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

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 :)

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.

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

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)

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!