What's a company secret you can share now that you don't work there? | Ask Reddit

[@LittleMMCX]

I filmed in a cheese factory as part of my work experience for my college course. And yes, I can confirm that the same cheese went to different supermarkets. The cheese block would be cut to shape, packaged up, and then be split up and sent down 5 or 6 separate conveyor belts, each belt labeling the cheese with a different supermarket brand. So Sainsbury's cheese was the same as one from Asda or Morrisons etc.

[@johnmccallum8512]

I worked in a bottling plant QC and VP "sherry" also other brands when one run was done all that happened for the next run was a lable change so much like the cheese story.

[@lapdogg]

This is actually very common. Some store brands of items are actually made by the major manufacturers and just relabeled and priced lower but the power of branding really keeps the major brands in business even when the same product can be found at a cheaper price with a different label.

[@frankhooper7871]

I've always assumed this was the case with most "own brands"

[@hesky10]

​@@lapdoggdepends on the product, most store branded foods such as cereal will be made by the company who sells stuff under their own brand, but the stuff being sold under the store will be less flavoursome or some other ingredient reduced, flavour and look were reduced usually compared to the overall substance.

[@route2070]

US rideshare driver here. I had quite a few riders that were attending a white label (generic) products convention. They were there to sell to retailers, so yes make the product and slap whatever label they want and ship it off.

[@jasoncrobar724]

Canadian here. There does seem to be a legal requirement that the "Made in Canada" label is only allowed on things prepared here, with the majority of materials & ingredients produced here. This is why for years after Heinz stopped making ketchup in Leamington Ontario, moving production to the States, they couldn't use that label. Eventually they opened a processor in Montreal, but sourced American tomatoes. The label said "Prepared in Canada."

[@martinajurickova5750]

It is quite common in Europe that "made in" actually only refers to where the product was finalized and packed. And now the Eu leguslature topped that with labeling stuff with "made in Eu". But everyone knows that the quality of products made in different EU count ries is not the same. Another unproved practice is that compnies sell the same product in different quality in the western and eastern europe.

[@RCassinello]

About the M&S one, "deli" and "groceries" are very much terms used in Britain amongst older generations, but are definitely dying out. And to add to that story, my first job in 1997 was in a sandwich factory. We made sandwiches for Boots and M&S, and the only difference was the label - with the M&S ones usually being a quid more expensive than the identical Boots sandwich.

[@RCassinello]

@@brigidsingleton1596 I remember in the village I grew up in, my mom (given away my region there - Birmingham suburbs!) would drag me to get "groceries", and we'd sit in the village shop for an hour next to the "deli" counter while she caught up on gossip and I ate half penny sweets. Bear in mind the whole shop was smaller than Arkwright's, and it felt like the shelves towered up to the ceiling with only a 2 foot corridor around the shop, but there were always the "regulars" sat next to the deli having a good chinwag. I really miss that place! :)

[@lizcademy4809]

I worked at JoAnn Fabric & Crafts, a USA chain. They're known for giving out tons of 40 and 50% off coupons, so people think they're getting amazing deals. Instead, JoAnn's non-sale price is at least twice what you can get the same item for elsewhere, so the coupon just brings it down to the correct price. The $5.00 spool of thread with a 40% off coupon is still more expensive than the same thread from an online sewing supplier, sold for $1.85. The other big craft store chains probably do the same thing.

[@connorvickers2053]

I have a thing to add about hotel security (although not from the perspective of an employee, but as a guest to the hotels I visited in my recent holiday in Scotland and Ireland. FYI I'm Australian, a rather safe country, but this still was quite surprising). There were times when I would accidentally lock myself out of my room, or my key card simply stopped working and I needed a new one. I'd go down to reception and ask for a new key, they would ask for my room number and then hey presto here's a new key! I realised that not a single hotel we visited EVER checked to see that I actually was the person who had booked that room, they'd just give me a key and send on my way; I could've asked for any room and they probably wouldn't realise, not that I would ever do that. They must be really dedicated believers in the honour system, which is kind of a nice thought really.

[@clowncarqingdao]

Possibly a testament to the training of the staff that each knew every hotel client by face, name and voice. (Just joking.)

[@6RadaR6]

Just to add to this..... commonly those cards would stop working if you placed them inside the same pocket as your phone. So try keep them separate.

[@connorvickers2053]

@@6RadaR6 Funny thing is that I did keep them separate! My left pocket had my phone (I'm left handed) and my right pocket had everything else which at the time was just my wallet. I can't think of anything in my wallet that could break a keycard because I have keycards in my wallet and they've never broken 🤷

[@therealpbristow]

To me that suggests that the cards genuinely fail so often that no one wants to waste the time it would take to check the facts of the case every time it happens. Result: The hotel chain's fancy new(*) security system that's "so much better than handing out real keys", actually ends up not much better than just leaving all the doors unlocked. *(N.B. Well, it was new when they installed it, 20 to 30 years ago! =:o1 ) I see similar situations in retail all to often: A centrally mandated system that's so broken that everyone working there just quickly gets in the habit of working around it, rather than using it as intended. Once that's happened, it takes a real obsessive nerd like me to bother to actually report a fault when it happens (and risk getting told off for "wasting time"!); and so few people ever do that the folks who maintain the system never realise how badly broken it really is, and so it never rises to the top of their "things to fix today" list. =:o(

[@sp3lllz]

Server room is a great place to have a cry as the IT person. No one can hear you cry over the sound of the server fans.

[@MakooWallinen]

No person will hear you, but the Hard Drives will, if you are loud enough. (Anyone that is curious can search on youtube for "screaming at hard drives".)

[@seijika46]

"How is internet piracy any better than stealing from a shop?" "When you take it, its still there."

[@skylark.kraken]

You should only have to pay if you're costing money to be there, and it's a reasonable price. When pirating software if you aren't making money then it's fine. It's a widely held understanding that Adobe allowed their software to remain easy to pirate because they understood the value of having people learn their software so when they do get a job using it they want Adobe software. For so many years you just had to copy over one dll file and boom unlocked, even when CC came around they didn't lock down piracy, it's just a slightly more complicated method and it's to account for the fact that their prices did decrease to make it more accessible. They understood the balance, they were able to convert some pirates over. When pirating films and TV shows it's a matter of if someone doesn't pirate they're not going to be paying, what might happen is that they may enjoy it enough to watch it legit or at least new films or shows in the series or by the creators or actors; and when Netflix had everything there was no excuse to pirate, but now it's all split up you shouldn't expect anyone to be on more than 1 of the platforms. For games it only just begins to be questionable, so ignoring the key sellers and how they cost game developers money and developers would prefer people to pirate, it's just like films and TV, it's a matter of someone either not playing the game and nobody gets money or they pirate the game and nobody gets money immediately but they may get a fan who would prefer to have it in their games library, get access to online features, and also games feel a lot more personal to the creator rather than some faceless or mouse eared big media company. Many pirate just as an extended trial, and it gets sales. I have a friend who is making a game and they are making an official pirated version, it's entirely offline without errors, it has the same offline content, all that's different is fewer aesthetic options and the title screen shows where the game is available to be purchased, if it's on sale or if it's going to be on sale. They will be watching torrent sites and as soon as someone posts a torrent for a cracked version of their game they're going to post a torrent to the official pirated version, their publisher gave a hard "no" to releasing it earlier and allowing an official pirated version was a hard sell, but the game comes with a demo with 2-4 hours of content that is able to move over to a full purchase; a significant, most?, game pirates just don't want to be under a timer to decide to keep the game, demos are fantastic at stopping these pirates as well as reducing the number of negative reviews - for smaller games it's often more useful to have more positive reviews than sales, and it doesn't even necessarily decrease sales as it presents your game to more people. Music however is much more difficult to justify, for those who have even a small amount of disposable income. There's almost no exclusive content on the different music streaming platforms, so you only need 1 and it's cheap. It's also designed to be listened to over and over and so pirating now stops any possible revenue, unlike movies and TV shows which for most people have a limited number of plays. If you are living in poverty and really can't justify £11/month then you've still got KZbin to stream music for free just with ads, but again if you do not have the money to give it's still better for them to gain a fan, however it's the easiest type of media to pirate and there are tools for you to pirate yourself from freely accessible media, so it's more understandable why there's a stricter crack down. Digital piracy ranges from almost always being ok and even used as a business strategy to it's only acceptable for certain people, with the effects ranging from being a positive and resulting in more revenue and loyalty to no money is lost but no money was going to be gained anyway except now someone is enjoying or appreciating the work. The trend of piracy is in the control of the creator, and even though some companies see piracy as being bad they are the ones who have caused it and they have the methods to stop it, but they're aiming for everyone paying them which just isn't realistic.

[@davidscott6847]

I once worked in a vegetable packing factory - we had big hoppers filled with frozen mixed veg and would feed this into an machine to bag it .. the first run was Tesco Value frozen veg .. without changing the feeding hopper the wrapping was changed to M&S Best ever mixed vegtables and restarted :)

[@TimoRutanen]

Yeah it's not like you grow different carrots in a premium patch. They're all carrots, people.

[@that-weirdogirl]

I worked for a grocery chain that had recently implemented a Zero Waste / Zero Hunger kind of program, and by implemented, I just mean I helped hang up the signs sent by the company to tell customer how better things are happening - though the process itself wasn’t made clear on these signs... Aside from the local fire station, there often wasn’t anybody coming to pick up food… And as far as I knew, we weren’t reaching OUT to help optimize the program, so it was imperative for folks to come to us in order to not throw away the food. I hated the feeling of throwing perfectly good food, so I implore people to PLEASE reach out to these grocery stores with these end waste / hunger programs and find out how you can partake in the program, or refer your local shelters, food banks, fire stations, or places of worship to see if this could be useful to them as well.

[@TheNiteinjail]

The customer who flips out is not always wrong. Some CSRs seem to legit intentionally frustrate you so you will get angry... and then they can hang up on you.

[@chrisball3778]

Probably not. There are a lot of scams and bizarre incentives in the call centre industry, but I didn't regularly see people deliberately winding up customers when I did those jobs. The calls are all recorded and you have to justify hanging up on anyone. A much bigger problem I ran into was pretty much the opposite- people going out of their way to avoid conflicts with customers. If someone rang in with a difficult problem some people would just lie to them and say it had been resolved just to get them off the phone quickly and without an argument. Human psychology being what it is, the customers were always really happy with the person who told them what they wanted to hear, but when they inevitably rang back because the problem hadn't really been fixed they'd flip out at whichever poor sucker had to give them the bad news. Managers didn't usually go after the agents that fobbed customers off because doing it enabled them to have good performance metrics on the stuff they were targeted on like customer satisfaction and average call duration, so they looked like model employees even though they were making life miserable for their colleagues and their customers alike. Also, most of the staff are just poorly trained and inexperienced because call centres generally have a horrible rate of employee turnover. It's usually miserable, stressful and poorly-paid work and people often don't last long in it.

[@insu_na]

About off-brand products: They're manufactured in the same factories as the brand stuff, but they're manufactured to the specifications of the store. For example Aldi-brand chips *could be* manufactured in the same place as Pringles, but because Aldi is the one who sets the recipe for the ingredients etc. it can taste wildly different. (Just chose random example names, I don't know if Pringles actually produces chips for Aldi)

[@andersonomo597]

I recently bought an iconic brand of Aussie crackers (SAO biscuits) and the house brand (for a quarter of the cost of the real SAOs) and we taste tested them side by side. We preferred the much cheaper house brand!

[@CampLJNC]

My son and I did a taste test of Aldi's brand balsamic vinegar and Trader Joe's balsamic vinegar. Trader Joe's was definitely better, even if it was bottled in the same factory.

[@andersonomo597]

Did you know that Aldi OWNS Trader Joe's? We don't have TJ here in Oz but it was still a shock to me when I found that out! @@CampLJNC

[@therealpbristow]

My local Lidl recently ran out of my favourite kind of beef pasties (the cheapest ones - aka the ones they're not allowed to call "Cornish"!). So I tried the two other kinds of pasties on offer: A pair of "Cornish Pasties" from their Chef Select range (slightly more expensive than my usual), and a single Ginsters "Cornish Pasty" (which cost more on its own than the Chef Select two pack!). I had the Ginsters one first: Quite nice, apart from the price. Interesting feature: All of the contents - the meat, the potatoes, everything - were in thinly sliced strips, rather than diced. Perhaps this makes it easier to get a consistent filling between one pasty and the next? Dunno. Next day I tried the Chef Select option: The first obvious difference, based on the packaging, was that these pasties were a lighter. However, the shape was *extremely* similar, from the radius of curvature right down to the spacing of the crimping around the edges. So presumably the same pastry disks were going through the same type of assembly machine, but just having less filling put into them? On biting into it... imagine my surprise! All the contents were thinly sliced strips, rather than diced... And all to the exact same dimensions as I'd seen in the Ginster's pasty! There's was just slightly less filling in there. Then the *real* difference hit me: Pepper! *SO* much pepper in the Chef Select version, it overpowered all the other flavours. The second one, the next day, was again severely over-peppered. Conclusions: (1) Both types of pasty are definitely made in the same factory, but not to the same recipe. (2) Either I got a bad batch of the Chef Select version, or somebody's trying to make the more expensive Ginsters variant sell better, by making the Chef Select ones only palatable to people who *love* pepper! =:oo

[@andersonomo597]

I'd call the manufacturer and complain about the excess pepper - either they had a manufacturing stuff up or need to reformulate but companies DO take note of consumer complaints. Our neighbour made the best Cornish pasties every Christmas and gave us some, it was his specialty. They've moved and I miss them - and the pasties! Cheers from Oz!!@@therealpbristow

[@alexreid1173]

I would love a video about piracy! Especially when it comes to pirating scientific papers. Even when you pay for them, the actual authors don’t get anything. The difference between that and pirating other content is so interesting to me

[@martinajurickova5750]

The pay to read charge is kept by the publisher. That is why people should not be afraid to write to the authors and request a copy or a manuscript (unless they are already dead). Most authors are just happy to give you the copy and it is not against any publishing rules. Authors are just happy if anyone shows interest in their work, and even happier if anyone cites them.

[@Phiyedough]

In UK the word grocery was largely dropped when supermarkets appeared. A grocer was a person who would stand behind a counter and pack up quantities of loose bulk food items for individual customers. A bit like a deli counter but for everything, not just cheese, cooked meat etc.

[@TonyP_Yes-its-Me]

I recently had "There are zero customers, in the queue" but still had to wait ten minutes for an operator. Fun times.

[@Rabombee]

Fun fact, Radio Shack isn’t actually out of business but most people think they are. When people call us and we have to send them to the nearest Radio Shack for a specific item, they usually react with disbelief. One guy laughed for a straight minute

[@AIHumanEquality]

They aren't out of business but their operation is mostly online now with only 500 physical stores still around.

[@scragar]

RE: Google Wave The real time editing is a thing in google docs still. It's a really cool colaborative feature, the problem was how it was presented/understood rather than the feature itself. Loads of people thought of it like existing communication systems, but the idea was a space where people could work together and expand on what everyone else is doing without needing to constantly stop to share. And for that purpose it was really cool and I'm glad they didn't just remove it from everything and instead just put it into their office tools where it's purpose was better understood.

[@KatStrega]

Fun fact: If you're crying in the walk-in freezer due to anxiety, the quick change in temperature helps to reset your autonomic nervous system especially if you take some deep breaths in between sobs. (Source: lived experience and adhd fueled wikipedia deep dives)

[@yurihuffles]

For the “hold music one”, even if you can hear music then they may still be able to hear what you’re saying and recording it as well. Used to work for a uk insurance company and the claims department was trained to listen out for customers on hold making a statement while waiting to other people that would invalidate the insurance claim.

[@patrickchambers5999]

Years ago the company my brother worked for answered a survey about the software they were using. Several days later the actual company that sold the software showed up with police and lawyers because the company only bought a single copy of the software but reported over 50 stations using that software. Boy did the stuff hit the fan and the legal expenses that ensued. Cost the company a bundle.

[@AIHumanEquality]

Showed up with police and lawyers? I doubt it. That's not the kind of thing police would deal with. You'd have to submit a lawsuit for it. Lawyers and police don't just show up to a workplace. That's not how legal systems work especially not for disputes between two companies.

[@Sophie_Cleverly]

If you make the piracy video, it would be great to hear you talk about book piracy. As an author I would love people to know that most authors make less than minimum wage and that piracy can really affect us as low numbers of sales can affect your chances of getting more books published. You can actually rent ebooks as well as physical books free from the library and in some countries (in my case the UK and Ireland) authors are even paid a small amount for each loan. Well, except all our payments have been delayed due to the cyber attack on the British Library, but that could be a whole video in itself 😅

[@johannalehto9154]

Yes! A video about book piracy would be interesting!

[@alexreid1173]

I find it interesting how pirating books compares to pirating scientific articles. The authors of scientific papers never get ANY money from publishing, but it does help them get promoted. And yet, most scientific articles are literally more expensive than most books (and all of it goes to the publisher for doing the difficult job of… uh… hosting a PDF on their website). Hell, even peer reviewers don’t get paid.

[@pmsavenger]

I always pirate science papers for exactly that reason. They can't even be shared by the author to a friend without it being considered piracy, it's mental.

[@janebaker966]

Back in the 19th century Charles Dickens got really apoplectic angry about USA publishers who would print bootleg print runs of his books,and even change the story lines and the endings. He got no money from these,it offended him artistically,and being in England most of the time he couldn't pursue them. The author Mark Twain,he was better placed being IN America. He was a pretty shrewd businessman ( I read the first volume of his autobiography,) he was always cutting good deals with reputable publishers for printing his work at a rate acceptable to both but better,he spent a LOT of time tracking down those bootleg publishers and getting them to remove his work from their presses,or pay him,or just get them shut down. He was assiduous

[@fuzzbox3912]

I used to work for a large yoghurt , and yoghurt related products, supplier, we supplied all the major supermarkets. There is a a massive difference between some of the products, (fun fact fruit costs more than milk) also we used to have to run all the organic products first on the lines , or else do a massive clean between runs

[@alittlebitgone]

Evan... RE: Maple Syrup, states and countries are two different things. You can move sap between states without disclosing, not between countries.

[@peopleseethis]

Worked in an IT helpdesk for years, If you say "agent" instead of "operator" you will probably have better luck getting a person. Most of the software that manages those phone systems refers to the people taking calls as agents in their documentation, so the computer DOES understand that word.

[@clowncarqingdao]

A major British supermarket used to get staff to scrape the labels off cans of food (using the lip of another can of food) in bulk and replace them new labels at a higher value so that they could sell them at the current price but advertise them as them reduced. This was before the days of bar codes (so now they can do it through EPOS).

[@puremaple6033]

Great video! We recognize the importance of food providence, authenticity, and transparency. Why not come and hang out with us and our Canadian farmers who will start tapping in mid-March - early April in "Quebec, Canada "

[@JoyandSerenity.]

So as someone who works in pharmacy in the UK, generic drugs are actually different because they need to be legally distinct enough that the original guys don't shit a brick. This however is normally just done by adding more bulking agents or changing the flavour or skipping ingredients that make them taste better. It is exactly the same active ingredient, probably sourced from the same place. As someone who also used to work in a hot chocolate powder factory, all the brands are made in the same building, some have different ingredients, home brands were all the same mix, cadbury was their own and whittards was put into like three different tubs but I can't remember what, this job was also a ballache because our factory was nut free which meant no nuts on the premesis, including in staff lunches, they would prison guard search people for nuts.. it was crazy strict.

[@TukikoTroy]

I was a call centre call handler during Covid... they brought the equipment round and we worked from home. Productivity actually went up and they said we could continue to work from home even after Covid.

[@casfletcher4076]

I used to work for HSBC and it was just as much of a nightmare to work on the phones as it was to be a customer. Fun fact, one of their centres in the UK was actually staffed by a third party contact centre agency, which is where I worked. They ended the contract a few months ago though, so place your bets on whether or not they'll take customer service in house and the standards will improve, or if they'll just go with a cheaper, worse third party service.

[@deon700]

I used to work in RBS about 9 years ago and it was the same issue getting trough to another department. Your in the same line as everyone else. I got in trouble because my daily calls was low due to it ha When I started, I was employed by RBS, but alot of people where still hired by outside companies.

[@casfletcher4076]

@deon700 the transferring to other departments was an issue for us too. We were required to warm transfer to fraud, but on bad days the queues could be hours long

[@deon700]

​@casfletcher4076 in the end, I was forced to cold transfer alot more to get my calls up. Glad I'm out of it though, constantly trying to look out for fraudsters, especially seeing if they where creating a profile before hitting the account was mentally tiring.

[@deadlymelody27]

Was it TLC 😂 they used to have the contract im sure because my mate worked there

[@casfletcher4076]

@@deadlymelody27 nah was concentrix

[@jrochest4642]

Shipping maple sap across the US/Canada border would be more fuss and expense than it would be worth, even with NAFTA, and I think Ontario and Quebec have more maple tree farms than Vermont and Maine, so Canadian maple syrup is most probably all-Canadian.

[@JohnManzo]

NAFTA no longer exists, thanks to Trump. And you're absoutely correct- this was such a stupid, uninformed example.

[@sharonoddlyenough]

The maple syrup cartel would have something to say if it wasn't labeled correctly

[@jbmcdoogle]

A friend who worked in China for 12 years said factories made every brand imaginable under the same roof. Calvin Klein t shirts one day and Target the next , etc. They're made to the specifications of each brand so quality does vary

[@JamesScantlebury]

Big fan of “good cop, bad cop” when dealing with customer service

[@concordep2504]

That M& S story either isn’t true or that company lost their M&S contract as soon as M&S visited on the fly, because trust me I was in quality control and they would just turn up without notice and insist on seeing their orders prepared in front of the and anything out of the strictest rules was rejected!

[@kaimactrash]

I had a very diffrent experience from this in Scotland, the only thing that changed between other shops and M&S pre-packed foods were their containers and the volume of product due to container size diffrences.

[@TransmitHim]

If the budget deli meat is being made to the same standard as M&S required, it's entirely plausible that the only difference was the label, it's just that M&S is trading on its name and reputation to sell it at a much higher mark-up. I worked (very briefly) for M&S and they told us in the employee induction that the own label products were mostly made anonymously by well known third party manufacturers (chocolate was made by Thorntons for instance). I also worked for Iceland for a while and on a couple of occasions we received boxes of Happy Shopper branded frozen ready meals instead of the Iceland branded ones. They were identical in everything except the printing on the cardboard sleeve.

[@skrywenko6596]

my wife worked at a German expensive audio company. she told me all they did was they got boxes and boxes of components boards from china . all she did was solder 3 or 4 wires that were made in Germany and assembled everything together from all these chinese components and it was labeled as "made"/"Built" in Germany . my sister worked at Italian restaurant. all that left over butter on the table they collect it and then remelt it and pour it on cookie sheets and then cut them in squares and place it little wax paper squares and use it again and again and again

[@janebaker966]

Waste not,want not.

[@ramblingmillennial1560]

Yeah my boyfriend and his sister work together at a restaurant in Germany and I hear horror stories constantly. Like how even during Covid they were reusing sauces that were left at the tables.... I wanna assume it was sauces that were not touched but I feel like that wasn't the case. They also try to reuse any sides that weren't fully eaten. Absolutely heinous. Not saying it's happening only in Germany but yikes!

[@joepiekl]

There was a TV manufacturer in England that was advertising 'made in UK' a while back that was doing the same thing. They didn't last long. There's also the case of Boohoo, who claimed to make their clothes in the UK until some journalists investigates and found them putting 'made in the UK' labels on stuff that was made in Asia.

[@JDoors]

I worked at a factory and yes, we would keep the line running and change the packaging to different brands -- same product. Sometimes the new packaging would say "New And Improved." We didn't change a thing. Same product. Overheard a customer at a store say they preferred that store's brand over another store product. We made both products. Same product.

[@s_r06991]

I worked for a large value clothing retailer in the uk, have loads of horror stories I could tell, however 2 that stick out are a delivery of faux leather skirts arrived covered in mould... was told by management just towipe it off and put them out on the shop floor, and another instance where the roof leaking horrible dirty water all over clothes in the kids section, we had to take all the clothes off, put them on radiators in the staff area.. then put them back out.. full price.... moral of the story... ALWAYS ALWAYS WASH STUFF BEFORE YOU WEAR IT!!!

[@57thorns]

The Swedish personal number is sometimes compared to the US Social Security Number, however, there is a huge difference: You personal number is your identity, it is _not_ how you identify yourself. It is basically your name. You identify yourself using an ID card with a picture, or a pin code. While I can check out a self service scanner using my drivers license, it is not connected to payment in any way. To pay I use my bank/credit card, and while RFID-blipping is a thing, ostensibly you should provide a PIN for nontrivial amounts.

[@scragar]

RE: School ID. When I went to school the ID numbers were always year you started school+4 digit number based on alphabetical sorting of students(or if you started later in the year because you switched schools you'd get the next number available). This had some weird side effects, we only had ~250 kids per year and they made the numbers sequential, so you could easily figure out other peoples number. This wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't that the ID number was all you needed to access things meant for parents(attendance records, grades, homework assignments, schedule, disciplinary record, etc). It was kind of messed up with a bit of guesswork and double checking you could find anyones number, and from that see details that clearly shouldn't be public.

[@hesky10]

Schools just seem to be naive regarding personal information of the students, probably thinking a student aged 11 won't have much for anyone to steal, but they're likely thinking of the students as if they were at school when the teachers were students 25+ years ago where data protection didn't really need to be as complex as now

[@gerard5705]

My bank used your date of birth Backwards as your login for their online banking

[@TheNiteinjail]

Gold plated contacts only does two things ... VERY Slightly improved corrosion resistance (gold really is a very stable metal) and improved profits.

[@scragar]

Gold contacts makes a big deal on some old analogue devices, reducing resistance/noise there makes a huge change. Then they tried the same claims with HDMI cables and now I despise any company I saw spouting such claims. Signal quality for digital signals doesn't matter as long as it's good enough to be error free, once you get 0 bits flipped the data is exactly the same at either end. It's just so infuriating to see people fall for it and pay extra for something that's going to make zero difference beyind encouraging scummy business practices.

[@lilpetz500]

I did wonder about that when I heard how often gold is used in electronics, as an interested but complete novice. Is gold really the most efficiently corrosion resistant material they could use?

[@lilpetz500]

​​@@scragar honestly with HDMI, I'm happy with the cheapest cable that works, that is all. I once bought one from the local dollar store (It was like $8), and it straight up didn't work upon first use. I hope I just got an absolute dud and that it isnt normalised to make hardware that fragile that it doesn't even survive purchase.

[@ethelmini]

Are there any gold plated sockets though 🤔

[@davidioanhedges]

Gold plated sockets don't corrode ... but neither do most sockets

[@VicW]

My paternal grandparents both worked at my city’s airport before they retired. Luggage handling there was nicknamed ”the crusher”, and hard case luggage was notorious for breaking there

[@Bunnybananabunny]

I used to work at Ikea. First of all, loved it! They have almost any screw, nut or bolt in the backroom, so if you lose one or are missing one, it's an easy fix! The meatballs are sold for no profit, as they make people stay longer aka spend more😁

[@DrethenHyena]

Heyo! Brit here from Yorkshire, just swinging through to say that 'grocery store' get's used up here, though it feels more common amongst the older generation. Not sure if we have regional variance or north / south divide at play but a fair number of older stores near me are still named things like "Auntie Angies Grocieries".

[@ThatRomyKate]

I heard that M&S and Waitrose will sell their old recipes when they update a product, so the cheaper supermarkets will buy those and start using them, hence why their products often taste almost as good as the more expensive brands.

[@LauraDora124]

I often use American terms online, because it's just easier to be understood. The m&s poster may have just been doing the same; it's easier to assume the readers are American 😂.

[@yadiracamacho499]

I don't understand who thought it was a good idea to use an id number as an authentication number. I'm not American and it has always baffled me when they talk about ssn as something that has to be secret, like it was a password for your whole life. No one can do anything important with my ID number

[@spfisterer3651]

Worked for a big bread company and every couple of hours we would switch the labels. I've seen the breads side by side in stores with one being about 60 % more expensive...

[@Azeria]

9:10 it was standard practice in the mcdonald’s i worked in as a teenager to just reset the UHC timers when food in them timed out, and i’d describe that franchise as one of the ‘good’ ones. Always ask for veggie burgers or filet o’fish to be cooked fresh as they’re the products that get bought least and are most likely to be sitting around too long.

[@HumbleWooper]

Also (and this tip works for pretty much any fast food place)... if you want really fresh fries and it isn't a busy time of day, ask for them with no salt (then add your own if you want). They have to either make a batch fresh or hold your order until the current batch finishes cooking, since everything usually gets salted right after it gets dumped from the fry basket. Sure this will probably add an extra 10-15 minutes to your wait, but IMO if you're in no rush it's a sacrifice worth making to skip lukewarm limp potato sticks.

[@Azeria]

@@HumbleWooper don’t do this, literally just ask for fresh fries, it’s so annoying when someone asks for no-salt just because they want fresh. If it’s not busy they’ll just do fresh fries for you anyway.

[@HumbleWooper]

@@Azeria Ooh, good to know! Thank you!

[@pauldupre2269]

My Wife is a School Teacher. They went on a School Trip to a food factory making Desserts. Yes, nearly all of the Supermarkets had their products made in the same place, obviously with a different sticker on it, but the likes of M&S & Waitrose had slightly better ingredients than the others.

[@SiliconSlyWolf]

I worked at a Wendy's, and they always had the burger cooks, in a place that cooks raw hamburger, occasionally dump the french fires out of the baskets from the fryers. But you better put gloves on to handle the frozen chicken going into the deep fryer. I was once asked by a new manager on a busy day to get a burger off the grill after having had to just shove my hand down into the trash to keep it from spilling over while on trash empty duty.

[@PaoolG]

This is an apology. When you said the subscribe and like button light up I didn't beleive you at all, but they did do a little thing and it really surprised me. I have deposited one like into this video as a show of good faith.

[@thecunninlynguist]

company secret i like sharing is that they were cooking the books, and I'm assuming they still are. I left for that reason.

[@scragar]

I worked for a company doing that. Their head of finance is in prison now and the CEO is forbidden from running a company ever again.

[@thecunninlynguist]

@@scragari still got some insiders at my former job, and they're falling, so it's only so long until they collapse

[@bethsmith3421]

Not all products but a lot of canned food, vegetables, beans, and fruit are exactly the same only with a new label. For example: Let's say Del Monte is canning green beans, they change the label to Great Value which is the Walmart brand. Everything else is exactly the same. I don't know if DelMonte is the actual brand that Walmart pays to can for them. Very few grocery store chains have their own canning warehouse so they pay big food processing companies to can and label their brand. It's quite common. Like i said, not all products but a significant amount.

[@Fluffnugget78]

On the subject of HSBC, I still have a joint account with them that I never use. I went in to take my husband's name off the account because he died and I wanted to continue to use the account. Even after handing them the death certificate and discussing this for almost an hour, they were still unable, due to their policies, to take his name off the account unless he signed to give permission to do so...

[@martinajurickova5750]

Seems to be a frequent bank policy, from what I've heard. Usually they can only close a deceased person's account when they get a court/advocate (idk) order about it once the inheritance division process is over. Until then the account can be charged or deduced fees from, resulting in it to even go into debt.

[@Darxide23]

I also want to say I've never noticed the like or subscribe buttons lighting up, but the instant you said subscribe mine glowed with a rainbow outline. I usually watch in fullscreen, though, so I would rarely see that stuff anyway. I have an extension that automatically likes videos if I watch more than 60% of them so I never have to do it manually.

[@eddyland1557]

That freezer story at restaurants where employees go to cry sounds like it came from experience Evan, did you ever cry in one?

[@colleenmarin8907]

It's also a good place to literally cool off after running around loading the industrial dishwasher and restocking the salad bar

[@Hmm...Whats-Their-Name]

I don't know a restaurant employee who hasn't...

[@pauldupre2269]

I used to work at a fairly posh Butcher's at a Farm Shop. So many mingin things happened there, but a few.... A large tray of minced beef was dropped on the floor, butchers used to put saw dust on the floor to absorb any dropped blood etc. My manager told me to collect up all the dropped meat & re-mince it mixed in with fresh meat, which we then sold. A load of lambs arrived, past their Use By Date, we had to peel off the green skin & clean it up the best we could. The fridges went down over Christmas, when we returned the beef sides had gone brown, so we cut up the beef, vacuum packed it & added it to the minced beef over the next month or two. Scrapped Danish Flags off bacon joints to sell as British. Not ideal. That was two decades ago. I don't work there now!

[@tinnagigja3723]

"If you can't own it, you can't steal it" This is simultaneously a very cool line and exactly what someone who was planning to steal the Moon would say.

[@hotblack1166]

The best time of the year to buy a fitted kitchen is December. Reason? Nobody buys fitted kitchens in December, they are too busy Xmas shopping and waiting for the January sales. The larger kitchen stores are empty and the staff will bend over backwards for your business.

[@aleks-33]

I love pirating Adobe as much as the next guy but the year I worked at an agency and they gave me real Adobe, man it was so nice. Getting real time updates, having fun with new features, not worrying about getting locked out of ur files cuz Adobe figures out its pirated and u have to uninstall and reinstall, getting access to Adobe Fonts!!!!? I cant wait to find a new job and they pay for me to have real Adobe again cuz I cannot afford $500+ CAD per year for it but damn if it aint nice. 😭

[@SmolYui]

if you do it incorrectly yes, all my adobe products worked fine for years with no hassle and had adobe fonts, just gotta do your research properly.

[@ettcha]

Yeah, it's such a load off. Just had a friend sos me because Photoshop got wise and locked him out... Adobe is a devil but it's so freeing being legit! You don't have to be paranoid about every network access request that pops up on your firewall, you don't have any weird programme launch rituals, never have to kneecap your security settings, just pay and go

[@gaijinhito]

Bank of America does the same thing Wells Fargo did. I called to complain about this and was told, "our account agreement allows us to order transactions in anyway we choose."

[@ramblingmillennial1560]

This needs to be made illegal. Like seriously wth

[@DizY_8]

9:50 the freezer is also where your former prime minister can go, to escape accountability...

[@terrijxx3164]

One of my friends worked for a smallish airbnb type company. They offered that you could get your deposit refunded after your stay if you left the place near and tidy. They would only give the deposit back if asked for it and if they were asked for it they’d come up with every excuse not to give it back. A customer accidentally paid twice because they made a mistake filling the form out and my friend was told explicitly to not refund them for one of the payments because it was “the customers issue” and to only refund if asked about it

[@Disthron]

12:03 *Different labels are different products* Umm... no, a lot of the time that stuff IS the same. Specially if the different products are actually owned by the same parent company. There are less and less different food companies as time goes by. Having nicer packaging is known to effect peoples perceptions of the product.

[@janebaker966]

It's all made in the same factory but the recipes vary slightly,one has more sugar,one has more fruit,it can be quite small changes but enough to justify it being another brand.

[@lilpetz500]

It's true!! Personally, I actually have a trick that works for me where I make my snacks and consumeable items last better by putting them in a nicer container upon opening them, as it makes me view them as more valuable than the generic brand packaging suggests. Especially with a lot of sweets, it's pretty hard to improve or mess up what is essentially cooked/chewy sugar, and unfortunately I can't find a lot of those kinds of things at bulk stores where I just take the nice containers to fill.

[@Flaggyt]

Years ago a friend of mine did an internship at a cardealer. And when a car came with a broken part that was still under waranty, they looked around if there were any eligible cars in with the same part but out of waranty, they switched the parts, and let the other customer pay for the waranty of the other. Especially when they couldn't claim the warranty at the distributor/manufacturer. He never finished the internship and basicly left the automotive industry (big part because of these "tactics") and went into IT. Smart move.😊

[@ghijkmnop]

The other reason to not check precision equipment is that, at least in the US, the TSA will rifle through your expensive stuff--ESPECIALLY if it's in a flight case, that they only let you lock as long as if it's equipped with TSA-approved locks.

[@Me1le]

I used to work in the meat industry. At some point the import team figured out you can import frozen chicken as "bouillon" as long as half the weight is water. So the company decided to start started shipping containers filled with chicken frozen in ice in a 50/50 mix. When in Europe it would be defrosted and the water would just be thrown away.

[@GaelyneGasson]

I just started watching your videos. The first video I paused several times because I kept getting text messages but ... couldn't find the new txts. The 2nd one I watched, I realised you use my quack sound for swearing! I chose that sound because all the other sounds on my phone were generic meaningless bips. Cheers - I'm from Michigan, but live in Adelaide, Australia.

[@evan]

Hahahha funny!

[@CulturePhilter]

The walk in freezers at the Subway store I worked in while at uni had shelves with circular holes in that were the perfect size for resting an ice cream in a cone in. And we happened to be almost next door to a Thornton’s chelate store that sold ice cream in summer so one member of staff would go buy a load of ice creams and we’d keep them resting in these holes in the freezer so we could eat them gradually during our shift.

[@mlbbaum]

I can’t believe your school used your ssn as your school id. That is insane with it printed everywhere (and possibly using it to buy lunch each day?) I’m assuming that last bit based on my experience with school ids in PA. I got one in first grade. It started with the year I graduated 10 and then had another 4 numbers that felt random. We had to memorize it to buy lunch in the the cafeteria.

[@Hmm...Whats-Their-Name]

I had teachers posting grades outside their door with the last 4 of ours.

[@kmbell22]

In the 80s I wrote software for an automatic call center in our PBX. Although I did not work on this part, I found out that when calls were being monitored, the mic stayed enabled on the phone even when it was not on a call so when an agent hung up, the supervisor could hear anything they said! Very big privacy violation that was illegal in most states.

[@Chris-Longhair]

Just adding to the cereal point. Lots of generic brands are produced in the same factories as the name brand cereals, but the recipe is changed slightly. For example, generic wheat bisks and Weetabix come from the same factory afaik, but the Weetabix has slightly more sugar in it.

[@gerrimilner9448]

kipling factory in hampshire, makes exactly the same cakes for 5 large supermarkets. also bendicks mint chocolates were also in hampshire, made exactly the same ones for aldi, though the aldi box cost half as much and weighed twice as much

[@ryanwilson_canada]

I cancelled my telus home security for the reason the robot phone person i had to fight with them to talk to a human. It took lots of expletives to finally get transferred to a human, also, if they called me, it was the robot, and if it doesn't hear the word "hello" which i never answer my phone with, its always "good evening, this is ryan" or something along those lines, and it would hang up on you. It was really annoying.

[@tucker9162]

Talking of banks scamming you - TSB used to add your direct debit amounts for the day, and if it was more than your balance they'd not pay any of them and charge you for each 'failed' DD. So if you had 4 DDs that came to £101 and you had £100 in your account you got fined £35 x4 even though you could have paid 3 of them.

[@itsPenguinBoy]

My boss at a cafe once got me to boil rotten chicken breasts until the smell went... They absolutely stunk, but then They turned into these paper-white odorless flavourless lumps which it turns out were somehow safe to eat? I was instructed to cut them up and marinate them and use them in sandwiches... I couldn't believe what he was telling me to do and I still can't believe it worked. Completely gross... I couldn't eat in cafes or restaurants for some time after that.

[@Michael_Brock]

Radioshack is still around, mainly online but 400 locations (resellers) in US and other international locations.

[@JhericFury]

Two things: Bread flavouring. There's a powder that smells exactly like freshly baked bread that some places add to bread, presumably to make it smell fresher. For vegan/veggie foods there is no legal threshold for something not to count (though there are organisations that have some, vegetarian society etc), so if a shady company found traces of meat in their product because they didn't clean down the machinery properly, they might find a lab that only checks for 5% meat, rather than 0.5%. if you care about veggie/vegan stuff, go for places that only make veggie/vegan stuff.

[@MThree1215]

I worked for a former fortune 500 company that created and sold many products including those containing asbestos. We were encouraged to contact government officials about its "safety", for lack of a better word. Funny, in the cafeteria envelopes, pen and paper appeared along with government official's addresses to "encourage" employees to contact, positively, Congress, about the asbestos matter. Emphasis on "encourage."

[@VoxelLoop]

I used to work in a motorway services Burger King here in the UK, as always, the price is a little insane with it being a service station. Onion rings, 1p per ring. How much did we sell them for? £2.29 for 8. That's £0.08 of rings for £2.29. Burgers? Want a Whopper? 79p, sold for £5.79!

[@HenryLoenwind]

8p for the onion rings, 2.20 for rent, electricity, wages, furniture, cash register, water, gas, advertisement, cleaning supplies, frying oil, insurance, fire extinguishers, window cleaners, sales tax, garbage disposal, work uniforms, health inspections, employee training, HR services, receipt paper, R&D, bookkeeping, and 1p profit.

[@license2kilttheplaidlad640]

A burger king manager told me when they got backed up they would pull food from the waste can and microwave it and send it " it aint old till its sold ". That was the motto

[@ramblingmillennial1560]

Oh my goddd

[@hazrpg]

First: Love your videos! Also, 11:50 - yes, they literally do just flip the labels on the machines. I used to work at a factory in the North, we ran products for M&S, Iceland, Tescos, you name it. All from the same factory, all down the same packaging machines, even the labels. The only thing that changes is: Packaging is usually as per the store's request, same with the labels and its designs. The food - may have alterations due to budgets, e.g. more mince, less cheese, extra total quantities in the pack, more potato, etc... but, the meat, vegetables, gravy mix, whatever it is that's being produced... all goes down the same workflows. We basically made 2 or 3 versions of everything, but they all started from the same vat of stuff. For most brands the changes are so minor that no one would ever tell the difference and could be chalked up to "different batches". Those with better taste pallets might spot differences, but may struggle to tell you exactly what they were. There's even a whole QA team to make sure that everything coming in, during and going out are all tested and made sure they're a) up to quality, and b) tastes the same. So yes, when people say "they're literally just different labels"... that's because they are.

[@ZeallustImmortal]

13:35 I work at a hotel, and since I work after housekeeping has left I am quite literally the only employee in the building 99% of the time. This ones definitely true at least for smaller hotels, of course giant mega hotels are probably different though.

[@ShawnGBR]

4:09 - I used to work in a warehouse office that shipped car stuff to "mom & pop" garages (snow chains, tires / tyres, etc.) and the company got bought out. The new owners, for some weird reason, wanted us to call customers to ask if thy wanted stuff from us, which was ridiculous because they only called when they had a car in that needed specific sized rubber (and they had no space to store stuff, that's why they used us!). It was a pain in the derriere, because we had to call at least 20 numbers a day to meet quota. It didn't take long to discover that you could call one number 20 times, have it go to voicemail, hang up, and it registered as one call. They just had a report showing number of outbound calls, there weren't even any phone numbers or durations on there. One fellow office worker was calling the electric company, the gas company, the cable company... And that's why I love companies like HSBC. Did I report her? Hell no, I learned from her and HSBC were TWO of the numbers I used! They have an English and a Cantonese phone number in the US (and the Cantonese one gives you the option to speak to someone English after a minute into the call) so I would call the two of those and pretend I was talking to someone on the other end. I had a list of twenty such numbers written on a Post-It hidden underneath my desk calendar, and with the actual calls I made it meant our location was commended for meeting quota! Work smarter, not harder.

[@jenchem42]

6:54 @Evan... I do live in South Jersey, and I have 3 kids who went through the school systems here (my youngest is still in high school.) I have ALSO been a teacher in several high schools in South Jersey and I can tell you for SURE that they are NOT allowed to use a student's SSN for pretty much anything anymore. I now work in Educational Technology, where we deal with large databases of student assessment data, and due to student privacy laws, each student now is identified in databases by their SIS ID (Student Information System) or their State ID (assigned for statewide standardized testing.) That said, when my husband and I went to college (different ones!) in North Jersey in the early 1990s, exam grades for the entire class were posted the day after the exam, on a piece of paper taped to the wall next to the professor's office... and you know, since they didn't want anyone to know which student got which grade, "to ensure privacy," they simply listed the grades by social security number. Love your videos, both channels. Except- there IS a Central Jersey....

[@beatles9880]

Yes deil and green grocers are there own dedicated shops. The words are sometimes used in the UK instead of supermarket but it's rare.

[@grahamcann1761]

Fry's Electronics was an affiliate of Radio Shack, and when they started their stores in the Bay Area the took on a friend of mine because he'd been a founding employee of a little company called Apple... well he soon resigned because they were doing exactly the same thing with returns as you said Radio Shack did. No surprise. Thank you for the video.

[@shaunaisaJellyBean]

A lot of foods that people say “are the same as the name brand” are made in the name brand factory but usually to a slightly adjusted recipe

[@Darxide23]

Malt-O-Meal isn't a generic brand. They're one of the oldest cereal makers in the world. So old that they pre-date cold cereal and the company started up with early versions of instant oatmeal and a competitor to Cream of Wheat. Anyways, Malt-O-Meal is often as good as the more mainstream name brands because they are a name brand. But they're able to sell their products at a far cheaper rate than other brands because they don't spend crap tons on advertising or packaging. Most Malt-O-Meal cereals sold now come in oversized plastic bags instead of boxes because it's cheaper. I honestly prefer _most_ Malt-O-Meal flavors over the mainstream competitor.

[@tpkyterooluebeck9224]

Radio Shack still exists in the US, but in Pennsylvania, where the owner was honest. I know this for a fact because this store was discussed recently. Best Buy does an extreme extortion on pricing to customers. One bag had around a 70 upcharge from what another store would charge and then they'd discount it to 107.00 and still be 37 over what I should be paying for the crap. Plus that crap got holey within 3 weeks. I had no car. And everyone in my family didn't give a rip. The company who made the product gaslight my email. I couldn't get money back. I decided never to buy from those scam companies and decided if my family needed anythign. I'd gaslight them. Hey, fair is fair! What comes around goes around!

[@rachelgates509]

How DARE you cast aspersions on Olive Garden?!! You fancy European citizen of the world!! They are delicious!! Is it different from actual Italian food, yes. But it’s so good!!! Jeez, ya move to England and now you’re better than us!! lol It was a good video. That customer service stuff was eye opening!

[@Lastalliancefan411]

Yes, to piracy video pls!! This video was hilarious 😂 particularly loved the bit about your school using your Ssn as your login , printed on the back of the agenda!!! Classic

[@Lifebyclairevlogs]

Uk banks used to charge obscene amounts in fees like the us but they were taken to court and subsequently everyone was able to claim their money back. I got £900 (out of the £1200 they owed me) back

[@CrimsonVipera]

I worked in a factory in Leicester, part of Samworth Brothers, making cakes, cupcakes, cheesecakes, etc. The factory doesn't exist as itt was when I worked there, so this might have changed now, but when I worked there, there was NO difference between the M&S and Tesco Finest cheesecake wedge other than the packaging.

[@hoodiegal]

Not too spicy, but I worked in a tech store. The cables (hdmi, 3.5mm, etc) that was our storebrand cost the company less than $1 to produce, and were being sold for ~$15-30.

[@rowanneramsay4397]

I live near a jam factory. They sell off the jars which haven’t passed the quality test for cheaper. An employee told me one day that if it has a black not a gold lid it’s meant for m and s and quality maybe different

[@DevonExplorer]

You know those astrology forecasts you sometimes get in newspapers? Well, in the newspaper industry you could buy large books containing strips of made-up ones and just cut, paste and copy onto the page for printing whenever you needed it (this was pre-digital, btw).

[@JhericFury]

The same companies will often make the name brand and the generic brand, however they will often change the quality. Less chocolate chips or something. I guess you can't always do that with deli meats

[@satnamsattykaur]

I use the word groceries for a food shop a lot and I am British and raised in England

[@janebaker966]

I would say "grocery shop" if it's a small shop in a suburban road. I would say "I'm buying groceries' meaning food items. I don't say supermarket any more. I now say "store" which is USA term but I mean the big supermarkets when I use that term. And it's shorter.

[@kaimactrash]

I can confirm the M&S claim is accurate to the UK. I worked in a factory up here in Scotland that produced pre-packaged food for super markets, and we did the same as that user claims. We'd usually be changing the container for one of a diffrent kind from M&S, for example when I was there M&S had these sorta slushie cup shaped containers for salads that had little sauce pots built into the lid, and the same food would go into that package as the typical square plastic packages most places serve their pre-packaged foods in, those would be a higher weight than the amount of product M&S asked for, typically.

[@oracle4587]

For a number of years the state of Georgia (and I suspect others) used a person's SSN# as their Driver's license number. Any company that asked for your DL would get your SSN.

[@ameliasteynberg5841]

It feels like Evan almost has something of a naturally-developed Transatlantic accent.