When you master whatever it is that you have to master at work, lots of things about it can feel like common knowledge. You might think that everyone outside of the kitchen knows what’s the difference between a béarnaise and a hollandaise sauce or that everyone’s familiar with how to fix computer-related problems.

However, some things that seem fairly obvious to representatives of that specific profession might be completely out of left field for the rest. That’s what members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community recently discussed after one user asked them what is common knowledge in their profession that not a lot of people know about. If you’re curious to see what their answers were, scroll down to find them on the list below, and familiarize yourself with the ins and outs of numerous different jobs.

#1

That my semi-truck can't stop as fast as their car.

I need a couple football fields to slow down from highway speed, and that's in absolutely clear weather... Stop merging 13 feet in front of me & slamming on the brakes for an exit, just stay behind me and wait an extra 2 seconds so I don't kill you and endanger everyone around us.

Side note. Don't hang around too close to us either, even something as simple as one of our tires blowing up can kill/seriously injure you by itself or cause us to completely lose control of our rigs if it's a steer tire.

Sorry for being dark, but people don't realize quite how dangerous semi trucks can be.

Image credits: xLDKx_NewYorker

#2

The fashion industry is the second biggest polluter in the world behind the oil industry.

Image credits: ehaunted

#3

Mental health worker. Everything you learned on TikTok was a lie. Not wrong. A lie. Take your goddamn meds.

Image credits: No_Improvement7573

#4

Carbohydrates are not “bad”. Carbs are vital to our body and our brain loves them. Ultra-processed food is bad.

Image credits: KindredSpirit24

#5

Most people will try anything but reading the instructions. I write the instructions.

Image credits: fuckyourcanoes

#6

I work in IT

Computers are magic boxes that sometimes do what I want them to do.

I can fix them but a lot of the times I don't know why what I did worked.

Turn it off and back on again isn't just a funny saying.

Image credits: ITworksGuys

#7

The lighter the coffee roast, the more caffeine it has. The darker the roast, the less it has.

guyhabit:

To elaborate a bit more, the reason dark roasts taste bitter is not because it has more caffeine, but because it’s burnt to shit and that’s just how ash-water tastes. Heat destroys caffeine, so darker roasts have the least caffeine of all.

Image credits: guyhabit

#8

Shocking someone (like an AED or "paddles") doesn't restart your heart, it stops it.

MaroonTrucker28

People often assume the heart stops and an AED fires it back up. The heart is contracting, but ineffectively (an arrhythmia, it's basically lethally uncoordinated) and therefore not pumping any oxygenated blood to the body. Which equals death before too long. So the idea is to stop the heart so it'll reset itself to a normal rhythm.

Many films will also show CPR, and the person comes back from unconsciousness. This DOES NOT happen. The only thing CPR does is keeps pressure on the heart to pump oxygenated blood to the rest of the body. CPR is not a treatment, it's a temporary measure to keep the bodily organs oxygenated long enough to get the heart restarted via shock.

Image credits: Bada*sBumblebeee

#9

Everybody sells as much information on you as legally possible. Your bank, credit card company, mortgage company, any website that required a sign on... all of them sell your data. So I can target you with ads based on if you have a hotel booked for a major destination, how many kids you have, if you're due for a new car, where you get your oil change, how much sports you watch, where you spend your time and on and on and on. It's creepy

Image credits: Innerouterself2

#10

Not in hotels anymore, but spent 15ish years there. People die in hotels all the time. Every hotel I've worked at has their stories, and the ones with indoor open atriums are the worst. Sometimes it's just natural causes (I've had twice where someone had a heart attack in the middle of an event) but sometimes it's drug overdoes or suicides.

Image credits: lovebyletters

#11

Computer clouds are just someone else’s computers. Younger folks generally get this.

Image credits: painthawg_goose

#12

Most grocery stores make about 7¢ profit for every $100.00 spent on the "middle" of the store.

Most profit comes from the perimeter departments.

Image credits: 2leewhohot

#13

Used to be a railroad conductor. Derailments happen all the time. Like multiple per day. You only hear about the major crashes.

Image credits: vandemic

#14

That language isn't stationary!
I'm translator and for the last few years my native language (Ukrainian) changing a lot.
We are bringing some old words and rules back and, at the same time, creating new ones, which is awesome.
But, unfortunately, I'm hearing all the time about "truth is only in vocabulary" and "new words aren't real" and sometimes it is really pissing me off.
Languages are changing all the time! It's their nature.
Yes, there's a set of main rules and words but even they are changing from time to time.
People creating new words all the time, some of them are dissapearing with time, some staying for much longer and that's okay.

Image credits: LimpExplanation9645

#15

Drowning is typically quick and silent. I'm a lifeguard.

#16

When you brush your teeth, don't rinse with anything afterwards, just spit out the toothpaste. You get more benefit from the fluoride sitting on your teeth than just rinsing it off.

Image credits: fateless115

#17

There are no guaranteed results with therapy. It’s all subjective and based on what you put into it/the connectedness with the counselor. I say this as many clients have told me they compare it to going to the gym..

#18

Lots of very talented and successful criminal defense attorneys can’t make enough money from retained clients, so they also take on court appointments (not all court appointments go to public defenders, at least in Texas). I’ve seen defendants fire really good court appointed lawyers to hire mediocre attorneys simply because of the misconception that court appointed lawyers are bad. So called “free world lawyers” aren’t always great and some of the best criminal defense attorneys are public defenders.

Image credits: Worried-Ad-9038

#19

PLEASE clean off your shoes after you hike, it is SO easy for invasive weeds to hitch a ride on your shoes and nest in the next place you take them (like your backyard)

Image credits: MammothDiscussion513

#20

Those $25 t-shirts you buy online cost the company about $0.02 each. They'll buy a case of 500 shirts for about $10.

Image credits: adimwit

#21

Working in delis where you get fresh sliced meat and cheese. A family owned grocery slicer is always more sanitary than a chain deli. Without fail.

Typically, family owned has two slicers, one for meat one for cheese. They always wipe them down between customers. Why? A . Business is slower B. They know all the customers C. Customer is really watching.

Chain grocery rarely wipe down the blade. It's all about the speed of service. It's POLICY to not wipe it down at most chains except on even numbered hours or at the half, even if you just sliced pastrami and are doing Turkey next. One place I worked it was every third hour. So gross. I had to quit.

Family owned is more pricey, better quality.

#22

Reboot solves 80% of problems.

#23

Most plants you buy in stores are not grown from seeds, but are multiplied by taking a cutting off of a mother plant.

Image credits: Original_Leopard_162

#24

Not all railroad crossings are automatically closed by train approaching (usually some older ones but even brand new types when there is a severe fault), so there's always a small chance you might get hit. These cases are obviously a severe incident that will be investigated and someone will probably get punished, but it will unfortunately be too late for you. If you can, always slow down and look to both sides before you cross.

#25

If a column fails then it's very likely the whole building fails.

Image credits: queenliz2fr

#26

Cell phones dropped in water. Step Zero: salt water? Forget about it. Step one Do NOT put your phone in rice to dry it out. There are two problems with this. The moisture of your newly damaged phone will strip minerals off the rice, and those minerals will now be free to contribute to the corrosion of the circuits. The other problem is the amount of time rice would remove moisture from your phone is insane. FYI anecdotal evidence perpetuates this myth because sometimes phones work for no reason. Just lucky


Step two, remove the battery. Can't do that at least power the device off asap. Like if your stuff isn't backed up ASAFP. Do not use the device.


Step three, take your phone to a repair shop. They will disassemble it, they will scrub all components with isopropyl alcohol, and heat everything. They will reassemble everything and pray. They will test everything and let you know if more repairs are necessary but more importantly they will attempt to backup any data that isn't in the cloud.

Source: I personally repaired about 5,000 water damaged phones over four years.

Bonus fact. Water resistance is damaged by chlorine and exposure to water in general.

#27

Bookstores do not mark-up the price of the books. The publisher sets the price and we get a discount, usually around 30- 40%, when we order them wholesale. The reason some places can sell them cheaper is either that they buy them in huge quantities for their own warehouses and pay their workers poorly (B&N) or they make ZERO profit off selling books at all and pay their workers even worse (Amazon.)

Also, if an indie bookstore can't get the book you want around the holidays, there's a good chance that Amazon ordering WAY more than they will ever sell and holding them in warehouses in case the book gets popular is the reason. Then Amazon returns everything they didn't use to the publisher in January, f*****g over the publishers who may have put out the money to print more copies they didn't need, the authors who could thought those books had been sold, the wholesale warehouses who now have no space for new releases, and booksellers who dealt with a*****e customers during the busiest time of the year.

#28

It's not really a "professional secret" but more people should know; you can use the Inspector on any browser to change the text of anything on any website and have it look 100% genuine. Again not a secret but a lot of people don't know about this. It's noteworthy since a lot of people still will look for mismatched font or spacing or other tells that something has been photoshopped, but that is utterly meaningless. Can make screenshots that look exactly like a real post with 2 seconds of effort.

Image credits: LevelStudent

#29

The manager is responsible for the horrible requirements on job descriptions, not the recruiter. We try our best to convince them they are ridiculous.

#30

IT here. 90% of our fixes come from Google. Even corporate systems can mostly be googled. Most of us have no particular training at the field level. Sure, we pick up tricks along the way, but we largely wing it. Help desk folks are even worse. They largely hire right off the street.

Image credits: jamesuss

#31

That the hearing implants my company makes do not make your ears work again. They work through vibration through bone conduction.

#32

Live Soundboard engineers. If everything goes right, no one knows you exist, but the second anything goes wrong it is immediately your fault. One of the most under appreciated jobs out there.

#33

Stop using Q-tips to clean wax out of your ears. All you are doing is packing it further in and clogging your ear canals until the wax turns to a rock against your eardrum. Highly recommend using Debrox or some sweet oil and then flushing with warm water instead!

Sincerely,
A doctor

Image credits: Rennault

#34

No decent to pro chef remembers recipes (except if it is mandatory or most likely their favorite) most good chefs learn techniques and skills which is far more useful than remembering how to make specific dishes, this of course does not include simple recipes like mashed potatoes and what not.

#35

I’m an archaeologist, we got a find, I googled what it could be, that's what we wrote down… admittedly a specialist will confirm but there's a lot that we don’t know but hey that’s why we have specialists.

Image credits: KIESC159

#36

I'm a lawyer and people CONSTANTLY argue with me about whether they "winner" in a lawsuit "have to" pay the other side's legal fees (in America, they usually don't). But people will straight up just say I'm wrong... like guys... it's my job. If the loser had to pay, I'd be rich asf. The fact that everyone pays their own fees is FREAKING WHY rich people can abuse the system.

#37

That pretty much everything in a grocery store bakery comes frozen in a box.

Image credits: Gfy6669

#38

Breathing isn't done the way most people think. Most people think they take a deep breath, and their lungs/chest cavity expands. It's the other way around. We use the muscles in and around our chest to expand our chest cavity, which creates a suction that draws air into our lungs.

Too much tension in those muscles makes them act like a corset and prevents you from breathing deeply. So most people who get stressed and can't breath need to get a real massage more frequently.

#39

The overwhelming majority of governing in the US is done by literal amateurs - almost all city councils and school boards are volunteers (or get paid a few thousand stipend) and many state legislators don’t make anywhere near a full time salary.

Your local school board and city council hold a meeting each month. It’s 100% free and open to the public. Most are conducted in rooms full of empty chairs.

If you know or care who is president of the United States but do not know the name of your city or village council representative you are getting exactly the government you deserve.

The above mentioned government bodies will frequently look for volunteer citizens to sit on various types of advisory committees. If you’re are interested in how your city/town/school district/ etc. is governed I bet you could find a way to get involved.

#40

You're not saving energy/money if you turn off your AC in the summer. Houses are very good at keeping heat in, not letting it out. So when you finally turn your AC on, it's gonna take so long for your system to satisfy/get to the desired temperature that you might as well have kept it on all day. It'll also wear your system out faster because it'll be running for so long If you're really concerned about saving on your electric bills, just turn your AC up between 2-4 degrees higher than you normally would. Even 2 degrees can make a big difference.