to the DC Spy Museum and they had his career on display. Wild. He cried a lot.” – EepEekim

A few challenged the history books. 

“Dad (died 2016) was in the Navy and on one of the ships in the blockade that was part of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The official story is that no American ship fired any shots.”

“A few months before he died, Dad said his ship was one of several that fired shots.” – xkulp8

“During the 1982 Falklands conflict, it was spread on the news that several British submarines were in the area, and this is likely what deterred the Argentine carrier Vientecinco de mayo from engaging the British fleet.”

“My father was a submariner at the time (didn’t go down there). When he was in the bar on base back home, it was announced on the radio that a certain British submarine was in the area. 

“The guy next to him said, ‘I hope not, I just walked off it an hour ago.’”

“Basically pulled the same trick the Royal Navy used against the Graf Spee in 1939.” – EmperorOfNipples

There were gamers in the mix. 

“I was a QA tester on Half Life 2. At the time it operated under multiple code names outside of the main testing room: the two I remember was Red Rooster and Dirty Butler.”

“Security was INSANE. They had us in a small corner office with PCs and draped-out windows. Our lead kept the office locked at all times, and when we got into work each day we had to hand over all bags, cell phones, and any storage media we had.”

“If I recall, screenshots were only allowed with permission, and had to be sent in an email to the lead, then scrubbed from the computer.”

‘This was also during the time Vivendi Universal Games (where I worked) was having tensions with Valve over the whole Steam thing, so for a while, it didn’t seem like we’d get credited either: we eventually did, but only on Gamasutra.”

“The entire team got printed shirts that read, ‘I survived Red Rooster,’ and I’ve still got mine kicking around. It’s itchy, thick, and uncomfortable to wear, but I refuse to get rid of it, since it’s a memento I’m fairly proud of.” – PatienceHero

“I worked at a printing company that made Magic The Gathering cards. It was insane.”

“There’s nothing quite like seeing uncut sheets of foil mythic rares stacked in a block 4 feet high 8 months before release.”

“I wasn’t allowed to play in tournaments during my tenure there and I had to sign an NDA.” – feverishdodo

“I worked similarly at Hasbro, the parent company for Wizards of the Coast which owns Magic and I was given a free uncut press sheet of Japanese Rise of Eldrazi foil mythic rares. They also gave me a full set of the employee-only holiday cards and a bunch of other stuff.”

“Basically one of the higher-ups found out that I loved Magic and made a call to get a huge package of free stuff sent to me. I barely knew the guy but it was such an incredible thing to do that my whole department came out to watch me open the stuff.”

‘It’s one of my most cherished memories honestly.”

‘It makes sense though that a company made up largely of adults who love toys and games would retain that childlike spark of just wanting to give your friend a gift to make them happy, no strings attached.”

“If anyone here reads this and gets the chance to work for Hasbro, I can’t recommend it enough, TAKE THAT JOB!”

“I wish I still had the press sheet, but life gets in the way sometimes and I had to sell it along with all the other rare cards I had to make sure my wife and I could survive. I miss them, but making sure my wife felt a little more secure that month about money was easily worth all of my cards.” – Itsfitzgames

There were wholesome secrets, too.

“Still secret: Sometimes I warn my dad about certain things and tell him how to react/ what to do (dad has autism so he can’t keep the truth from his expression) for my mom’s sake.”

“For example, my mom is older and got a shorter haircut and talked about how worried she was to show my dad because she knows he doesn’t like shorter hair on women.”

“I texted him to warn him and tell him to just smile and say it’s nice, DONT tell her you like it longer.”

“The next day, my mom couldn’t stop looking in the mirror because my dad said he really liked her haircut.”

“She doesn’t know it’s because I warn him about things and she will never know.”

“I love my dad but he is horrible at lying with his facial expressions. Same as instructing him to order flowers and a gift for my mom to send to grandma’s house for Valentine’s Day because she was visiting her mom and would be away.” – CorruptManatee

Some secrets are less interesting than the fact they were made to be kept secret at one point, but every once in a while, a person finds a gem.

The ones that make us question something basic about our lives, or that remind us to be thankful?

Those are the best kinds of secrets.

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People Divulge The Absolute Best Questions To Ask In A Job Interview

The job interview process is almost always stressful, and that’s only after you’ve sent in enough resumés and applications to get someone to offer you an interview in the first place.

Knowing what to ask your interviewer when they ask you “Do you have any questions for us?” is often the most nerve-wracking part of the interview itself.

But below, you’ll find some great questions to ask your potential employer during your next interview.

Reddit user fmgame asked:

“What is THE best question to ask on a job interview?”

Ask About Your Predecessor

“One that has always gone over well for me: ‘What were some qualities that the previous employee in this role brought to the job that you would like to see carried forward?’”

“Another good thing to do is research the company you are interviewing with and you can ask things about what they may be involved in or you could drop that while reading about the company, you wondered this.” –uneasyandcheesy

Ask For Your Interviewer’s Expertise

“When you were interviewing here, what would you have liked to know before you joined?” –BeBackInASchmeck

“This worked for me. I asked my interviewer a question about how she had personally dealt with a company policy she had just explained.”

“She bragged about her stellar adherence to the policy. I nodded my approval. I got the job.” –slowbreaths

“This sounds like it allows too much room for them to promote themselves or the company. It’s not a bad question, I just think it will be hard to get an honest answer.” –Dukeronomy

“But are we looking for an honest answer, or just trying to get hired?” –DungeonsAndDragonsD*ldos

What Do They Want From You?

“Ask them what is the biggest problem you can solve for them in your first six months with the company. Similar to ‘don’t think of a purple hippo,’ this forces them to imagine you succeeding in the position.” –stack_cats

“I asked this question in the interview for my current job. The answer I got was great:”

“‘Nothing. Just settle in, find your feet, concentrate on doing the basics right. We’ll sort out some challenges for you next year’.”

“It meant that I felt really relaxed and at ease when I started, knowing that I didn’t have to make any grand statements early on in my career here.” –SamwiseTheOppressed

This One Can Help You Weed Out Places That Aren’t A Good Fit

“What do you like best about working here?” –SJExit4

“This question has helped a lot to get an accurate view on the employer” –HurricaneHugo

“‘Good work-life balance, open and transparent communication, and a healthy work environment,’ even if none of those things are true.” –reallydarnconfused

“In February I asked this question in a job interview and the immediate response of the guy interviewing me is to look down and laugh a bit.”

“He then told me the likes the ‘balance’ and the ‘comradeship’ and that it feels like ‘family’.”

“That didn’t satisfy me but they proceeded to hire me a week later and I accepted. That comradeship he was talking about was true.”

“It was a group of 15 people and they were all 45+ and older and we’re highly racist towards everyone not German enough.”

“I quit after 2 months after listening to daily right wing conspiracies and whining about foreigners.” –Shaawny

Are They A Good Manager?

“A question that landed me a job once was: ‘If I asked your direct reports about your management style, what do you think they’d tell me?’ Stumped a hiring manager and he emailed me personally to tell me about it, no one ever asked him that question but I got the job.”

“In my current interviews I’m asking ‘what did your company do for its employees during COVID to improve their day to day, work life balance, etc.’ and I ask ‘Is there anything your company adopted during COVID that they plan to keep post COVID?’”

“These questions give a lot of insight into whether a company treated their employees well.”

“Other questions that I’ve been complemented on are:”

“‘If we were currently sitting in my 1 year review, what would I have done in this year for you to say I excelled in my role?’”

“‘If I could snap my finger right now and change anything about your job or the company, what would it be and why?’” –Ophelia_AO

“When I’m interviewing, if it’s not offered proactively, I ask to meet some of the team I would be working with – and have a meeting where the hiring manager was not present.”

“When I’m talking with my potential coworkers I can them ask them about daily tasks/projects, any challenges, and what it’s like to work with the hiring manager. Not being able to meet with them separate from the hiring manager would be a red flag.”

“But then a couple of years ago I was interviewing and was offered a job where I would be the first employee at a company. The owner had previously done a lot of his business with contractors, and wanted to bring on an employee.”

“Obviously there were no coworkers for me to interview, since I would be the first one hired.”

“I did a couple of interviews with the owner, and he said he definitely wants to offer me the position, and he asked me to email him my references.”

“I said I would, and then I noted that normally I would want to speak with coworkers, but since that was not really possible I asked him for references of his own – specifically some who could speak to his management style.”

“He apparently loved that I did that. Said he had never been asked that before, and I could see he was surprised and hadn’t even thought about it.”

“But he agreed to send me an email later that night.”

“What I really appreciated was that he didn’t just give me people who were his direct reports in past jobs. He gave me a couple of levels of people to speak to.”

“One reference was someone who he directly managed previously. This one could speak about his long term experience with my prospective boss, and management style, and whether or not he was a micromanager (was not one, yay).”

“One reference was someone who was currently a managing partner at a pretty big Australian company. They had been VPs at the same time, managing different divisions at a previous company.”

“This one could speak to the leadership style, how my prospective boss approached business problems, and about his vision for the company. They had a long history, and it was really valuable to understand that my boss had a 5 year and 10 year plan for the business that was well thought out.”

“And I think the third reference was a current contractor at the company I was thinking about joining. This one was able to speak about current management style, and current projects I would work on.”

“Got valuable info from all of those references, and I accepted the job”

“Absolutely all of them were accurate about him as a manager.”

“A year or so later told me that me making the request for his references stood out – he took it as a sign that I was a good choice.”

“I don’t work for him anymore, but he’s still one of the best managers I have ever had.”

“The only manager I ever had who when he was trying to hire more people, came to me and said that in trying to hire he had come to realize that he was underpaying me, and gave me a $10k raise on the spot.” –LadyCiani

This One’s Important

“Why is this position open?” –TXJOEMAMA

“The position was ALWAYS hiring (call centre) so I asked them what their turnover rate was… 20% per month.”

“I lasted a good while. I had the highest call ratings in the company, and several customers spoke to or sent letters to my manager about how much they appreciated my help.”

“But I also had the lowest amount of calls taken per shift. Because of that, they never gave me my monthly award in front of the other staff.”

“They didn’t want anyone else to think they could get away with it.”

“Quantity, not quality.” –blameitonmyouth

Not Everyone Wants To Move Up

“Perhaps not the best but very interesting. A candidate asked me if it is possible in our company to get a significant raise without climbing up the career ladder in our company.”

“This guy never wanted to be a manager, he wanted to do what he applied for but wanted to know it will be well paid.”

“We hired him. He’s introvert, working alone in his ‘basement’ but he’s great at what he does.” –Nathaniel66

Job interviews are often stressful, but hopefully these suggestions about what to ask your interviewer make at least part of the process easier.

Happy job hunting!

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People Who Work For Dating Apps Share The Best Behind-The-Scenes Facts They Know

Online dating seems to be the norm for finding a partner these days, but the process can seem a bit esoteric and confusing for those who haven’t been using the apps all along.

Working for the companies that run dating apps and websites is more interesting than the average person might expect, too.

Reddit user brunetteht3 asked:

“Redditors that worked with a dating company (Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, etc.), what’s the most insane user stat or behind-the-scenes fact you found out about?”

Try Reaching Out

“I ran operations for an online dating company (notably not affiliated with Match). From database analytics I can tell you a few things.”

“Men initiate contact around 80% of the time in straight matchmaking, and if you are a woman looking to date other women and you simply initiate contact with another woman you have a good chance of success simply because it’s very very very common for women to match but then neither initiates contact.”

“IIRC we were able to determine that it takes on average about 3 dates before sex happens (I don’t recall how we worked that out, I’m not a data analyst, but presumably it was some keyword based algorithm looking at chat messages).”

“We got so many requests for information from the police that we had an informal system with them, to save them from wasting time getting warrants for information about people who we didn’t have data on, they would ask about a particular name/email/whatever other identifier and we would just say yes we have data about them or no we don’t, and if we did they’d then go get the warrant to get a copy of it.”

“The other thing I can tell you from our analytics, that really shouldn’t be at all surprising, is to get some decent profile photos.”

“Go get your talented friend or just hire a photographer to take some really nicely-lit well-composed photos of yourself and watch your match rate soar.” – jamesinc

Not The Best Job

“I used to work at a dating site in the UK. I was on the tech side but most of the staff was a group of young women who manually approved images and text changes to profiles.”

“There was about 10-15 of them and the turnover rate was about one a week. The work was just so mind numbing.”

“About 10 times a day they’ed shout that they’d ‘got another one’.”

“Which basically meant one of the hundreds of thousands of men on the site has differently thought ‘I’ve thought of something nobody else has tried, I’ll upload a picture of my c*ck’ at which point they’d all laugh at it, cancel the profile upload and go back to reading about people’s choice of pets or whatever else they thought was interesting.” –mvrander

This One Isn’t Either

“My ex bf worked for the Yahoo Italy dating site back in the earlyish 2000s. His job was to pretend to be a woman, and message male customers just as their accounts were going to expire.”

“This would encourage them to pay to renew their subscriptions. Once they renewed, he would ghost them.”

“He only lasted for a few months due to how unethical it was.” –visualisewhirledpeas

More Than One Word Per Text Is Probably Good

“I used to work at Bumble, although this was about 4-5 years ago. Globally, about 90% of the users are men, so there is a huge male to female disparity, although it’s not that bad on a per country basis (for some countries).” 

“The most depressing stat though was the histogram of word count in messages. Something like 91% of opening messages were just one word ‘hey’, and ~85% of conversations were just one exchange long (‘hey’ -> no reply ever).”

“Looking at human, digital mating habits splayed out in data science form was really depressing.” 

“The countries which had better male-female ratios (which I can remember) were the Nordic ones, Sweden and Norway were close to 50/50, and for a time, one of them even had more women on the app than men.”

“Not sure how it is now.” –trias10

It Might Not Always Work Out

“[There was] A dude with over 2000 right swipes and no matches.” –Deleted Account

“Bless him – that’s quite sad actually. Hope he found someone eventually.” –brunetteht3 

Maybe Don’t Use Dating Sites For Your Side Hustle

“Lots of gay guys get banned from grindr selling weed. Would get a lot of emails of ‘why am I banned’ .”

“Go to their profile and will say ‘HMU for that 🌳‘” –PayneTrayne

“At my bachelorette party in New Orleans someone wanted weed and was going to try to find someone on Burbon Street. My friend said it was way easier and safer for him to use Grindr 😂” 

“Took less than ten minutes!” –mathlady89

Too Bad They Don’t Take Monopoly Money

“Most dating sites and apps are owned by one company The Match Group. They have a near monopoly. I think Bumble is one of the few not owned by them.” –HueJass84

“Funny you should say that, Bumble is owned by a woman who was also a co-founder of Tinder. The rest of that founding team owns The Match Group.” –zadeon9

“To be fair, she (Whitney Wolfe Herd) launched Bumble as a more comfortable and empowering alternative to Tinder and later sued them for sexual harassment. This comment seems to imply that she’s somehow in cahoots with Tinder/Match.” –spacemanaut

 So Many Unsolicited Pics

“I used to moderate OK Cupid. The amount of unsolicited dick pictures men would send women, not even accompanied by any words was horrifying.”

“I mean, you’d expect it because online dating is a cesspit but the sheer amount would still surprise you.”

I had to look at each reported picture and say ‘Yes, that’s a penis’.” –Jimmypeglegs

“99% of the time, the dick pic doesn’t work. What happens after it’s reported?” –IsThisNameTakenThen

“I’m guessing they think it’s a numbers game? I’d only ever see the picture if it had been reported by the recipient, but if they liked it then fair enough.” 

“As to what happens afterwards, usually their account would be banned. OKC were usually quite quick at getting rid of surprise dick piccers.” –Jimmypeglegs

Everybody Lies, But About Different Things

“I worked for Match for a couple years. This is probably widely known but women frequently lie about their age and weight and men lie about their height and salary.”

“Also, it’s a big problem that women are inundated with DMs while most men get none.” –ChickumNwaffles

Dating Life Pro Tips

“Ok so I didn’t work with a dating company per se… But I helped software engineers optimize their profiles.” 

“Men get VERY FEW matches, regardless of how good their profile is. Women get A LOT of matches, but most of those matches are useless.” 

“1) Don’t try to appeal mildly to EVERYONE. Appeal strongly to a small subset of people. Emphasize who you are.” 

“2) Show don’t tell—what makes a person want to date you? Will you impress them with your volunteer work?”

“Will you bring them fun places? Will you make them laugh?” 

“3) Get good photos. If you have to, get a friend with a good camera to take photos of you multiple times over a day with several changes of clothes.” 

“4) Be brutally honest. Do you need to go to the dentist because your teeth are gray? Go.”

“Do you need to get a haircut? Go somewhere that charges $50 a haircut and tell them to do what they want (if male).”

“Do your clothes fit? Ask a fashionable friend.”

“Remember: people are judging you on your appearance as much as you are judging them. They can’t see you’re kind of funny or interesting.”

“They can see if you’re well groomed and making an effort.” –Katamende

While online dating might seem even scarier after reading these facts, it’s still worth giving it a try if you’re looking for love.

Just remember to put your best (online) foot forward!