Category: wtf

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Mall Santas Confess The Creepiest Thing A Child Has Ever Asked For

It’s Christmas and that means time to have a chat with Santa.

Have we been naughty or nice? What is on your list?

My mother used to take me to see mall Santa every year. And every year I’d ask for the common superficial gifts.

I always assumed the rest of my peers were asking for the same things. As I grew older I came to find out that was not the case.

People have been asking these mall Santas for things that could get all of us on a Dateline NBC episode.

It seems some kids think Santa is a hitman. That is a request that can keep you up at night.

Redditor SantasCousin wanted to get into some scandalous Christmas tales from all the mall Santas out there.

So they asked:

“People who have been Santa at the mall, what’s the creepiest thing a kid has asked you for Christmas?”

I have a feeling it won’t just be the children indulging in questionable requests and behavior.

Let’s get to some details.

Can I have the Leftover?

“Had a kid ask ‘Santa, what happens to all the dead kid’s toys?’.”  ~ marxroxx

“I feel like he just sees a business opportunity.”  ~ ReverseTuringTest

Boyfriend Santa Says…

“My boyfriend is a Santa for private events, and has been doing it for over 20 years, so he has a BUNCH of stories.” 

“He was doing a private adults-only party, so all of the ladies were being a bit flirty, but nothing crazy. ‘Santa Baby’ started playing and the ladies dragged him onto the dance floor.”

“He shimmies a bit and goes to sit back down when a woman grabs him and starts grinding on him.”

“He tries to get away from her in character (‘What will Mama Claus think?’), but she keeps on grinding and starts to moan.”

“Finally, the hostess notices and gets her away from him, but she kept trying to get to him the rest of the night.”

“The saddest story was definitely when a little kid (4 or 5) crawled into his lap and, with a big, sweet smile, asked Santa.”

“’Can you make my mommy love me?’”

‘My BF has to hug the kid so he wouldn’t see him tearing up and told him that that was a request for a higher power and that he and Mama Claus would pray about it.”

“Kid seemed happy with that response.”  ~ nursejacqueline

Bad Elves

“I wasn’t a mall Santa, but one of the elves who took the pictures.”

“We had two Santas: one was narcoleptic and we had to keep waking him up, and the other would bring his own homemade bags of coal to give to the kids who would cry.”

“And we’d have to try to seize all the bags before he started his shift. That was a fun job.”  ~ craychel

‘get better and not die’

“Not a Santa, but I remember being in hospitals a lot as a kid with serious stomach issues.”

“I remember asking a mall Santa if I could ‘get better and not die’ once when I was about eight or nine years old.”

“When the mall Santa looked at me sadly and said he couldn’t do that, almost in tears, I asked if my old dog that died as a puppy could be brought back as a zombie so ‘we could both be dead together’.”

“‘And if I could come back as a zombie too so I could stay with my parents so they wouldn’t be sad’.”

“Looking back, that was really creepy and I think I broke the poor guy’s heart.”  ~ Emmax1997

For the Menu…

“I wasn’t a mall Santa, but I played one of his elves.”

“I think the worst thing a kid ever asked for was some reindeer sausage. He figured Santa could slaughter one of his reindeer for the venison.”  ~ Dubioushonesty

“Ikea in the UK sells, or at least used to sell, reindeer meat its delicious maybe he had some and wanted Santa to bring him more.” ~ homingstar

One Big Kick!

“Not a mall Santa but I was the ‘Best Buy Box’ for a number of Holliday seasons in the early 2000’s.”

“One year we set up a chair where you could take a picture with me. Soon it turned into people just telling me what they wanted for Christmas.”

“Sometimes I’d have a stack of $5 gift cards and I’d give them out randomly.”

“One kid sits down and says he wants to kick me in the crotch.”

“The suit was heavily padded and there was a good 10 inches or so from the bottom of the box to my love spuds.”

“Being 19 and wanting to put on a good show, I said sure.”

“Kid winds up and musters the best kick he had. I played it up even though he actually hit my thigh. I remember everyone thinking it was so funny.”

“I loved the early Holliday seasons working there. Some of my best memories came from those times.”

We had a fantastic management team who were like family.”

“Then it all changed and everything went sour. Such is life, I guess.”  ~ mcfuddlebutt

Security for Santa Please! 

“Former mall Santa, even bought a professional suit because I hated the one they provided. I got a few creepy stories that involves, college students and adults.”

“Kids: A little girl no more than 5 was screaming bloody murder when it was her turn.”

“Kids get scared of Santa, not that uncommon. Her dolled up mom was having none of her child’s tantrum and the Elves were pleading with her to not put the girl on my lap.”

“She did and at her kid instantly stopped screaming.”

“Just had this look of pure hatred at her mom for the remainder of the photo session.”

“I swear, I thought I was on Candid Camera (before YouTube y’all) it looked so acted out.”

“Attempting to talk to the little terror, I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she looked at me and softly said just above a whisper, ‘for my Mommy to die’.”

“NOPED myself to a break after that one. It was the inside joke for the rest of the mall Santa season, (whispering to each other between kids) ‘I want you to die!!!!’”

“College Students: One rather lonely overweight gal kept getting in line several times a week to get pictures with Santa.”

“I was in college myself back then and I’m pretty sure she was working herself up to asking me out.”

“Extremely shy, awkward and had some hygiene issues.”

“She only paid for one of the photos but the elves remember seeing her throughout the week when I wasn’t on shift.”

“Apparently only got pictures with me.”

“Adults: I was in my 20’s and the perverted things the MILF’s whispered into my ear while sitting on Santa’s Lap were definitely something for the naughty list to be sure.”

“It became so frequent for the younger Santas to get groped, teased, etc…, that the Elves were told to stay close when adults got their pictures taken. Elf security to be sure.”  ~ Draidr

Bad Sister

“Not a Santa but was a kid that asked for my sister’s tears in a bottle.” ~ LMNOPede

“Today her tears, tomorrow her soul muahahahaha.” ~ WreakingHavoc640

Not a fan of babies…

“Not a mall Santa, but my fire department does a Santa visit to all the houses in my town.”

“We have a few guys dress up as Santa and we drive around going house to house in the fire engines.”

“One year when I was Santa we go to a house with a married couple and two kids.”

“The woman is clearly pregnant. The daughter, about 10-12, creeped the hell out of me.”

“I asked her what she wanted for Christmas and she looks at her I assume step mom and says dead pan. ‘I want the baby to die’.” 

“Jesus Christ, kid.” ~ pokemon-gang

A Kid’s POV

“I remember when I was a little kid, my sister asked Santa for a pony.”

“I was next, so I asked for rat poison… for the pony. 10-year-old me was an edgy little as**hole.”  ~ Redpeng11

For a stew or a spell?

“My grandmother was a Mrs. Claus, one year a kid asked for a dead chicken.” ~ memelordsupremelawd

People can be weird—all people, including kids.

And clearly kids are the weirdest.

I couldn’t do this Santa gig.

Or the elves or Mrs. Claus. I’d be turning kids and adults in to the authorities left and right.

I would also certainly have a stun gun on hand.

Geesh… whatever happened to asking for toys? Games? A puppy? Peace on Earth!!

This is more Halloween than Christmas.

Happy Holidays?

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People Explain Which Household Items Need To Be Cleaned More Often Than Anyone Realizes

If you’re in your nice clean home just hanging out enjoying the cleanliness, this article might come as more than a little distressing to you.

Because your home is probably nowhere near as clean as you think it is.

Reddit user FoxMachine asked: 

“What common household item is rarely if ever cleaned, although it should be?”

So listen, we’re going to be honest with you.

If Thanos popped up right now and said the fate of the world depended on finding someone whose fan blades, air vents and lighting fixtures were completely dust-free … well … it’s been fun while it lasted.

Lets take a look at what else is likely to get us Thanos-snapped out of existence.

We’re Toast

“The bottom of my toaster is a graveyard of charcoal crumbs.”

– CubaGoodingIII

“Working from home I was in a meeting so boring I realized I hadn’t cleaned the crumb tray of my toaster in years.”

“Imagine a meeting so boring you think about the crumb tray in your toaster. And I wasn’t even in the kitchen.”

– JustaRandomOldGuy

Just Washing The Maggots

“Once a month,the dishwasher gets the full treatment in our house.”

“Some family members are plumbers. They’ve seen things. They’ve smelled things.”

“Fun fact: most dishwasher pumps fail because of maggots. Clean your f*cking catcher and rinse off the chunks, people.”

“Maggot eggs are eeeeverywheeeerre. You can also get mould mites, drain flies, cockroaches….it’s a humid, dark environment with food scraps.”

– Taleya

Component Care

“Your computer components and setup.”

“My mouse is clean as it’s easy to swab with a q-tip… my keyboard… my keyboard is one with the dirt. You can run it through the dishwasher and still have hair stuck.”

“I’m honestly not even exaggerating. I’ve had the same mechanical keyboard for 8 or 9 years and ran it through the dishwasher multiple times, but it’s impossible to get completely clean.”

“The key caps themselves never seem too bad, it’s just getting the film of grime and dirt out from under them and between the switches.”

– ApprehensiveAd3778

“Yeah, same with keyboard and mousepad, they’re absolutely disgusting.”

“Oh yeah and DO NOT forget the chair, I found moldy food under the pillows of my friends gaming chair. one of the most disgusting things ever.”

– marcago

You Need To Shampoo That

“SOFA! maybe because it’s so hard to clean your sofa, but it’s really dirty and has dirt all over the years.”

– thitgahamtonghop

“I shampoo mine about once a month. The water is always brown.”

“I know people who have NEVER shampooed theirs. I can’t even imagine the water.” 

– Gingerbrew302

“Here in Germany, we have several stores which rent out for free a big… Wet vacuum?”

“In one container, you fill a soap solution. You spray it on the sofa.”

“The vacuum then takes in the solution and dirt. It is often shocking.”

– Joe_Rapante

That’s Not A Paint Job

“Walls.”

“I went around my place last winter after I lost my job and started washing all my walls. My family was telling me it looked like I painted them.”

– Smil3yAngel

“I have a steam mop that has a handle that detaches so it’s like a wand.”

“I steam cleaned my bathroom walls because the previous tenant was a smoker and had that nasty yellow residue on the walls. Biggest pain in the ass project, but totally worth it.”

“Cleaning my other walls is on my to-do list.”

– spitfire07

If That’s Dirty, So Are You

“Shower curtains they get so nasty people!”

– Rat_Queen91

“I don’t understand how people let theirs get so nasty. My brother’s is slightly moldy on the bottom.”

“My last place was really (pre 1920s) old with a sh*tty bathroom and mold build up in the grout around the shower/wall tiling.”

“There was also a full sized fucking window in the shower (of all places to put a window lol) with unsealed wood trim that got moldy too!”

“I don’t know how my room mates could stand it! I replaced the shower liner every few months on my own due to mold, because they just wouldn’t.”

“So glad I moved somewhere new, no one should have to fear that they are breathing black mold every time they shower.”

– QuasarsRcool

Dangerously Dry

“Blow-dryers.”

“Once every 4-6 weeks. Lint blocks the air. It’s a fire hazard and a bad hair day hazard.”

– Steen70

“I almost bought a new blow dryer one time because it had become so useless.”

“I realized how clogged with lint it was, cleaned it out, and it was like brand new!” 

– pink_mango

Cabinets Shouldn’t Be Sticky

“In your kitchen: The underside of your cabinets (as well as the top of them if you can).”

“All of the food you cook, sautee, etc. sends tiny particulates of oil and other parts of your meal into the air. It settles on all surfaces, but you clean most of them regularly.”

“The top of your cabinets is usually ignored, but it can develop quite the gunky buildup if you don’t do a fairly regular cleaning. Say, once a month or so.”

“The underside of cabinets – especially near your cook surface – should be cleaned every week or so. That oil and muck will eventually start to dry and cake on, attracting bugs and rodents and emiting a not-so-fresh smell.”

“Get a good degreaser cleaner and give those surfaces a thorough cleaning.”

– ilikemrrogers

“Can” You Imagine?

“Can opener. Look at yours and despair.”

– IAmEggnogstic

“I literally never even thought of washing one until i moved in with my wife. Blew my mind when she threw it in the dishwasher”

– 1seacow

“Isn’t it the dirtiest thing in the house? I’ve seen that a lot. Because people never think to wash them.”

– appleparkfive

“The blade under your automatic can opener.”

“People use it for all sorts of things like dog food. It can get gross.”

– chillflyguy33

Phone Check

“How often do you clean your phone?”

“How often do you check your phone in the bathroom?”

– FatsDominoPizza

“Your phone.” 

“If you actually use it for calls then it’s covered in your face oils, spit and germs from your mouth, and possibly ear wax.” 

“If you’re a normal person who just texts a lot, then it’s covered in everything you and your grubby little hands have touched.”

– Reddit

The Lid

“This is funny. I just noticed yesterday that I rarely clean the inside-top of my rice cooker.”

“Cleaned it last night and was like ‘I use this weekly and have never wiped this part down.’ Made me feel gross but yea.”

– [Reddit]

So now that you’ve seen what Reddit has to say, let’s talk about you.

What unclean horrors are you suddenly realizing you might need to clean?

Sound off!

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History Buffs Share The R-Rated Facts That Don’t Get Taught In School

I love history.

It’s a lifelong soap opera because history is actually riddled with drama and crazy.

But most of it is hidden from us.

Why is that? Don’t educators realize that the more salacious it is the more everyone will pay attention?

I’ve learned things about the past out of school that would’ve gotten me an “A” in class, because my attention would’ve been peaked.

An unknown Redditor wanted to get into some scandalous information we missed out on when we were younger.

They asked:

“Knowledgable Redditors, what are some R-rated facts about history that usually get left out of the average middle/high school classroom?”

Let’s get to learning.

Snip, snip, snip…

“JFK was the first US President to be circumcised. He was 22 at the time.”  ~ otis_the_drunk

The Most Powerful Symbol

“Ancient Romans drew penises on everything.”  ~ CorporalThornberry

“They also wore necklaces with winged cocks on them.”

“It was replicated recently by a jewelry company and turned out to look like a cock-cross so the Catholics all said nay nay and they cancelled it.”

“Source: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.kansascity.com/entertainment/ent-columns-blogs/stargazing/article4447208.html“.  ~ rezlang

Hiding the truth…

“Powdered wigs became popular because they hid the baldness caused by syphilis, which was rampant in Europe during the 17th century.”  ~ Reddit

“Another crazy fact about these wigs, right before the French revolution.”

“The wigs the French aristocracy wore at the time were massive. To keep them from losing shape, they starched them.”

“Meaning they used edible grain to create wig starching powder. While the population couldn’t afford to eat because a loaf of bread became more expensive than a week’s wage.”

“It’s no wonder the revolution started and ended the way it did. French aristocracy was literally using foodstuffs to make their giant wigs stay up.”  ~ Mister_Dink

How Very Fifty Shades of It All

“History is really, really kinky.”

“Some ancient temples and holy places, especially in India, depict acts that range from orgies to bestiality.”

“Temple prostitute is one of the oldest professions and were widely accepted in early history, showing up as early as the Epic of Gilgamesh, which coincidentally also featured bestiality.”  ~ xenomorphs_at_disney

“Considering the number of ancient cultures that had ‘God have sex with animal’ as a prominent story it amazes me that people don’t realize how prevalent it has been throughout history.”

“I mean, there’s a whole story about Loki turning into a horse and doing it and birthing a superhorse, not to mention all the Roman/Greek deities gettin’ crazy.”  ~ losian

Oh My Anne…

“The diary of Anne Frank also included detailed accounts of her exploring her sexuality/ masturbation which was quickly edited out before it was published.”  ~ bttrflyr

“That was brave when she was living in a small space with several other people. I mean the masturbation is one thing, but writing about it in front of people with little to do? Damn.”  ~ Merle8888

Sacrifice the Children

“Infanticide happened through ‘almost’ every culture, on every continent, throughout history, to a significant degree.”

“Sometimes gender was a factor, sometimes it wasn’t. Ancient Egypt was the exception, but unwanted kids usually became slaves instead.”  ~ TimelyKaleidoscope

“The biggest reason in Christian Europe was birth defects.”

“A daughter could still pull her weight on the farm but a child with spina bifida or Downs or missing limbs couldn’t.”

“This was even worse than it seems because the rural poor, who made up over 90% of the population, were so inbred that up to one in eight children were born with an identifiable defect.”  ~ Reddit

“Pretty much. And there were myths that grew around these things to justify them, such as human beings being switched with troll babies, identifiable because the switched baby seemed sick and wasn’t thriving.”

“They were supposed to basically torture it until their ‘real’ child was returned.”  ~ TimelyKaleidoscope

A Scandalous Expedition 

“The were able to follow the trail of Lewis and Clark by finding mercury. Which they were taking to combat syphilis.” ~ Klaxon722

“York, Clark’s slave who accompanied the Corps, had a lot of sex because of his curiosity as a Black man.”

“Few Whites were ever in the area at all and no Black person ever made it that far up. It was mostly French trappers and Russian or Spanish explorers.”  ~ AudibleNod

2 is Too Many

“Twins were a scourge and were left in the wilderness. What a burden to a family.”

“I think we don’t appreciate how besieged by death and illness everyone was. A family could have 20 children and see 5 raised to adulthood.”

They weren’t inured to it or callus, they loved and grieved their children the same as we do.”

“They had God, family, friends, and untreated depression, alcohol, and suicide to get through it. And a lot of hard work.”

“So killing an infant they can’t care for was a mercy for the children they already had.”

“If you have 5 mouths and money barely to feed the 7 of you, it is cruel to all of you to bring in another 1 or 2 and make the lot of you starve.”

“Even more so if that child is born with a mark on them that shows it won’t make it past a few months or a few years.”

“Why starve 2 children when you can kill only 1? They didn’t do this cheerfully.”

“They did it to survive.”  ~NotMyHersheyBar

The Stench of It All

“Not R rated on its own, but have you ever considered how smelly history would be?”

“Imagine the signing of the declaration of independence.”

“A reportedly hot day, during a time when people didn’t bath often, people wore a bunch of layers, and you have a bunch of dudes packed into a room for hours.”

“The R rated part, all of these people had sex. And it would smell so bad.”  ~ jpterodactyl

Rituals

“The Aztecs would wear someone’s skin for days until it peeled off as a ritual sacrifice to the maize goddess during the new harvest season, the skin was supposed to represent the husk of corn and how it would dry up and peel off the cob, also around this time they would have priests wear penis hats to represent fertility.”  ~ lizardlord217

“Let’s be honest, it’s the Aztecs we’re taking about.”

“A literal society based around human sacrifice, whose founding myth involves the revelation that the gods wanted human sacrifices “‘ike tortillas fresh off the griddle.’ (I.e., early and often).”

“What do you think the answer is?”  ~ DowncastAcorn

Now that is fun.

We really should scatter the fun with the just OK parts of history.

Scandal is the bedrock of every nation.

Just let the freak flag fly!

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People Explain Which Facts May Sound Fake But Are Absolutely True

A lot of us enjoy discovering unusual and wild facts, but honestly, sometimes the facts we discover are so out there, we struggle to believe they are true.

Some of us even become angry when we discover something is true, because it’s so hard to believe!

Redditor ejaybugboy asked: 

“What’s a terrifying fact that keeps you up at night?”

Some enjoyed thinking about the days of the week.

“Here is the etymology of the days of the week in English:”

“Sun’s Day”

“Moon’s Day”

“Tir (Tew)’s day”

“Odin (Wodin)’s day”

“Thor’s Day”

“Freya’s Day”

“Saturn’s Day”

“Two celestial bodies, four Norse gods, and suddenly one asshole from the Roman pantheon for no godd**ned reason. What the f**k is Saturn doing there?” – IronOhki

“I like how they’re called in Serbian:”

“• Utorak (Tuesday) – Taken from old Slavic and means ‘second.’”

“• Sreda (Wednesday) – Means ‘middle.’”

“• Četvrtak (Thursday) – Means ‘fourth.’”

“• Petak (Friday) – Means ‘fifth.’”

“• Subota (Saturday) – Derived from the word ‘sabbath.’”

“• Nedelja (Sunday) – Means ‘not to work,’ or ‘the day when you don’t work.’”

“• Ponedeljak (Monday) – Literally means ‘after Nedelja,’ or ‘the day after the day when you don’t work,’ because laziness is on a whole other level here apparently.’” – TheCosmicSound

Others were more interested in wild animal facts.

“There are more privately owned tigers in Texas than there are wild tigers on the rest of the planet combined.” – j_flameIV

“Crocodiles can climb trees.” – MoravianPrince

“A flock of crows is called a murder. But a flock of ravens is called an unkindness or a conspiracy. Who even comes up with this s**t?” – thweet_jethuth

“Pretty much anything to do with naked mole rats. They are neither related to moles nor rats, they can use their teeth like chopsticks, they have the social hierarchy of bees, and oh yeah, THEY ARE COLD-BLOODED.” – JustAProxyForLurking

“In the cat family, cats can either roar or purr, but can’t do both. It’s to do with the structure of the throat.”

“Cheetahs can’t roar, but I hope you find some solace in the thought of them purring happily.”

“Incidentally, cheetahs are different from other big cats in another way too – they can’t retract their claws completely.” – Lenaandcats

Some were concerned about animal breeding for profit.

“English Bulldogs can’t mate naturally. The males are literally physically incapable of mounting the females, so they either have to be helped to do so, or the females are artificially inseminated.”

“The puppies are always delivered via cesarean section since their skulls would not fit through the birth canal. They will then live their entire lives with compromised breathing.”

“But you know, they’re so cute! With their little squished in faces and their adorable snorting!”

“Sorry… I get angry when it comes to purposefully breeding broken animals.” – kabjl

“Persian cats often have breathing problems and blocked tear ducts.”

“Breed two polydactyl (double pawed) cats together and you get kittens with eyes set very far apart and crooked front legs.”

“Intentionally breeding animals to create features people consider cute or fascinating at the expense of the animal’s health should be treated as animal cruelty.” – useatyourownrisk

There were crazy food facts, too.

“Bananas are berries but strawberries are not berries.” – NikiF**kingLauda

“Raspberries, blackberries, and boysenberries are also not berries.”

“Wanna know what else is a berry? A watermelon.” – Grayseff

Some had a lot of fun talking about words.

“Cannoli is already in plural form. The singular form is Cannolo.” – JimDumb22

“Coolth is an actual word and it’s the opposite of warmth. I love using it but my girlfriend fucking hates it.” – mackenzicles

“The terms ‘hardwood’ and ‘softwood’ have nothing to do with the actual hardness of the wood, but what kind of seeds the tree produces.” – Penguin_Out_Of_A_Zoo

“Inflammable and flammable mean the same thing. ‘Flammable’ is not considered a scientifically acceptable term for things-that-catch-fire-easily. ‘Inflammable’ is the proper term and comes from the word inflame.”

“But flammable caught on because inflammable sounds too much like resistant-to-being-caught-on-fire, which is potentially quite a dangerous misunderstanding.” – Guinefort1

“The word ‘Helicopter’ is not made up of the words ‘Heli’ and ‘Copter,’ but rather ‘Helico’ and ‘Pter,’ which are Greek for ‘Spiral’ and ‘Wing.’” – Zaptagious

“That ‘unlockable’ means both: Able to be unlocked AND Unable to be locked.”

“My 11-year-old pointed this out, and I had nothing for her other than a blank stare and then thinking, ‘Well, s**t. Good job.’” – jenfers

Some were interested in grammatically-correct sentences.

“The fact that this sentence is grammatically correct: ‘All the faith he had had had had no effect.’” – WoodyPoleSmoker

“Get ready:” 

“‘James, where John had had ‘had,’ had had ‘had had;’ ‘had had’ had had a better effect on the teacher.’ is correct.” – halatian6

Two Redditors knew a fun fact about potato chips.

“All crisps (chips for any Americans) in the UK go out of date on a Saturday. It annoys me because a smug friend pointed it out and i have been unsuccessful in proving him wrong.” – Rossco1874

“I had to Google this and found this from Walkers…”

“In the manufacturing sites, we work on production weeks which start on a Sunday. All product produced in that week will have the same Best Before date. As the week ends on Saturday, the Best Before date will always end on a Saturday.” – IsItMeYourLooking49

One Redditor described what would happen if sawdust was mixed with water.

“If you mix water and sawdust and freeze it, the resulting ‘ice’ melts extremely slowly. like, ‘weeks at room temperature’ slowly.” – btaylos

Some were entertained by unbelievable science facts.

“The fact that in an electric circuit, even though the electric current is electrons moving from negative pole to positive pole, the definition of a current flow is that it moves from positive to negative.”

“And similar misses in definitions in physics/science that was just decided to stay because changing definitions would be confusing at first.” – Versalis_A

Though some of the Redditors struggled to believe these facts were true, there was no arguing these facts were fascinating.

It’s an amazing reminder there is something new and fun to learn lurking around every corner.

Posted on

People Describe The Most Corrupt Thing They’ve Ever Seen Their Employer Do

Workplaces can be a bit rough around the edges and, especially if you’re new to the workforce, it can sometimes be hard to determine if everything that’s going on is above board.

Sometimes, though, employers do things that are so obviously corrupt it can be hard to believe they get away with it.

Redditor Chillay_ asked:

“What’s the most corrupt thing you’ve witnessed your employer do?”

No Overtime, Even If You Work Over Time

“Worked in a restaurant that didn’t allow employees to work over 40 hours as they did not want to pay any overtime. Instead of you wanted to work extra or if they asked you to work extra they would delete hours off of your time card to keep it under 40. They always asked you when they did that in a kind of hush hushed way so it wasn’t exactly without permission but I think it was bullshit all the same.” -cloudstrife1191

“Permission or not they’re breaking the law. It’s not suddenly legal because you agreed to it” -Hugebluestr*pon

“My class action lawsuit alarm bells are going off right now. If your employer does this, I would recommend filing a complaint with the US Department of Labor and also contacting an attorney who deals with wage/hour violations who can review the case. These are serious violations that should be stopped.” -UKnowDaxoAndDancer

You Just Can’t Cancel

“Had a job out of college selling yellow pages advertising. A big part of the job was just renewing the old ads in the book and we had to call each business to have them renew their ad. But as the yellow pages book became more and more obsolete more customers would cancel their ads. So the company changed the policy of having us call each business and instead put in a policy that any customer who didn’t specifically call to cancel would be auto renewed.”

“Then they would purposefully send out the renewal notices late enough that the customers couldn’t cancel in time to avoid the following years charges. If one of us did actually get a call from a customer looking to cancel and with time to legitimately do so and we actually cancelled them….fired.” -totspur1982

“Literally Fraud. A lawyer could tear this yellowpage company to pieces.” -Redditor

“And I believe a lawyer did for this and a multitude of other reasons. We also go charge backs on our check for cancellations, even if it wasn’t your original account. A few employees filed a class action lawsuit against the company and won. I got a nice check out of that.” -totspur1982

“I worked for a company like that, the “Customer Service Reps” (people who would field the customer calls asking for returns) were graded and given bonuses for how many sales they ‘saved.’ ‘Saved’ meaning how many people who called to return our products they tricked into holding on to it past the full refund window.” -HamsterIV

Check Your Pay Stubs!

“Growing up my father always told me to save my pay stubs and time receipts. I ended up working a job in my early 20 ‘s at an airport moving cars. I get my paycheck one day and i realize that it’s not right. So i do a little digging, and a lot of math, and i figure out that the company was taking hours from me.”

“I ask around and it turns out that they were taking hours from literally everyone at the job site. After doing more math we figured out that over the six months we all worked together, the company had stolen a combined 400 hours from eight people.” -42spuuns

“Wage theft is more money than all other forms of theft.”

“Robbery, fraud, burglary, etc – none of it accounts for more value/dollars than companies stealing money from their employees through under or non payment of wages.” -inthrees

“Would you like to know why?”

“It’s because if you steal from your boss, you go to prison. If your boss steals from you, it usually doesn’t get reported. If it does get reported there’s no jail time, but you have the option to sue. Suing takes years and the judgment doesn’t usually amount to all that was stolen, and your lawyer takes their cut out of the judgment. The ruling class made theft profitable when they do it, and unprofitable when we do it, and that is why they’re the country’s biggest thieves.” -reverendsteveii

“Also suing an employer will black list you from an industry so f*cking fast. ETA: and whether or not it was fully justified doesn’t matter.” -Kai_Emery

Tip Theft Is Rampant

“I was working at a small brewery / bar, and caught the owner dipping into the tip jar at the end of big nights.”

“It was a new place that just opened and was kind of struggling during the off season. We literally had a staff of two bartenders and the owners (husband and wife), so the bar staff would pool and split that days tips.”

“Come to find out that he was taking a cut of the tips because “he worked there too”. When I confronted him, I explained that its actually a violation of the FLSA. In fact it’s even an exact example listed as illegal things to do with tips. He argued that it was his right as owner and fired me, so I reported him to Dept. of Labor.” -Rustee_nail

“My girlfriend used to work at a deli where the owner was taking half the tips. She’s never worked food, so she suspected it was wrong, but didn’t know for sure. She asked me like “hey is this normal?” as I was a chef for a couple years, and I explained how taking tips as the owner is probably the most frowned upon thing you can do in the food service industry.” -Mirraco323

Why Bother With A Warranty?

“I was a mechanic that found out that the company was not letting me fix customers cars that had oil leaks when the customers had paid for a 200k mile warranty. The manager would tell the service writer to say that the warranty company declined it and eventually started making me take a photo to him so that he could tell me that the leak wasn’t bad enough to fix.”

“The customer paid for a warranty and the company wasn’t holding up their end of the deal because it was costing them money. They are one of the most profitable car dealerships in my town and now have 3 dealerships and are expanding.” -Idontgetitbrah

So Many Kinds Of Tip Theft

“When I used to housekeep at a hotel, our head housekeeper would go into all of our checkouts and steal our tips before we could get to them. I remember a few times seeing tips in my rooms and foolishly not thinking to pick them up before they disappeared. A few of my other coworkers witnessed similar instances.”

“At one point, a guest came up to me and said she’d leave a big tip in her room for me bc it was a mess. I found out later that the head housekeeper cleaned the room herself.”

“She walked out like a year later bc our GM demoted her to regular housekeeper bc everyone had complaints about her. She was a very awful person in general.” -Redditor

“When I was a housekeeper you’d get your room list at the beginning of the shift, so if we couldn’t finish that day the girls would go in all their rooms and take the tips, that way if they were off the next day or the room was someone else’s, they’d get nothing. The head housekeeper though worked salary so wasn’t allowed to keep tips even if they were handed to her.” -Tinycatgirl

“When She Felt We Deserved Them”

“A few years ago I was working/living at a McDonald’s in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The area manager decided to “save” the store so she became very… involved… in its day to day micromanagement. One payday morning she made an announcement that, because everyone kept coming in asking for their checks and bothering her, she would be giving them to us when she felt we deserved them.”

“I called the local Department of Labor, who referred me to the state, who referred me back to local, who then told me they just didn’t care and weren’t looking into it. It eventually resolved itself anyway when she handed checks out the next day.” -twistedlemon732

“See there’s your mistake. You should’ve called McDonalds corporate threatening to call the DoL. Much more effective!” -zvug

“Actually, just call McDonalds corporate. Don’t even need to threaten to call. McDonalds doesn’t screw around when it comes to paying workers anymore. That kind of stuff has led to several million in lawsuit settlements in just the past ten years.” -betterthanamaster

We’ve Known Asbestos Was Dangerous For Decades

“I work underground in the mines. One place started having, what the workers found out later, was asbestos type rock in the ore. The company took samples of it and then said it’s kind of like asbestos, but it’s not old enough to harm you. Later after a bit of more concern from the workers, it was found out that the sample they took came back as inconclusive due to something else. They lied and allowed their workforce exposure to asbestos. I quit after that and found work elsewhere.” -Chillay_90

That’s Not How Overtime Works

“One time when I was a chef in college, I worked 14 days straight, with half of those days being 12 hour days. This all fell in one pay period too. It was rough but it was summer and I was gushing over the amount over overtime I was about to get. It came out to like over 70 hours overtime. I was supposed get almost an additional $1000 dollars on my paycheck. I calculated the math with tax and everything and couldn’t wait to pick up my paycheck the next week for that pay period.”

“I pick it up, and the paycheck is quite larger than I’m used to given I normally only worked 25 hours a week, but there is ZERO overtime on it. It was short almost a a thousand bucks. I got to the HR office the next day (it was located at a different casino) and ask, and they go ‘yeah so in Nevada, you only qualify for overtime if you average 40 hours a week normally.’”

“That sounded like bullshit to me, but I asked my mom who used to run finances for our family business, and she says that IS in fact 100% bullshit. She pulled up the statute online and it clearly said if you exceed 8 hours in a day, you get overtime. It said nothing about a weekly average.”

“So printed that bitch out and drove right back down to the HR office, and showed it to them. The lady at the desk who just told me that lie calls out the head of HR. She would frequent the different locations to check in with people and was always nice, but you could always tell she was shady as fuck. They both seem to get very nervous and in a stuttering voice ‘okay we will reevaluate’”

“I never heard anything or got any apology, but when the next paycheck came, the exact amount of overtime I calculated was put on that paycheck down to the penny.”

“I tell some of the other guys in the kitchen what happened, and apparently the family who owned the casino our restaurant was located in was known for pulling shit like this. Making ‘accounting errors’ knowing a lot of people who do direct deposit don’t even look at their paystubs. Funny how these accounting ‘errors’ always ended up in saving the company money, and never gave the employee extra cash lol. A server no more than a few months later had the same exact shit happen to him. Rat b*stards.” -Mirraco323

Gaming The System

“At the first company I worked at the general manager had all his personal expenses paid by the company. His wife also had a company credit card and was paid a salary but she didn’t work. The company paid for things like their groceries, house mortgage, car payments and family vacations. The kicker is he wasn’t the owner of the company.”

“He had a creative accountant that hid these expenses but the owners became suspicious and they hired an auditor. It took them about 4 years to figure it out. He was fired and his family fled the country so I am not sure what happened to him.” -optoph

If your employer is doing something that seems shady, there’s a way for you to report it if it’s safe for you to do so.

You’re probably not the only one who is affected, and people doing shady things don’t usually stop unless they’re made to.

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People Divulge The Most Morbid Facts They Know

Life ends.  All life does.

And entire new biological processes take place in death that we would never know about—or want to.

Except, that is, if you DO know about it.  If you’ve been gifted the awareness of what exactly happens to a human body while it decomposes, you would be the bearer of a morbid fact..

And as a matter of fact, morbid facts are a lot bigger of a demographic of facts than you would really think they are.

So when a Redditor asked:

“What morbid fact do you know?”

Here were some of those answers.

The End Of Life Cancels All

“If bodies are kept in coffins that are sealed tight enough, such as the in wall type of memorial, sometimes enough gases can build up that the body basically explodes and can spill out onto the ground.”-Mangobunny98

“If you electrocute someone while they are submerged in water, it won’t leave burn marks.”-R3dShield

“I think this is pretty well known on Reddit, but it’s a common misconception that your hair and fingernails continue to grow after you die.”

“What actually happens is your skin dries out, and recedes, which gives the appearance of nails/hair being longer than they were before death”-Antitheistic10

“In Formula 1, safety belts were not mandatory until 1972.”

“Before then, drivers believed it better to be ejected in a crash, and either die instantly from a broken neck or suffer many broken bones.”

“The alternative, they thought, was to be trapped and essentially cremated alive should the gas tanks ignite.”-[username deleted]

“A professor at my lecture today said that deer will lay on decaying corpses because they produce heat and the deer like that. Basically deer treat corpses as their personal sauna.”-4ensicmess

Thud

“An adult human body impacting on concrete does not sound organic or ‘wet’ at all, it reminded me more of a car accident than anything else.”

“Source: Last week someone committed suicide by jumping off of the building I live in, I heard the impact and saw the body when I walked out onto my terrace to see what was going on.”

“Second morbid fact, from the same source: The human brain looks far more white & pink when it gets ejected from the skull, I always thought a ‘live’ brain would be red from the blood in it but I was wrong.”-Octosphere

“In the middle ages, you could be boiled in a pot of lead for certain crimes. What crimes they were I have forgotten, but it certainly was a thing.”-necrophiliaisillegal

“Before you die, your last words could be, ‘I don’t feel so good.’”

“I was a paramedic for 15 years and heard dozens of people’s final words. The phrase I heard most often, possibly from half to three quarters of them, were some form of ‘I don’t feel so good.’”

“I’ve also heard, ‘Wait, somethings wrong,’ ‘Somethings happening,’ ‘I don’t feel right.’ ‘Wait, somethings wrong,’ ‘It’s happening,’ and ‘Oh no, Oh no.’”

“People feel the blood leaving their brain I think. Must be like a rush.”-Forbidden_Donut503

What A Way To Die

“The whole “‘f your erection last more than 4 hours, receive immediate medical’ or whatever is the reason why the Brazilian wandering spider (located in the Amazon) is so dangerous.”

“Its bite is supposed to make you have an erection for a long time and it’s pretty hard to find medical services when you’re in the Amazon.”

“What happens with boners is that blood fills up the penis and mostly stays there until the boner is gone. If it stays longer than 4 hours, the blood is deprived of oxygen.”

“It can turn into a jelly like substance with lots of clotting, so leaving it untreated could clog you up as the blood flows back. By the time you get to a doctor, they have two options.”

“One is get a 60ml syringe w/ a needle and suck out the blood (that’s the consistency of toothpaste), while also flushing it with salt water (also w/ syringe and needle) when those clots stop the needle.”

“The second option, which is usually saved for last, is to vertically insert a small blade inside the meatus/slit in the head and sharply twist it by 90°. Then just let it drain.”-marcy1010

“After the Pulse night club shooting, when the cops were investigating, you’d think it was pretty quiet in there.”

“It was actually a cacophony of ringing cell phones. So many friends and loved ones calling people they knew were there, hoping they’ll answer the phone and say they’re ok…”-Veritas3333

“There’s something called ‘Anaesthesia Awareness’ where of certain people go into surgery and they don’t give you enough anaesthesia, it will look like you’re asleep (eyes closed, not talking or moving), but the patient can still hear and feel everything that’s happening.”

“But here’s the scary part. You’re unable to move, speak or open your eyes. Unless they have a monitor to show your brain activity, you’re stuck with having to endure the pain.”-EveryNameIsStolen

Was It Worth It?

“On Mt. Everest, you have the rainbow valley, the last zone to climb to reach the peak.”

“Which sounds cute but it’s really the colorful jackets of dead climbers who are frozen in time against the white harsh snow.”

“Also, when close to the peak, the oxygen levels are so low that the body is starting to die. You only have a few minutes to reach the top.”-tarantulaboi

“Also, not sure of how much of a standard practice it is, but if you donate body to a school they will possibly ship your body elsewhere.”

“I know I saw a comment about how you need to be nearby the place you donate to because they dont want to ship you to them, but they may ship you elsewhere.”

“I know at least at the local college by me, they get all their cadavers from Texas (in Illinois, and we ship ours to them) so that theres less of a chance that a student may know the person.”

“And they also cover the faces unless doing any sort of head/face things (again at least the one by me does)”-future_nurse19

“Mausoleums have not only a ventilation system to prevent smells, but the crypt slots are angled towards the back and have a drainage system for uh…liquids coming out of the caskets.”

“Airtight caskets are a problem in mausoleums because the body liquifies inside and can build up so much gas that the lid can almost explode off of the caskets, sometimes even breaking the stone slab at the entrance of the slot.”

“Can you imagine walking through a mausoleum and suddenly the slab to a slot just shatters from the inside?”-crescentcactus

Despite being bone-chilling and morbid in life, these facts could actually be useful for you some day—but hopefully for most of us, that day is very, very far away.

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People Debunk The Most Commonly Believed ‘Facts’ That Are Actually Untrue

The line between truth and fiction can be a difficult one to find sometimes.

We are bombarded by dueling viewpoints a thousand times a day and it can be challenging to pick out what information is real, and what is just believed because it’s been repeated so many times.

In an effort to root out some of the falsehoods we believe, Redditor and Original Poster (OP) Mutating_Mammal asked:

“What are some common ‘facts’ that people believe to be true even if the existing evidence states the contrary?”

This theory doesn’t hold any water.

“Camels don’t use their humps to store water.”

“They use them to store fat reserves., Because storing fat reserves around the body like humans would keep them too warm, so they have it all in one spot.”

“Edit: since the day metabolizes as water and CO2, it is in a way a water source.”~ Cielbird

Speaking of water…

“Oooh, my time to shine.”

“I used to test pool water/hot tub water as a part time job.”

“This is what I learnt from reading the material that the company gave me, but my advice always seemed to work so I think it’s pretty solid.”

“There are two types of chlorine: Free Chlorine and Combined Chlorine.”

“Free chlorine is generally odorless in the pool.”

“It’s the chlorine that can attack bacteria.”

“Combined chlorine is chlorine that has already attacked some type of bacteria.”

“All it just stays in the pool and doesn’t do much.”

“That combined chlorine can make your pool smell like chlorine, or even make your pool cloudy.”

“If a pool smells like chlorine, it has too much combined chlorine.”

“To get rid of it, you need some type of oxidizer.”

“Like a calcium hypochlorite or something along those lines.”

“So in other words. Even if a pool smells horribly like chlorine, it can still be very unsanitary and unsafe to swim in.”~ Fangore

It doesn’t add up.

“That Einstein was a bad student, and was bad at math.”

“It’s just not true.”

“He got average-high marks, and was really just disdainful of the structure of school.”

“And he was good at math. Physics is like 90% math.”

“I get why people share it, it’s to make struggling students feel better about themselves, but can’t we tell them about something else instead of lying?” ~ nonfiction42

Honesty isn’t an official policy.

“People still think an undercover cop has to tell you they’re a cop.”

“How does that even make sense?”

“Months of preparations ruined on the first day because someone happened to ask the magic question.”

“Cops are allowed to lie to you and they will pretend to be your friend to get what they need from you.”

“Side note: Even if you’re innocent of a crime, the first words from your mouth should be ‘I want a lawyer.’ and you don’t provide any information until you have one.”

” ‘Anything you say CAN and WILL be used AGAINST you in the court of law.’ ” ~ sc0n3z

Never wait.

“It is rarely necessary to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person report” ~ emil199

There are, apparently, lots of water-related myths.

“A person drowning is not likely to be flailing wildly and yelling like in the movies.”

“Drowning can often happen with mostly silence, especially with kids.”

“Read up on the signs, it might save a life.”

“I was drowning and lost consciousness when I was 5, I was told I barely made a sound.”

“I went under, sucked in lungs full of water when I tried to cry out in surprise and blacked out.”

“If it wasn’t for my dad’s instincts and quick action I’d be dead.” ~ Guitar3544

Pack mentality.

“Alpha theory in dog training.”

“The researcher that originally described the dominance theory was watching captive wolves at a zoo- a pack that was artificially created from unrelated specimens.”

“The hierarchy in this curated collection was determined through fights and struggles for dominance and this dynamic was then applied to domestic dogs and how they view themselves in relation to humans.”

“This drove the ‘dominate your dog’ style of training popular with Cesar Millan and his acolytes.”

“When the scientific community was able to observe a wild wolf pack, however, they discovered that wild packs are family units and operate much the same way with a parental breeding pair at the top and their younger offspring forming the pack, sometimes several litters at a time.”

“As the pups grow older, they break off and form their own packs.

“The researcher that dismantled the theory, David Mech, described it thusly:”

” ‘Attempting to apply information about the behavior of assemblages of unrelated captive wolves to the familial structure of natural packs has resulted in considerable confusion.’ “

” ‘Such an approach is analogous to trying to draw inferences about human family dynamics by studying humans in refugee camps.’ “ ~ Still_Mighty

Speaking of animals…

“Chicken is cooked when it is no longer pink and the juices run clear.”

“In fact, it’s cooked when it hits 75C (165F) and that’s it. What it looks like depends on the cut.”

“Chicken breast often has significant pink in it when it hits the temperature, which is why most people complain about dry boring chicken, because they overcook it.”

“On the flipside, wings can look cooked when they aren’t, which is why they’re a major source of food poisoning.”

“The most important thing I learned working in a commercial kitchen.” ~ aegeaorgnqergerh

A hard day’s work.

“People have a misconception that we work less today than we have throughout history.”

“In actuality, hunter-gatherers worked an average of 3 to 5 hours a day.”

“Ancient civilization farmers only worked during seasonal and agricultural periods, averaging about 10 hours a day for only 120 days a year.”

“Roman documents show that most artisans only worked about 6 hours a day from the hours of 6am to mid-day. They were given multiple holidays from frequent festival days.”

“Medieval farmers and peasants worked about 8 hour days in the summer, but worked less in winter months due to less daylight, averaging only about 5.5 hours of work each day.”

“It wasn’t until the mid-18th century that workdays became longer, with the invention of replaceable part.”

“Workers in London in 1750 worked 11 hours per day, five days a week.”

“Sunday was the day of rest, but those in gainful employment also skipped work on Monday, which was dubbed ‘Saint Monday’ at the time.”

“The industrial revolution was the kickstart of long workdays and few holidays or leave.”

“Factory workers in mid-19th century England worked 16 hours a day, 311 days per year”

“Comparatively, the average office worker today in the USA works 7.8 hours a day, 311 days per year.”

“TLDR; we work more today than almost every other generation leading up to the 18th century.” ~ SaltySFSailor

We tend to accept the things that we hear over and over again, but repetition does not mean accuracy.

Take a harder look at the long-held “facts” that you believe, and you might just find that they don’t hold up as well as you thought.

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People Confess Which Scary Facts Actually Keep Them Up At Night

There are all kinds of truths in the world that are fascinating, but there are also some that are absolutely terrifying.

So much so, these facts can keep people from sleeping at night.

Redditor OHBSquishy asked: 

“What’s a terrifying fact that keeps you up at night?”

Some thought about abstract ways they could die.

“If you’re diving with sperm whales and they make a click at full power, it could vibrate you to death, which I can only imagine would be one of the worst ways to die.”

“As unpractical as it is for me to be in that situation, not much would top being paralyzed underwater with internal hemorrhaging.” – NorthMcCormick

“About 5000 people die in their sleep every night with unknown causes.” – bubbles_teh_monkey

Others thought about the likely suddenness of death.

“That one moment I’m here and living and the next moment I could be 6 feet under or turned into ashes.” – MelanieSenpai

“Everything could just be taken away in an instant.” – boopydo1

“Living alone for a long time, I’m always worried how long my body will be discovered if I die in my sleep.” – Adonis_X

“It’s probably not helpful to hear about the guy whose kids stopped talking to him because ‘once again’ he didn’t show up for Thanksgiving.”

“So, a cop friend was called out to his house when the electricity was turned on to prep the house for foreclosure auction…”

“When the heat automatically kicked on (in August), the smell was horrendous… not from the body – it was long past the smelly point – but by the accumulated smells in the ducts from the prior winter when he passed… probably around Thanksgiving.”

“Take away? Be reliable. Call when you say you’ll call; show up when you promise to.”

“That way, when you don’t show up, people won’t just shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Well, it’s just Harold being Harold’ – instead they’ll say, ‘They alway shows up or at least call when they can’t make it! Something’s wrong. We should check on them.’” – tmccrn

Consumerism kept some up at night.

“We live in a world where the rich pit us against each other as they get richer, and it’s so far gone that people would rather defend corporations that trickle out comfort (all the while reinforcing the system) than accept the necessary uprising will be uncomfortable.” – FetaMight

“The thought that if I was a multimillionaire, I would invest a lot of money into making sure it stayed that way, which is kinda scary considering how powerful money is as a resource.” – pathemar

“I’m likely going to work full time for the next 40 years with almost zero free time.” IAmAToiletDontAsk

“We live to consume.”

“Go to work, make money, spend that money to live and contribute to your economy, repeat.”

“If you’re lucky, you retire around 60. If you’re really lucky, 30. If you’re really lucky, you’re Elon Musk’s kid or some s**t.” – sloop-salad

“The dollar is worthless. The treasury is not just empty, it owes the rest of the world trillions, and the government somehow owes itself more trillions.”

“Despite this, or more probably because of this, we continue to spend more than the rest of the world combined on the deadliest military in history.”

“There will be a reckoning, and I don’t think it will be gentle or pretty.” – Plethorian

One Redditor was especially perplexed by climate change.

“I’m concerned that no one has mentioned climate change. This is the greatest existential threat mankind will ever be exposed to.”

“I’m regularly stunned by the existential crisis that is thinking about climate change. It usually strikes me in the shower.” – 9T3

Some thought about what would happen after they were gone. 

“Life is just about finding distractions to keep yourself busy so you don’t think about the fact that there’s nothing you can do in your life to stop the Sun from exploding and wiping out the entire humanity with it.” – NotDaWaed

“I’ve reached the conclusion that it’s more important to live a life worthy of being remembered after your death, than to live a life that actually is remembered after your death. You have no control over the latter, and you won’t care.” – michaelochurch

“When I die, I will be forgotten in a few decades unless I do something amazing or horrific. It’s much easier to do something awful than it is to do something great.” – ZerenTheUnskilled

“I’m worried nobody will remember me after my generation when I die.” – rascally1980

“It would be nice to know you have had a positive impact on someone’s life. I have been lucky in my life and career to have had people I look up to.”

“Now I am getting to the age of those people I look up to, and I wonder if I had an impact on anyone in that same way.” – sadicarnot

“Folks, when it comes time to look back on your life, what you will regret are the things you did not do, not the things you did.”

“Go live your life with vigor and passion.” – ocrohnahan

Some Redditors were stressed about time.

“How many things I’ll never know. What will happen to humanity long after I’m dead?”

“Do you ever think about time? If it’s a property of the universe, what happens when the universe ends?”

“If the universe ends in a Big Crunch, where the expansion of the universe reversed and all matter converges in the same spot, will another Big Bang happen?”

“Will it happen exactly like the original one?”

“If that is the case, is time a loop? Has this already happened before? How many times have I thought about this and how many times have I written this comment? Has my death already happened an infinite amount of times?”

“There is no way to know the answer, and that’s something I never stop thinking about.” – whatthef**k21

Any of these facts could potentially be troublesome for someone if they were to think about it and its implications for too long.

The clear message in all of this, though, is to live life to the fullest, since tomorrow is never guaranteed.

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People Break Down The Job Interview Red Flags That Scream ‘Toxic Workplace’

The drama surrounding the job search is real.

Everyone wants to work, but not in an environment of crazy.

We all deserve a peaceful, well-run place to make a living. Is that too much to ask?

But sometimes, no matter how desperate you are for a job, the indicators of an unhealthy workplace are right there in front of you even at the interview stage.

Redditor RexJgeh wanted to discuss all of the best reasons to run as fast as you can from a job interview…

They asked:

“What are some red flags during job interviews that scream ‘toxic workplace?’”

Chat about the worst you’ve seen when job hunting. Go.

I owe you nothing! 

“The family one is a huge red flag for me. I worked at a place that always talked about the team members being like a family.”

“It meant you felt horrible about calling in sick, they’d guilt you into working over time because of the culture, and when you finally put in your leave or told them you where leaving you where treated like nothing.”

“Bosses use the family thing to guilt you into being a slave!! My boss even tried to guilt us into coming in on the weekend and working for free!!!”  ~ Turtbergs

So happy to be gone! 

“I was trying to find a better advertising job and during an interview I asked about how much overtime I could expect.”

“Owner of the company goes ‘Well, you know, we try to get home on time, we do try. But, hey, this is the life we chose.’”

“Dude, you make billboards for restaurants… you’re not saving lives here.”

“The most frustrating part about working in advertising is that so many of the late nights could be avoided with slightly better management and less over-promising to the client.”

“Glad I’m out of it, now.”  ~ SeaTie

Too Many Hats

“’Fast-paced, dynamic environment’ can be code for ‘look, we don’t have our crap together.’” ~KinkMountainMoney

“I had a boss one time that was on that crap.”

“He’d always say ‘I have to wear two hats’ because he’d write us up and then show up at the disciplinary meetings and defend us as our union rep.”

“I was always like ‘you know YOU’RE the reason we’re here, right?’”

“And he’d act all innocent and say he had to wear two hats. Dude! Just pick a hat!”  ~KinkMountainMoney

It all begins NOW…

“No interview, just ‘can you start tomorrow?’”  ~ Reddit

“Lol the only time I’ve heard this was when I was applying to summer jobs in high school and one place I applied to was Vector marketing (a pyramid scheme company).”

“Luckily, someone told me it was a pyramid scheme before I actually started ‘working’ there.”  ~Think_Tie8025

Nobody stays…

“For an hourly job as a cashier or a server or something like that I don’t think that would be that big of a red flag, to be honest.”

“There is high turnover even in well-run places in those industries, and if a good candidate is in front of you sometimes it’s best to offer a job before someone else can get them.”  ~ sofingclever

Meeting the Owner! 

“I interviewed for an administrative management position with a smaller magazine publisher. There were rumors about the owner of the publication (not an easy person to work for).”

“I sit with an interview panel first for thirty minutes – Shipping Manager, Accountant, Legal, Layout Editor.”

“Each of them introduces themselves in a very clipped manner. Each asked one question, read from a piece of paper.”

“As I answered the question, no one took notes, no one asked any backup questions.”

“Then I met with the CFO. The receptionist had to go back to her desk to get the office keys because the CFO’s office door was locked.”

“It was always locked. Meet with the CFO, and he asks the exact same four questions the panelists asked.”

“He, too – no notes, no follow up questions.”

“The I met with the owner.”

“His office looked like it was meant to be a training room. Huge amounts of space, and lots of dead-animal themes art-ing up the place.”

“I sat with the owner for about an hour. It seemed a pretty reasonable discussion. Then the final couple of questions.”

“Him: ‘You’ve met most of my primary managers. What do you think?’”

“Me: ‘To be honest, they all seemed disinterested in the interview.’”

“Him: ‘I know they are. I’ll make the decision on who to hire. I just want them to have a favorite.’”

*’DING DING DING DING!!’*

“Effing creeepy vibes. Lock-down environment. Managers dealing with a psycho boss. And the money person’s office always locked? Nope.”  ~ Yabloski

We’ll take anybody! 

“The shorter the interview, the more desperate the company is to just hire someone.”

“Bonus points if the person currently in the position you’re interviewing for has worked there for less than a year.”  ~ EfficientAnteater995

Work to the bone…

“If you hear ‘We work hard, but we also play hard’ pull the EJECT! handle.”

“The translation of that phrase is ‘We’ll work you like a dog, then insist you attend ‘team building’ activities w/o pay.’”  ~ LilShaver

Management Issues

“The important duties are super concentrated on that one person that is super close to the ‘Boss,’ that one pretentious person will reap all the bonuses and benefits, while the ones that do the heavy lifting will just form new health and mental issues down the road.”  ~ Longpenn

Am I ALL the staff?

“I had the entire job change in an interview once! I came into a first interview for selling IT solutions to companies who’d signed up through a webform.”

“We did most of the interview and the hiring manager said ‘You sound great for this! Just a few details! It’s not actually a IT solution, it’s fire alarms. It’s not to companies, it’s to regular customers. Oh and they haven’t signed up anywhere, it’s cold calling. If you’ll just follow me we’ll get you set up at a work station!’”

“I noped out of there immediately.”  ~ EchoingEchoes

Now you know the signs of whether to run or stay.

Don’t settle for anything. If it feels off… it’s off. Bring track shoes to get away faster.

They’ll be other jobs, sanity first,

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Scientists Share The Scariest Facts The General Public Doesn’t Know About

As our planet earth hurdles through space at dizzying speeds and rotations, things are happening all of the time at every single moment throughout the universe that could have a profound affect on us as a species.  And at every moment, life has the potential to end due to millions upon billions of things that are completely beyond our control.

Thankfully, though, we don’t spend our lives thinking about that.

We may get little flashes of anxiety, but for the most part, we need to live our lives. People can’t be caught up in that fear all the time.

Unless it’s their job to.

Enter scientists, who think of all the scary things in the world at all times so that you don’t have to.

We really owe it to scientists.

So when Redditor LukasXB78 asked:

“Hello scientists of Reddit, what’s a scary science fact that the public knows nothing about?”

The scientists were eager to share their answers.

It’s Cosmic, It’s Terran, It’s ALL Of Them Honey

“I’ve got three for you: 1: Rabies. Once symptomatic, rabies has a 100%* fatality rate. The only options are the rabies vaccine and immunoglobulin therapy, which, again, must be administered before any symptoms.”

“2: Gamma Ray Bursts (henceforth referred to as GRBs). GRBs are a rare phenomenon emitted from the poles of rapidly spinning supernovae and hypernovae.”

“In the event of a direct hit from suitably close (which is actually really, really far), all life on earth would be wiped out.”

“The facing side would be annihilated instantly, while the trailing side would quickly die due to the conditions on earth no longer being suitable to support life.”

“And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Kurzgesagt’s video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLykC1VN7NY”

“3: Runaway global warming. There are many stores of greenhouse gases (namely carbon dioxide and methane) all over the place.”

“But the conditions required to keep these gasses trapped are delicate. The worst part? It may already be too late to stop, even if humanity immediately ceased all greenhouse gas emissions and put every single resource we have into carbon sequestration.”-zipybug14

“There is a gravitational anomaly in space called the great attractor which is pulling everything within the Virgo and Hydra-Centaurus superclusters towards it.”

“It lies 150-250 million light years from the milky way, which itself is being pulled towards it too.”

“The scary part is that relative to us, this anomaly lies within the same plane as our own galaxy making it very difficult to observe. Essentially, we have almost no concrete idea of what it is.”-Nervous_Relation9213

This Toxin, Mr. Bond

“If your dog swins in a lake after receiving a spot on flea treatment – it absolutely decimates the invertibrate population.”

“A large dog swimming in 8 Olympic swimming pools worth of water soon after treatment will leech enough neurotoxin to kill 50% of the lake’s invertebrate population within 48 hours.”

“There’s some awareness of this, but it’s not being taken seriously enough!”-konwiddak

“Cancer geneticist here. Most cases of cancer that are sequenced generally just denote the prognosis or how long a patient has to live, rather than treatment options.”

“People always say ‘let’s cure cancer’ however this simplifies cancer as though it is only one disease. It’s far more complicated than that.”

“I studied at one of the largest cancer hospitals in the world where the motto is to make cancer history, but the only obtainable goal is to make it chronic.”

“We study and research as much as possible but every cancer requires different research, and unfortunately the powers that be often prohibit funding and proficient research.”

“It’s work I am passionate about, but also a broken system that is infuriating to work in.”-shhhhnahcuh

“Scientific litterature conclusion on alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases in general is that the diseases start decades before the first obvious symptoms and that we need to treat them at this stage.”

“When you exhibit obvious symptoms, it’s too late, your brain is already mush. If you get diagnosed with alzheimer’s at 65, you had the disease since your early 40’s at least.”

“And you experienced very mild symptoms but didn’t notice it. And your brain fought like hell to compensate the deficit. When you get diagnose, your brain is already very severely damaged and will never recover from the deficit.”-Matrozi

“The bacteria that causes anthrax, Bacillus anthracis, is part of the normal soil ecology. In the wild, B. anthracis rarely causes illness, and when it does, it’s a cutaneous (skin) infection like a rash.”

“The common soil strains are not particularly infectious to begin with. You can, and we as a civilization have, weaponized B. anthracis.”

“Specifically, we can grow it, make it produce spores (hardy forms of the organism that are resilient), and can aerosolize it for dispersal to cause respiratory anthrax.”

“Having said that, we are on alert for the use of Anthrax, it doesn’t spread in the population after the initial infection, it’s easy to treat with antibiotics, and there are vaccines for it, which our military personnel and researchers already receive.”

“MRSA is a much scarier and more urgent bacterial concern.”-tricksterloki

What’s The Buzz?

“Haven’t seen this one yet – insects are going extinct. We have lost a significant chunk just since the 80s. I think it was around 20%? Mozzies are going up, because of course, but just about everything else is going.”

“Wasn’t until I read this that I realised that as a kid in the 90s I used to see butterflies all the time. Dragonflies. My house used to get invaded by Christmas beetles every year.”

“Not so much. These days I might see only one or two Christmas beetles in December, if any at all. When I was a kid I remember finding eight in my house in a single night… same house.”-Echospite

“The Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) runs off the coast of northern California to southern canada and ruptures about every 250-350 years.”

“We know this from the geologic record. The last rupture was in January 1700 and there are written records from Japan of a tsunami that resulted from the earthquake on the other side of the Pacific.”

“This zone is still active and is likely to rupture in the next 100 years resulting in a mag 9+ earthquake that impacts the west coast from northern cali to southern Canada.”-socks4fun

“Prions. Misfolded proteins that cause a cascade of protein misfoldings that lead to amyloid plaque buildups, resulting in uncontrollable neurodegeneration that is fatal in 100% of cases within two years.”

“There is no cure. We don’t understand what causes it. We don’t understand the mechanism of the misfolding cascade. We don’t even fully understand the structure of the misfolded proteins.”

“It could in theory happen to anyone, at any time, and there’s no way to tell until you start showing symptoms, at which point you might have 18 months to live, if you’re lucky, the last 6 of which will be intensely unpleasant.”-FoucaultsPudendum

Poor Mother Earth

“Soil science-adjacent researcher here. We are degrading, polluting, and losing our topsoil at such a rate that we may not be able to produce enough food to feed everyone within 50-60 years, let alone what impacts climate change may bring to bear on our food supply.”

“And the US government’s crop insurance programs and incentives all reinforce the bad practices, while discouraging regenerative practices.”

“These bad policies are extremely hard to change because of lobbying from the major agribusiness companies, who make money off of these short-sighted policies.”

“Our food supply is further threatened by our agricultural over-dependence on aquifer water, which is not being replenished, making it an unsustainable source of water.”

“If the aquifers are over-drawn, depleted, or polluted, we hit a hard wall of water scarcity, and we will have no back-ups to address the problem with.”

“The drawdown of the aquifers also causes land subsidence, which causes costly infrastructure and building damage. The general public does not realize the impending crisis that will be caused by the confluence of these factors.”-Berkamin

“If you live in the Netherlands and your house is older than let’s say 100 years and you have not renovated your pluming, chances are fairly high that you can get lead poisoning.”

“It is impossible for water treatment companies to pinpoint where they are and how many, and many building plans do not include the plumbing schematics. So check your pipes for lead, they can do harm, especially to children!”-Wooshmeister55

“There’s a solar event known as a CME, or a Coronal Mass Ejection, it occurs very frequently on a cosmic timescale, every few decades to centuries there’s a decent size one.”

“Why are they scary? A CME is a massive burst of radiation, easily able to fully envelope the earth in its path, and it’s the equivalent of a non-stop EMP barrage.”

“The last time a big one hit earth, was when we had telegraph lines for communications and they spontaneously caught fire.”

“In today’s world, with everything running on electricity, when the next big one hits we’ll have at most a few days warning, and it’d be a literal apocalypse movie scenario.”

“With planes going down due to their whole electrical system frying, nobodies vehicle starting, untold billions in fire damage would wreak havoc everywhere, and the machines we depend on to help would be similarly fried.”

“Soooome stuff would be unaffected, being parked in deep, concrete roofed parking garages and the like, but our entire infrastructure would be useless for years.”

“It’d literally send us into a mini dark age while people tried to get things working again, recovery would take decades to centuries.”-Wimbleston

The truth is, life around us is as fragile as anything else in it.  We have such little control over when we end our brief stay on this planet Earth.

But we might as well enjoy the time we know we have—the present.