As a consumer you’ve no doubt been exposed to numerous ads (especially on the internet) that claim things like “man found cure for baldness…doctors hate him!” Sadly, these ads work. They play on our ingrained paranoia and cynicism about the world and lead us to believe there are deep, dark industry secrets being kept from us. The logic goes, doctors don’t want to tell you the cure for baldness because then they won’t make money peddling you the cure. This guy found the cure and wants to tell you, so doctors hate him. You might think the fact that those cures don’t work or even that you have to dish out cash to get this supposed cure would deter people from believing those ads. However, they don’t because people want to believe them.
So, today we’re going to reinforce their belief. We’re going to make them even more paranoid about the world, which will cause them to dish out even more of their cash on devious get rich quick schemes. For those of you who actually take the time to read the introduction, good job. The real secret is only revealed when you read through the entire list. That’s right, at the very end. These are 25 open secrets that everybody in the industry knows but the consumers don’t!
Featured Image: wikipedia
Beers
Some states don’t regulate draft systems. This means that there are restaurants who have never changed their beer lines. Gross. That extra special flavor you are picking up might not be seasonal after all.
Advice Columns
Do you know who writes letters to magazines asking for advice? Probably nobody that you’ve ever met. In fact, 90% of the questions in the advice column were written by the same people who wrote the answers.
Education
More than 80% of what a teacher does is deal with paperwork, bureaucracy, parents, and administration…all for very little respect or acknowledgement. This is a big reason why many teachers leave the profession.
Art
The speed painters you’ve seen on the street have the image all drawn out before hand. The markings are just too faint for you to see.
Media
Nielsen TV and radio ratings are very inaccurate, and the sample sizes are often way too small (10 people for several hundred thousand). Nonetheless, marketing companies pay stations based on them.
Software
There are a lot of programmers out there that don’t understand security. It’s the least understood aspect of software.
Law
There are a lot of incompetent lawyers out there. This is largely because it is very hard to be disbarred (you would have to mess up pretty bad). Moreover, there are way too many lawyers being pumped out of law schools around the country. Make sure you do your research before you choose a lawyer should you ever need one.
Rental Cars
If you get a rental car and say you’re going to return it to another lot, you’re going to get the worst car they have.
DIY
Everybody in the entertainment industry knows that gaff tape is better than duct tape. Duct tape just has more exposure.
Education
In addition to being buried in paperwork, many teachers also spend a lot of time brushing up on a few things before they teach. Many times your teacher will learn something just hours before teaching it to you.
Software
The idea that “It’s not perfect, but something has to ship in 3 days” always comes up. Always. Basically, don’t buy the first version of any software.
Looking for other secrets? Check out 25 Disney Park Secrets Every Fan Should Know.
Nutrition Labels
The nutritional labels on food are often very inaccurate because the FDA doesn’t have the resources to actually check them all. It’s mostly just the honor system.
Medicine
Nurses will often give morphine to dying patients, which is more or less assisted suicide, but most people turn a blind eye to it because they are glad the nurse did it.
Criminal Defense
If you get a public defender, don’t expect quality legal assistance. The office is swamped with cases, and the judge, defense, and district attorney are just trying to work through cases as fast as possible.
IT
Turning it on and off again really does solve about 90% of technical problems.
Medicine
A nurse or EMT will never tell you if they are monitoring your breathing. They’ll pretend to be taking your pulse or something else. This is because if they told you, you would start breathing manually, and your respiration rate would change.
Tech Support
More than 75% of the answers you receive from tech support will be copied verbatim from the consumer facing documentation.
Thrift Store
All those clothes aren’t washed. They’re just taken from the drop off point in the back and hung up.
Airplanes
All it takes to cause a failure in an aircraft is a piece of debris smaller than a quarter. This is why people in the aviation industry tend to be OCD with their tools. Often they have to be returned to foam cut-out cases to make sure that no tool was left in the airplane.
Military
Any soldier will tell you, the military is not very efficient at investing or spending money. A lot of the vehicles and equipment they buy never even get used.
Structural Engineering
In terms of earthquakes, the east coast US is actually worse off than the west coast. This is because until seismic codes were developed, people stopped designing for earthquakes as soon as they forgot about them. When an earthquake inevitably shows up on the east coast in the future, it’ll be messy.
Retail
Unless something has a special coupon, if it’s not on the shelf, it’s almost certainly not in the back. If you ask somebody to check for you though, they will. But they’ll most likely just go back, stand around, and come tell you it’s all out. At least they get a break from the floor for a few minutes.
Medicine
Doctors are people, not magicians. Contrary to what many people think, all surgeons make mistakes while operating. A surgeon who says otherwise is either lying or just not operating very much.
Hospitality
You’d be surprised how big of a business goes on behind the scenes with regard to travel websites. Whether it’s businesses bribing customers for reviews or customers threatening to write something negative, it can get pretty underhanded.
Fast Food
You probably expect us to say it’s all nasty and they serve food off the ground. Nope. There are a lot of places that have very high standards. High enough for people to get fired if they serve food even 1 day old. In fact, everything we wrote here needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Not every shop, lawyer, or engineer is the same. And no, we weren’t paid to say this.
Note: yes, that is the secret we talked about in the introduction. Basically, there isn’t always a secret. Sometimes there is, but many times there isn’t. There’s no need to be paranoid.