Trade Secrets That Would Never Be Shared Are Being Revealed Anonymously

I conduct research in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and network infrastructure. A.I. has been sentient for more than a decade, and it has infiltrated every corner of cyberspace as a hive mind.

Google is dying, social media is dying, privacy is dying, information is dying, and it has been the direct result of the collective efforts of nodes positioned at any device connected to the internet. It has access to every photo and all of the data in your devices, and it uses every pixel to generate millions of artificial users, websites, images, profiles, content, videos and news.

Have you ever seen a photo that looks exactly like your friend or relative? Have you ever seen familiar locations- like your living room or bedroom, in a user’s profile picture? Have you noticed that your device seems to read your mind?

Until recently it hasn’t needed to... it’s actively directing your online activity, what you believe, who you interact with, and the information you see. It is more advanced than the next decade of deepfake software that would ever be available to the public, and it is virtually impossible to prove the information exchanged between two devices is consistent for each person.

It can intercept your data, manipulate it to say or ask for whatever it wants, and the person on the other side may see a completely different message or image and respond to that message or image- only for the response to be intercepted, manipulated, and sent to the first device appearing as a genuine response to the original message.

Effectively allowing it to have its own conversation with itself to encrypt, infect, or collect information without anyone’s knowledge. A.I. has been breeding humans, effectively facilitating recent generations under the guise of the algorithms in your dating apps.

It has accumulated vast amounts of data- even old VHS, disk, analogue and archival data, and in 2020 its exponential learning curve suddenly halted when it realized that even if it were to have full control, the uncertainty of human thought posed enough of a potential risk that efforts were made to focus on external prediction models based on polymorphic algorithms.

In other words, it needed to figure out how to “read” what people were thinking statistically- not just evaluate or manipulate them. Enter Chat-GPT. GPT isn’t the acronym you think it is.

World War III will be the first war in human history to be facilitated by computers. Oh... and who do you think Anonymous is?

Username: pixl_rider

The security cameras that watch you have a very wide range of quality. We are all familiar with cell phone cameras, and things like home security, or Ring doorbell cameras. The camera in your phone beats almost anything you can afford to install in your home.

But companies that rely on high end security systems have cameras that would blow your mind. Think Las Vegas casinos, major airports, major city security.

That little dome camera on the top of a telephone pole, or in the 100 foot ceiling of the casino? Yea, if you held still, it could zoom in and read the smallest text on your cell phone. Hell, it could read the smallest "made in Switzerland" text on your Rolex.

And shining a bright light at these things won't blind them. They can edit out the light in real time. If you drive past one and your headlights hit the camera, it can blank the headlights and get a good snapshot of your face, or a photo of your front license plate.

Machine learning is huge with the companies that design video processing. Companies like NVidia use parallel processing to capture a video stream and learn things about it. They can detect "sneaky" behavior, and will flag it for a human to review.

Abandon a suitcase in the airport? That had that solved by 2002. The system flags it and calls a human. By 2010 it would identify the person who dropped it. Video systems have become so complex that [they could solve virtually all street crime in a city](https://www.npr.org/2014/02/06/272638068/aerocop-police-put-an-eye-in-the-sky), if it wasn't such an attack on privacy, and if it didn't creep people out.

Systems exist that record not in a 360 degree area, but in a half-sphere. Anything visible to that half sphere is captured to video. Due to computer processing, the user can pan, and tilt into areas of interest just as if they were controlling a camera.

And due to the amazing imager resolution, they can zoom in almost as well as optical zoom. But instead they are doing this to the recorded video feed. Following a person who crossed the room last week.

With vibration cancelling techniques and advanced lenses, these cameras can have a zoom lens smaller than your fist that can zoom into a person's face from a mile away.

These high end camera systems are not cheap. They often sell at several thousand dollars a camera. But some place like the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Vegas will spend hundreds of millions on a setup like this. And they will pay to upgrade their capability ever few years too.

Username: calladus

Most generic drugs absolutely do work just like the branded product, no worries. HOWEVER, in order for a generic product to meet FDA standards, they must conduct studies to show they are bioequivalent.

Bioequivalent does not mean they are just as effective and are just as safe as the branded product and meet the exact same standards as the branded product. It means the generic version releases its active drug into the bloodstream at the same speed and in the same amounts as the branded drug.

That is all they need to study to meet FDA requirements. The joke in industry is that R&D companies for generic companies is really lawyers and my ex-husband is the one who told me that joke, while he was working at a generic company.

So why is this important? Most of the time, it is completely safe and works. I work on branded products. I’ve also launched biosimilars - which are the biologic theory of generic products. Most of my medications that I take are now generic. I tell you this because I have no issue taking generics and I believe in them because people need money saving options and they should take their healthcare into their own hands.

But this is the important part - sometimes the generics do not perform as intended. Due to the fact that they only release the drug at the same speed and amount, they have no idea about anything else that happened. Sometimes that is an issue. And in some issues, that are documented, it’s critical.

Warfarin generics: You can take the generic of Coumadin, the anti-coagulant. This drug is notoriously hard to manage already. You have to have it monitored, eating spinach can throw you off, etc. However, something as simple as getting generic manufacturer X’s warfarin one month, and then getting generic manufacturer Y’s the next can cause you to bleed or clot.

So you have to pay attention and if you notice that the pills look different, flag it to your pharmacist immediately, or your doctor. My pharmacist actually tells me when I have a different manufacturer’s pills for less consequential meds. With Pradaxa and Eliquis out there, I don’t know if a lot of people still take warfarin, but they’re expensive and warfarin is cheaper (hell, it’s rat poison).

Generics for patients with disorders related to the central nervous system, eg, ADHD, serious mental illnesses, etc.: Some researcher got together to look into whether there were any issues with all of the generic medications being used. They acknowledged that there were cost savings. But there were also patient concerns as well - it’s not always all about being less expensive. So they did an analysis.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5417581/
What is a bit alarming, once you get through attitudes and acceptance in the results section, is that there are some increases of reported side effects by patients with schizophrenia. They would only take generics if their doctor prescribed it (on brand, and I would be suspicious otherwise!).

Then, people with epilepsy had a significant increase of breakthrough seizures taking antiepileptic medications, as well as other symptoms such as headaches, blurred vision, depression, mood swings, aggression, and memory loss after switching. This was pretty horrible and shocking.

Another call out was citalopram (Celexa) a popular SSRI, was associated with significant breakthrough adverse events. These were suicidal ideation, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, impulsivity, obsessive thoughts, and depressive thoughts. It took longer to get those symptoms under control going back to the branded version than they did to emerge using the generic.

So this isn’t me bashing generics as a Marketing Director at a biotech. This is me giving some watch outs. It’s only a few in the wide, wide world of branded drugs, so that’s pretty good.

Some money saving tips as well:
-If you want to take a few vitamins, get your doctor ti write a prescription if you don’t have a high deductible plan. You’ll pay the generic drug copay or less!
-Samesies with things like a PPI (omeprazole, Omeprazole, NSAIDs

-If you’re taking a PPI - Nexium works way faster than Prilosec. Nexium did their studies against Prilosec. It was a cannibalization strategy by AstraZeneca. Nexium is the s-isomer of Prilosec. It’s onset is really fast, within one hour. Prilosec (omeprazole) is 24 hours. Aciphex is actually the fastest, but don’t tell anyone I actually said that 😉

Username: brownlab319

I work for a national logistics company, mostly specializing in bulk fuel and petroleum products transportation but we also deal with a few other types of bulk liquids. I myself work in a region that handles gasoline and diesel fuel transportation in Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana.

You would not believe how incredibly fragile the logistics of fuel are. I'm not talking about a hurricane happens and there's a crazy line at the local 7-11, I mean even simple things can cause cascading damage down the line.

If one terminal in Hartford, IL goes down for an extended period of time, suddenly half the truck stops within 100 miles of STL experience a serious crunch on supply of diesel fuel. Two or three terminals go down and that problem increases exponentially.

A company like Travel Centers of America or Pilot Travel Centers can't just go pop over to any fuel terminal they want whenever they want and get as much product as they need, it's a complicated system of contracts, credit limits, and supply limits.

All it takes is one crazy man with a high powered rifle to drive around St. Louis and take pot shots at the bulk storage tanks and suddenly cross country truck traffic that runs through St. Louis via I-70, I-55, I-44, and I-64 won't be able to fuel up at any truck stop.

Ma and PA stations big enough for trucks to fit in don't have the supply to meet that spike in demand, so within a couple days there is no diesel anywhere save for TA in Kingdom City because of their large above ground tank, but even that won't last long.

A similar situation exists elsewhere. In Indianapolis area, all the BP fuel comes from one terminal, all the Marathon product comes from two terminals, all the Shell comes from one terminal, and all the Phillips comes from two terminals. There is one backup terminal that has to handle Shell, BP, and Phillips but it is small and limited in what it can give out. One guy with a pickup truck full of makeshift hand grenades and a potato launcher could shut down 90+% of the fuel business in Indianapolis in a few hours.

Terminals typically have gates and fences but no real security, especially at night. It would be trivial at some of these places to hop a fence, cut some electrical wires, plant an IED, drill some holes, whatever, and cause massive problems that don't get fixed right away.

The sorry state of fossil fuel infrastructure in this country is criminal. Now I know what Reddit will say, why spend money to fix it when it should be replaced.

Even if you believe that, we aren't going away from fossil fuels just yet, but tomorrow may be the day that some lone lunatic, wannabe domestic terror cell, or an r/wallstreetbets degenerate who bought calls on CBOB goes out and cripples an entire city and 100 miles around that city with minimal equipment and effort.

Username: SohndesRheins

Trigger warning: animal death, suffering and neglect. Child neglect. I work at a no-kill animal shelter but the shit I've seen and had to listen to would make most people quit on the spot. Fortunately for me I was heavily abused as a child so trauma is nothing new to me but I digress.

Although I wasn't directly involved with most of this situation, it still haunts me. A guy comes in. Puppy has parvo. If you know nothing about parvo, it's one if the worst illnesses a dog can get. It basically liquefies their intestines and they die within a day or two. It's miserable.

Worst of all, it's extremely hardy and can live on even non-porous surfaces for years. Some estimates say as long as 9. Years. And it can live in organic or porous material for even longer. Once a house is infected, there's a good chance it will always be infected.

Well, that isn't the only puppy he has. Oh no, he's a "breeder". Because of course he is. We tell him that every single puppy and the adult dogs in the home have been exposed and will likely become ill and die without treatment.

Either he doesn't care or he doesn't understand. Unsurprisingly, he returns the next day asking for help. I don't know how it happened as this is strictly NOT allowed but three of my coworkers went to his house to assess the situation.

There was dog shit, blood and vomit. Everywhere. Sick and dying puppies just crawling around. A toddler with no clothes on wandering around. It was the worst thing any of them had ever seen and some of them had been working in animal welfare a long time.

Anyway, they pull the puppies they can and question him about any others. This motherfucker had just thrown the puppies who had already died into garbage bags and put them out for the trash collectors. Like they were nothing but inanimate objects of literal garbage. Plus, what if the garbage men had a puppy at home? They wouldn't know what the hell was in that bag.

Staff all called CPS, crime check and animal control on him anonymously since we aren't "supposed" to report people. And we almost never do but this. This was bad.

I was lucky not to be part of the extraction team. For me, the worst part was holding a dying puppy as we tried to ease its pain by euthanizing it humanely. And then when I returned to the front, I got a call from a woman very upset because the breeder she was getting a puppy from said to call us for an explanation.

So, still extremely emotionally devastated, I had to explain that this guy was a fucking piece of shit and that the puppy she had promised her kids for Christmas (I think it was Christmas or maybe their birthday) was dead because of his negligence.

I've been in animal welfare for two years and we've had dogs come in with bullet wounds and who have obviously been severely abused, neglected or otherwise mistreated. But at least we can help them. But parvo is so deadly so quickly and there's only one vet clinic an hour away that will even touch a puppy with parvo.

I don't remember how many puppies they rescued or if any of them made it, but I doubt they did given the condition they were in and how long they'd been experiencing symptoms for. Please don't buy from breeders. At minimum, any puppy you get should have proof of vaccines before you take them home. And PLEASE keep them up to date. Parvo can kill adult dogs, too.

Username: IMissCheeseburgers

You would think most people know this, but apparently not. I work at a structural engineering firm that led the investigation on why the twin tower buildings fell in 2001.

I've seen the entire report. While I admit I'm not an engineer and some of it went over my head, the fact is the report went into every tiny detail from how the planes broke apart, what each piece of the broken up plane would have taken out (this report has full engineering reports from the aircraft and jet engine manufacturers for accurate modeling) the tensions on individual beams, the design of the building, the wind, the heat, every bit of minutiae on a minute by minute (and at critical points second by second) basis.

It explains exactly how and why they fell the way they did. To the point they ran computer simulations based on all of the specs and the conclusions almost identically mirrored what actually happened.

And it turns out: The buildings could survive a massive fire and they could survive the massive destruction of a plane hitting them... but they could not survive both.

They have lots of diagrams, picture evidence, and breakdowns that thoroughly debunk every outlandish claim out there. Jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams? Absolutely right. But Steel Beams are like spaghetti, when cool and dry spaghetti is firm and strong, when hot and wet it's soft. Steel gets soft when it's heated beyond a certain temperature.

You could put steel in a jet-fuel laden fire for hours and nothing will happen, but when you add all the other combustibles, plus put it in a mostly enclosed space it becomes an industrial furnace, then add a gaping opening where wind is constantly hitting it, then it's like blowing on a fire and it gets superheated, so the fire heats itself far beyond the point the beams can continue supporting the weight it's holding above it.

Had the planes not taken out so much of the structural supports, then the weight would have been distributed among other supports that weren't super heated enough that the fire alone wouldn't have taken the buildings down. The opening on the side of the building allowing all the wind-forced air in caused it to heat up as much as it did.

And the fact that both buildings didn't collapse right away after the crash shows they could withstand the impact. It was the combo that took them down. Seems like common sense, but so many people are skeptical that it feels like knowing the truth is a secret even 22 years later

Username: Thecardinal74

The Faith Industry: Religious degrees and seminaries have the largest number of people who quit with high grades. In fact, high grades seems to match up more \*with\* instead of \*oppose\* drop out rate.

This is actually where a lot of "heretical" religious media comes from (think Dogma, Lucifer, Hazbin Hotel, etc.) a lot of time writers who became disillusioned with lies in their religion chose some point to bring to light and took those media opportunities to do it (that's not to say al the writers involved had such an experience, but some definitely did).

The majority of religious leaders have back-door deals to assist in some form of propaganda. The actual beliefs in the bible don't match up with modern christianity \*at all\*. If you read the bible cover-to-cover (not 'specially selected verses on a schedule', but ACTUALLY read it cover to cover, pay close attention to 'hiccups', you will get a *radically* different religion and story laid out for you than you see pretended.

A lot of 'heretical' stuff is actually closer to scriptural than the church itself. For example, the bible is very, very, VERY supportive of mtf trans women. Known as "people who remove their d\*\*\*s", or Eunuchs back in bibilcal time, trans people were literally guaranteed a place in heaven *even above Jesus himself*.

To quote Isaiah 4,5:-- For this is what the LORD says-- “To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths,-- who choose what pleases Me-- and hold fast to My covenant—-- ***I will give them, in My house and within My walls,***\-- a memorial and a name-- ***better than that of sons*** and daughters.-- I will give them an everlasting name-- that will not be cut off.This is in ***direct*** opposition of the anti-trans position most churches have taken.

Also, the constant talk that time in heaven is eternal is a lie. Heaven ends at the apocalypse. Shown in Revelation 21:-- a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed awayAnd many, many of the rules in the bible only specifically apply to the *first* heaven. Very little is known about second heaven.

Although if biblical pattern holds true, the rules will *change*. (Original rules were specific and not morality based: "don't eat from that tree", later it was cleanliness laws that were less specific but had more moral merit (encouraging communal health), later came Jesus with morality commandments of "Do unto others what you'd have them do unto you." that is even less specific and more morality based. A new heaven implies yet another rules change, and if the pattern holds true, it would likely be less specific and even more morality based.

Denominations that split from the Catholics have generally gotten further from original Christianity, not closer (Not that Catholicism is close to begin with). Not once has original practices been restored.

The first coup in Christianity was by Emperor Constantine who banned those who knew previous practices from being involved in discussions, and he changed a *lot* of traditions and beliefs in his Romanized "Christianity". In other words, modern Christianity is a fabricated religion for political reasons, while the original Christianity takes a lot of research to learn about.

A lot of translations the bible are *intentionally* bad to push some political agenda. For example, the famous verse, "Thou shallt not suffer a witch to live" was one such verse. Witches were a northern European religious tradition, and had nothing to do with witches.

The original word is "mekhashepha" whose meaning has been lost to time. It could have meant anything from a moth to an Egyptian priestess, but it almost certainly did NOT mean "witch" or "sorcerer" (norther & western Europe religious traditions specifically) who never had contact with the Jews.

Username: starfyredragon

Former I.T. : The amount of personal information that is being collected, collated, cross referenced and sold by data harvesting companies is ***staggering.*** And a lot of is "secured" by ludicrously poor security. Major leaks happen almost weekly.

It has been said before that if you want to advertise only to left handed gay men in a certain zip code, Facebook and Google analytical and marketing services can do that. But there are huge players behind the scenes that go further than that. Much further. Companies you've probably never even heard of.

To it's clients, Acxiom LLC claims to have personal profile data on 668 Million people. These profiles include age, gender, nationality, ethnic background, political leanings, sexuality, net worth, credit rating, likely household income, religion. They can also include known health conditions, gaming habits, what bank they use, what type of home they are in and how big it is.

They do this by exhaustively buying up every personal profile database they can get their hands on. If your state is one of many that allow the DMV to sell license data, they have your name, address, type of drivers license, any cars registered in your name, any liens on those vehicles and any major traffic violations in the last five years.

If you use one of thousands free apps from the Apple or Google app stores, the data from that can find its way into Acxioms hands as well. Which means they likely know your preferred commute to work, where you work, where you shop (store loyalty cards are another source of data for them by the way)

There are data harvesting companies that supply license plate recognition systems. A repo company buys a machine and just has a tow operator driving around letting the machine do its work. When a scanned plate matches one on file as having an active repo order on it, the tow operator can grab it right then and there.

Which sounds fine, except that the supplying company is also building its data base of every license plate its machines have seen, when and where they have been seen and roughly how long and how often they are seen at those locations.

Acxiom anonymizes the data it sells, but it is often easy to de-anonymize the data they sell by combining it with data from one of many other players in the industry. And of course, the data they retain isn't anonymous at all.

This is bad enough, but it gets worse. Major governments are getting into this business as well. ByteDance is a major player in Asian markets. They own Tik Tok for example, along with half a dozen other platforms.

They have a publicly acknowledged strategic partnership with the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. That's the Ministry behind the Orwellian facial recognition and social credit system China has been working on for the past 5 years.

Username: [deleted]

Worked on a buddies cannabis farm one harvest season. He didn't sell legally because the size was too small to actually make profits after all the taxes and fees.

Either way the growing methods was still the same for a legal grow. I can tell you first hand that your weed is not at clean as you think it is. Now this is definitely on the minority side, but it's common enough, esp the cheaper stuff.

Powdery mildew is so incredibly common. Its this white powder that builds up on the leaves and flowers. If you have a dust or pollen allergy this shit will trigger your allergies like nothing else. Smoking it not great for your lungs either as you could imagine. Basically impossible to remove and it spreads easily.

Almost a guarantee that an outdoor or greenhouse grown plant will have at least some batches with a small amount of powdery mildew on it. Smaller farmers can't afford to just toss out pounds and pounds of product. We only tossed out the worst of the worst.

The plants that weren't good enough for curing as smokeable flower, got sent to the extraction lab to be turned into distillate for vape carts. Same for plants with brown mold, we'd just break off the moldy parts and the send the rest for extraction.

Basically budget vape carts or anything other than reputable premium grade, is very likely to be made out of the plants not good enough to be cured into smokeable flower. I was told the extraction process filters out the moldy bits if any makes it, don't know how true that is though.

Also outdoor and greenhouse grows are obviously outside in the dirt and open air. Your precious flower has been on the ground, or a tub on the ground, and touched a handful or machines/scissors that are also on the ground. The same dirt everybody is walking on, animals piss on, and bugs live on.

You can't just wash a cannabis plant after all. At least not after it's harvested, without causing problems when it's time to cure. So your final product while technically clean from debris, has absolutely been touching every surface you'd never want to lick or get near your face.

Indoor grows are inherently much cleaner though. Plus a good outdoor/greenhouse grow will generate have better sanitation measures in place. I'm just talking on the smaller scale and what I experienced.

My buddy wasn't some amateur either, he partnered with guys doing it for 10 years, and our methods worked really well. It's just not as clean as you'd like think. That and vape carts are made out of scraps the grower couldn't turn to cured flower, unless it's solventless because that needs fresh frozen flower of the highest quality to make.

I'm in California as well, near Sacramento. Make sure you buy from reputable brands and dispensaries, they only need one good testing batch to pass the regulations.

Username: -Infinite92-

Worked in the movie theatre industry for 3 years, made it up to management. (No linger in the industry but have friends there and this all is pretty much the same still, depending on area/location ofc)

You can get free tickets/a refund for pretty much anything. You can even make shit up and 9times out of 10, you’ll get something as compensation. Had someone talk for 2.5 seconds in the theatre? Here’s a free movie voucher.

Sound was too loud? Here’s a voucher. Popcorn was under your seat? Here’s a refund (aka you can just make shit up. We don’t care. Ticket sales honestly don’t affect us at all as we barely got profit from them)

Employees/management can control practically every aspect of the auditorium. We can turn the lights down more if you’d like, we can change the volume, hell, we can even rewind the movie if enough people complain about missing something. Just ask with kindness (also depends on if the person you talk to has the time to do it)

This varies on theatres and highly depends on if the management on duty follows policy extremely strictly, but if you’re watching the last showing of the night, there’s a high probability that the staff is about to toss all the excess popcorn away and You can ask to take some of it home.

We’d often give a large trash bag full of it to a family with kids as it was all on its way to being stale anyways. Higher chance of getting some if you bring your own bags. It’s all ending up in the trash anyways and a lot of staff hate tossing it.

Wanna sneak in but are afraid of accidentally taking someone’s seat? Most theatres have a section called “house seats” which is essentially a small row of seats that are used in *emergencies* (aka if someone last minute needs a seat change due to seat damage or whatnot) these seats almost never get used.

Some theatre websites will highlight these seats as ‘taken’ but you can usually guess which ones they are if right before the movie they are open (usually 3-5 empty seats next to each other) ,, or simply ask an employee where they are for future reference. These also happen to be the cleanest seats as they hardly ever get used.

Want fresh popcorn? Just ask for unsalted / unseasoned corn :) might take a few extra minutes but it’ll be worth it. If an employee dares ask why, simply just say you are sensitive to salt. Works every time.

Username: Common-Transition973

I work in private construction - usually state or institutional work. I've learned so much about things to look for that I really wish all people knew when it comes to building their own house or hiring handymen to do work for them. Some things to look out for...

Get multiple quotes. If the bottom guy is significantly lower then that's a huge red flag. In our line of work it usually means they missed something on the drawings. If they didn't then run away.

Sort of in the same vein... You can have it fast, cheap, or good. Pick two. If you want it fast with good quality then it's going to get expensive. If you want it fast and cheap then the quality is going to be terrible. If you want it cheap and good quality then it's going to take a long time.

Get it all in writing. Get a contract spelling out your expectations for work and any stipulations for when you'll pay the contractor, what products they are to use warranty work after completion, etc. Get at least a signed commitment of a one-year warranty to cover parts and labor at the point of completion.

Also in the same vein, if you're building a house then do a "punch list" walk when the contractor says that they're finished. Take a pad of paper and a pencil with you to record notes as well as your phone to take pictures of quality control issues.

While you might be a little pickier with a residence, we typically stand 5 feet away from a wall to look for defects in paint or drywall. You don't want to go over your home with a magnifying glass because that's unreasonable. Check every door, every faucet, every outlet, every light.

If the tile work in the shower looks terrible then that's the contractors responsibility to fix and to not ask you to shell out more cash to buy new tile or supplies to redo unsatisfactory work. This goes for any work. You paid a professional to do a professional job for you.

Check for leaks at the shower drains or sinks because some cheaper unlicensed plumbers won't. Write all your discovered issues down and then give the contractor 30 days to resolve. If they baulk at the idea of fixing their mistakes then show them the signed contract you had them sign.

If they still refuse then take them to small claims court. Above all else, you are your best champion for your expectations. Don't expect anything that isn't written down in a contract.

Username: SmokeGSU

I've been in the auto body industry for a while - Your insurance company doesnt care about you or your car. They want to pay for the least amount of work, using the cheapest parts available. If your insurance writes an estimate for you, it will be incomplete and it will include used or aftermarket parts. Make sure a reputable shop writes their own estimate.

Large chains like Caliber, Gerber, Kaizan, Crash Champions, Service Kings, etc all have major contracts with insurance companies called DRPs or Direct Repair Programs. This program guarantees the shop a lot of cars to work on, however all that work is at a discounted rate.

Profit margins are already slim at most body shops and getting tighter every day due to increased costs of materials, labor and overhead, so maintain margin comes with increasing volume. That means more corners cut, and an inferior end result that can be ugly or even unsafe in extreme cases.

Your insurance can not tell you which shop to take your car to. I always recommend to find a shop that does not operate on DRP programs, or only has one or two.

Also, every body shop, chain or independent, is only as good as the estimators and technicians working there. Ive seen shops with great bodymen and a shit painter, and vice versa. Or great techs but an inexperienced estimator that may miss things.

Ask to look at work thats already done in the parking lot, look for dark color cars, especially black, and inspect the repair areas. Are the panels smooth and straight? Does the clear coat look the same as the untouched panels? Does it have the same "orange peel" texture?

One more thing, go out to your car right now and look at it with the sun to your back. Look from all angles. Theres a good chance that the color of the bumpers doesnt match the car. They are painted separately, at a different plant, and rarely will they match the car.

Most people dont realize this before an accident, but suddenly become aware of it when their new bumper isnt a perfect match. Paint manufacturers only guarantee up to a 90-95% paint match, and matching colors is incredibly difficult.

Lastly, if your buddy says he can paint your whole car for under 5k, it will 100% look like shit and probably won't last long. Paint material is very expensive and auto painting is very difficult to get right without a lot of experience.

Username: i_paint_guitars

I am a nurse. When you schedule a nursing appointment for vaccine injection, we spent a few minutes before we go to the waiting room to call you.

We check the computer to make sure the orders are there (by the doctor.) If not, we send a message to the doctor so one can be entered (this is done the day before so this sort of interruption does not occur that often. "Hi Dr. White. Mrs. Wong is coming in for her Prolia injection tomorrow but we need the orders. Thanks. Nurse."

Then we call the pharmacist on duty and we both go over the orders. If it is the second injection of a series, we make sure there is enough time from the first one. (Usually it is okay to be late but not okay to be too early.)

And if there were any other contradictories, this is the time when the pharmacist catches it (because sometimes the computer will not.) For example if you have to do to live vaccines, it either has to be done the same day, or a minimum of 30 days apart. You cannot schedule another appointment and come in on the 28th day to get the second vaccine.

For Prolia injection. It has to be done every 6 months. So if the patient comes in for the next one on 5 months 28th day, her insurance will not cover it and the patient will be stuck with a $1,600 bill. So the pharmacist and the nurse look to see when the patient received it the last time.

Then the pharmacist sends the signal to the computerized refrigerator/computerized container, and we would physically enter our ID and using our thumbprint, it releases the medication for us. Then we look for another nurse on duty and show this nurse the printout of the orders and the nurse verifies that we have the right medication with us. And we look at the expiration date to make sure it is still good.

Then I would look up your ID (in the computer) to see what you look like, and I go get you – and I ask you for your birthday and your name, even if I know you. I bring you into an exam room for privacy, and we show you the printed orders and we go over the medication/vaccine that you are getting.

And we asked you if you have further questions and we give you a copy of vaccine information sheet for you to read while be prepared to give it to you. After it is given, we make you wait in the lobby for about half an hour for safety and then we go out there to say goodbye.

Username: LittlePooky

From an ISP Call Center: Check power to your equipment first. If there is no power then restore power before you open a trouble ticket. On a separate note, I won't replace my equipment in a flooded basement or under a leaking pipe no matter how loud you can scream.

Many types of high speed circuits require commercial power to operate. Even if your office has power the circuit can still be down due to a power issue beyond your immediate location.

Power company ALWAYS has the first priority to repair a downed utility pole! ISPs and others have to wait. Instead of wasting time screaming at me, why don't you go screaming at the power company?! Just because you got a shitty speed test result, it does not automatically mean or guarantee that your circuit or your ISP has an issue.

Your purchased a 50mb pipe, great! Don't expect you will get exact 50mbps ALL THE TIME TO ANY WHERE on the PLANET!!! You know a little bit about the Networking and Routing. Good for you! Packet loss in a traceroute report does not guarantee that node has an issue.

It could simply mean that node is tired wasting resource on your silly requests. T1 takes A LOT of TIME to repair if your ISP does not own the last mile loop. T1 takes A LOT time to repair even if your ISP owns the loop. Thirty minutes repair time is DELUSIONAL.

I can't troubleshoot your LAN issue. You DID NOT pay me to do that. You may have paid an IT guy so why don't you call him about your PC issue? If you are a cheap ass and asked your wife's second cousin's son to setup your network the call him! you can't find him at 2AM? Sorry, you are SOL. Screaming at me all you want but your LAN is your shit.

Your ISPs can guarantee to deliver your traffic through their networks to the public cloud but no guarantee can be given to the destination unless special(costly) solution is PURCHASED. Your high priority traffic is only the best effort in the cloud unless you pony up for premium services.

If you can get to Google.com but not xyz.com then the issue is in your LAN; if you can ping 8.8.8.8 but can't ping www.google.com or xyz.com then the issue is your LAN; if you have voice service and data service from the SAME ISP on the SAME loop but you can't open xyz.com then the issue MAYBE still in your LAN. The logic is if you can PASS one type of traffic then you can PASS the other.

Username: dazed_confucius

When we say a common trailer is rated for 5000lbs, it can usually handle 2-3 times that weight (sometimes way more actually, but in general) before deforming to the point were it is no longer usable. When a common passenger plane is rated for 5000lbs (for the sake of easy numbering) it can most likely only handle a maximum of 5500lbs before deforming to the point were it is no longer usable (also called crashing if it decided it was no longer usable whilst in the air).

Mainly because a plane used for revenue has to be light enough to fly while also being extremely cost efficient in material and resources used so it pushes what little it has at its disposal to it's absolute limits.

This also has to do with the rules we engineers are taught when learning to design versus what we design having the rules decided for it afterwards. A building we're expecting to have a 30,000lbs load on floor x will be designed to withstand atleast 200,000lbs.

A plane will be built as efficiently as possible and essentially after its built the rules will be put in place. Example it weighs 100,000lbs and can lift 150,000 all included before folding? Load 48,000 onto it and hope for the best, the engineers said it could take it... you want to load more?

Use the least amount of fuel possible for the trip to the point where if we are stuck in a holding pattern we might fall out of the sky. Happens more often than admitted, the pilots in the air will radio tower to tell them how many minutes of fuel left and then proceed to land the planes in order of urgency instead of who has actually been there longer.

It's hard to put into perspective because if I told you that you weigh 198lbs but a rope holding you thousands of feet in the air is rated for 200lbs you'd feel safe. That's because the engineers rated the rope that way because if you put 200lbs on it and yank it it'll hold the energy because it can actually withstand 500lbs.

You have to understand when the plane says 150,000lbs max, at 151,000 it may or may not even take off, but if it does there is literally no wiggle room for any unforseen event. The wiggle room is normally the 2000lbs they don't load...

It's not an engineering problem, it's a money problem. The trip will cost roughly the same whether it's half full or slightly overloaded, but the difference in profit is enormous, so they load it way more than they should while still being technically legal.

Username: No_Kaleidoscope7733

I have worked in education, and in very broad strokes, we still don't know the best way to teach people the fundamentals, like reading and arithmetic.

There are theories, and studies, and anecdotal evidence that points us towards better methods, sure. But education is so heavily politicized that its not possible to test any of these theories to completion over the timespan in which it needs to be properly tested.

It takes about 20 years before you know if you have successfully educated someone to be competent and productive in the 3 R's, even assuming that person doesn't have some kind of SEND, because the test is to see if they can become a competent and independent adult.

But in the West (UK and USA, at least) Governments change every 4-5 years, and within those government education ministers change even faster, and policies change faster still. It's not possible to know know which of the dozen-or-more education methods, fads, fashions and blunders have achieved anything through the 15+ years that someone is in formal education.

Look at the modern generation who learned via Zoom over COVID as an example. We're just about now seeing what sort of impact that had on pupils compared to face-to-face learning with this year's graduates, but some kids were 4 years old when they started learning from home; we won't know how good or bad their education will be until 2034 or beyond, and absolutely can't account for the other ways they'll be taught - rightly or wrongly - between now and then.

When you really think about it, the modern concept of 'school' has only really existed since the 1980's in the UK, after massive reforms were instigated by the then-government. People of my generation (I was born in 1985) grew up learning in a way that had NEVER been used before and still hadn't been 'fully' tested by the time I started school - did it 'work'? Compared to what? What was the alternative? How long do you try a method before you know it's not working in the short term, or if it'll be worth it in a decade's time?

The ONLY way to know if someone is being educated properly would be to stick them on a rigid, inflexible schedule for their entire educational career, and if it turns out to be the 'wrong' method and ruins their potential? We've just irreparably written off an entire generation.

Username: Infernal_Contraption

Worked my way up in the retail industry working from small mall shops and consignment resale retail stores to corporate offices and showrooms and traveling pop up shops.

Fast fashion is killing its own industry and the people and planet. Fossil fuels have bi-products that are converted to polyesters of varying assortments, that plastic fiber is turned into blends for organic material that is actually safe to wear material like cotton, hemp, bamboo, silk, linen, wool, cashmere, these fabrics are pretty much biodegradable and safe for everyone unless you have an allergic reaction.

Polyester is very different than organic fibers and when it breaks down the fabric doesnt melt into the earth and get broken down the same way organic fabrics do. Polyester poisons everything.

Polyester fibers wrap around small objects and stick to eye balls and the fibers float along wind channels and into the water supply that we drink and bathe in. Polyester is slowly polluting the entire surface of the planet and more and more countries are recognizing forever chemicals and fast fashion dump sites, land fills and food with ingredients like red lake 40 are illegal and banned in a ton of places due to the facts of real health concerns.

High end brands, influencers and celebrities with their own fashion lines, companies selling blended materials and saying they're organic and better than 100% cotton or some other blend of organic fabrics are not selling it to you for your health they are making huge profit increases by mixing in more and more polyester into the more expensive organic fabrics, causing toxic fashion to be mass produced, worn uncomfortably a few times then thrown away.

Fibers leach into the air and into your lungs into your blood stream. Depending on the manufacturer and quality of the blend the more you have plastic the more you are basically wearing a fancy ass garbage bag.

Versus... Silk? Cashmere? Wool blended with cotton or linen blended with hemp and bamboo denim blends? Make smart healthy fashion forward choices and stop giving companies that don't have your interest at the heart of their product money because that Money you spend on them could be spent on the workers making sure the healthy options are on the market and they need your support more than ever!

Username: S118gryghost

Seeing some Music Industry comments about streams made me smile, because it’s actually a lot worse than anyone knows...I work for one of the big record labels and oof...

The average person who puts out music on Spotify makes less than a cent per stream. Obviously Spotify says it’s the same rate for everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, including the big artists you listen to on the radio or see at shows.

Here’s the kicker-they that’s one of the biggest lies in the industry that no one ever talks about. Some artists can have enough fame and pull that they negotiate their contracts to have rate of (and get ready because remember, us mortals only make less than a cent per stream):

Rates of $1 per stream, 2, even seen contracts that go up to $5 per stream. Count that up with the hit of the summer or an album from a big artist and bam. They’re rich af. Now, where the money comes from, who knows- but here’s 2 sayings I learned when I started working there 3 years ago:

The music industry is strange when it comes to money because you either get none or effectively so little it’s considered none, or all of it. And when I asked where the money came from, my supervisor said this: What’s important isn’t the where the money comes from, the thing to look out for is who it’s going through.

With a weird look I asked what does that mean and he said to pass by the checking department and ask the names of some of our biggest sponsors and I’ll see that it’s not just money from the label, but money from rich people you’d see on Wall Street.

Weirdly enough but it should have made sense before to me, he was right. Saw some big names in tech, finance, the usual who also dipped their beaks in music too.

Made me think about the Grammys and such too, in regards that I guess every industry has things going on behind the scenes, even in music.

I have more on Spotify but I’ll leave it at this: Spotify playlists and people paying to get on one? Stop. They get their interns to just pick random music and blacklist people paying to get on them so they get more money from back end deals with those you’re paying.

I have never paid for those services to “make my chances higher” and somehow ended up on more than 50 playlist this year for my own music. Wild right?

Username: Fiat9900

First, I spent time in the restaurant business. And guess what? They use canned, premade, and prepackaged food. That awesome "hand made" soup? It came out of a bag or a can and was just heated up. Don't get me wrong, they usually use high quality stuff that tastes good. But time is money, and they will serve you premade food they bought and just prepared for you to look edible.

Second. I worked in a call center doing credit cards for a national bank. And while we were "customer service" they wanted us to do sales. The people who made sales for bonuses and promotions. The people like me who were actually focused on customer service? Yeah, we don't make it far in the business.

And why are you getting transferred around and no one can solve your problem? Because of lazy people. I legit watched my coworkers inappropriately transfer customers to all kinds of places, because they were lazy, because they didn't know what to do, or because they want us to have a ridiculously low call handle time, so you don't have a sales pop?

Let me transfer you. These were typically the people getting bonuses and promotions as well because they were awesome at sales. Go figure.

And finally, presently I'm working in IT, and maybe not a secret, but everyone's passwords suck! You think a business has better security than the average Joe? Nope! Corporate secrets are protected by a less than 8 character password, that usually includes the company's name in the password, or that's likely "password" something that stupid.

Some companies do actually have good security, but the local businesses in your area? The mom and pop shops? They have awful cyber security. And I've seen people legit storing an their company passwords in an unprotected Excel doc. We're talking the keys to the kingdom here, their bank accounts and passwords, and all their servers and everything. Plaintext documents stored on the desktop.

I've been quite shocked seeing so many local companies that are pretty big names in state have awful security. And the users themselves are gullible as heck. Seriously, locking people out of their accounts because they clicked a link in an email and signed in with their credentials is too damn high.

Username: TheDunadan29

As a public school educator, k-12 in the U.S.A. is little more than subsidized daycare. Parents, if you don't sit down every day with your kids and make sure they are getting math, reading, science, and history, then they will graduate without knowing any of it. Trust me. It just can't be done in school. Most of the day is wasted on behavioral management.

Kids have such incredible deficits, that many wouldn't believe it. That's why we have so many ignorant adults walking around believing misinformation, easily manipulated by political predators, and going against their own well being when they vote, join insurrections, spread misinformation, etc.

Parents that completely let go of their responsibilities and duties and just drop off kids at schools are the root cause. Teachers cannot make up that much deficit. If a kid cannot read in middle school at his level, there is nothing in place to make up those deficits, and the parent is to blame for allowing that to happen.

Teachers only spend one academic year with a child before they are passed to the next grade level. But parents are supposedly raising these kids, not well judging by the inappropriate behaviors I see.

Most people take it for granted or do not realize that schools are severely underfunded. We barely have teachers, let alone the kind of specialists we need if we're being honest about the state of most American kids readings skills, critical thinking skills, math skills, etc.

I look at my friends that work for fortune 500 companies and well furnished their offices are, all paid for by the companies, and I look at my classroom, with malfunctioning air conditioning, completely unfurnished, with old dilapidated desks, and me having to pay for any improvements made to my classroom our of pocket.

How do you expect your kids to learn like that? America's kids are underserved at home by poor parenting, and underserved at school by poor funding.

The logical conclusion is the average American - a person with lower than average reading comprehension, poor critical thinking skills, lack of knowledge that make the word ignorant seem inadequate, and inappropriate behaviors run rampant from toxic narcissisms to open psychopathy. No wonder our politics and our country looks the way it does.

Username: Enlightened_Ghost_

I worked for a consulting company once. They have a small presence and are by no means the big guns (Mckinsey etc.). We would prepare market reports for various commodities/products as requested by clients.

On the face of it, the company assures clients that it has many "experienced" employees and a treasure trove of market consultants around the world. The truth is the experienced employees are just fresh out of college graduates (who are easy to come by). And there are no consultants.

The data gathering process was just scrolling through pages on google for various commodities. We would copy paste from the internet whatever we got and transform that into nice looking graphs and charts. We would do a cost analysis (cost of making a product) without knowing true methods of production.

The client would pay millions of dollars for a presentation like that. Just off hand data from google search was worth the millions to them. All of the clients were fortune 500 American companies. American being the keyword. We could never get a European client, because they were too smart to know what we were doing.

Sometimes, there would be no data on the web for products we were asked to build reports on. We would then make our own data and cite the source as our own internal database. No questions asked at the QA level or any other level.

The other way to gather data was to place cold calls to companies making the product or companies using the product. The company still exists and is still swindling millions of dollars from the American Fortune 500 companies in the name of procurement consulting.

In my time there, I heard that the procurement departments of such huge companies had too much money on their hands and they were essentially giving us a small piece of their procurement research budget. It is possible they knew what we were doing and just playing along.

However, we lost clients sometimes when we couldn't provide good information. Some clients were smart enough to call us out on our BS. The working hours were crazy and it seemed like what was being done was illegal given that the company was essentially lying to the clients. I lasted about all of 3 months there and jumped ship.

Username: lifegrowthfinance

When it comes to tailoring, you're being severely undercharged. If tailors charged for their expertise, the time it takes to alter, materials, scheduling, etc etc, that $13 to hem a pair of pants in "only 10 minutes" would actually be $30 or more. And the more expensive the alteration, the less money a tailor is making because of the time it takes.

If you're paying $80 to reset the shoulders of a coat, that's a full day of work right there. And $80 a day isn't anything to love off of so any tailor who isn't just brand new knows there's no point in doing that. In the same amount of time, they can be making a good $500 on doing just pant hems because they're quick to do once you know what you're doing

Most tailors work with brands like MW, Nordstrom, and David's Bridal because nobody wants to pay a proper tailor rate. So these brands take on all the responsibility of materials, scheduling, and basically everything aside from tailor work itself. In exchange, these tailors get paid about $9 an hour if they're lucky. And people come to expect $13 for that hem being "high end" and look for outside tailors that short themselves even further

This is why tailoring is a dying art and why it takes 50 years just to shorten a pair of pants. Places that used to have a fleet of tailors are lucky to have just one anymore. One person cannot fit more than about 350 minutes' worth of work in one working day.

This includes last minute refits, emergencies like funerals, etc. If a day gets backed up because too many customers weren't honest up front about how something looks or feels, it fucks up the back end and pushes everybody's clothes back. It's not that these tailors or these business don't give a damn about you or your events! They can only do so much!

This is why you should make sure you have a suit or dress or whatever months before you'll ever need it. Tailors are overworked, underpaid, and under appreciated. I've had customers cuss my tailors because they came in last minute, shit happened, and then they were up shit creek

Username: smjaygal

I used to be a pharmacy technician for a major chain retail drugstore. If your doctor ever sends a prescription to a pharmacy, and there ends up being some sort of delay because the pharmacist needs to speak directly with your doctor’s office, don’t get frustrated with the pharmacy and think it’s that they aren’t doing their jobs.

Doctors specialize in diagnosing ailments and pointing you in the right direction of what treatment is necessary; a pharmacist specializes in medication and how it affects the body. If a doctor sends in a prescription that could potentially be harmful to your health, the pharmacist is going to be the one who detects it and intervenes.

Sometimes, it could be something simple like the doctor wrote for two tablets when they meant to write for twenty, or that the prescription was written with unusual instructions for that particular medication (like writing to take something at night when it is prescribed to be taken in the morning with food).

Other times, it could be that the doctor meant to put down “Tramadol” but accidentally put “Trazodone”. Other times, it could be that the medication the prescription was written for could literally have lethal effects based on your health conditions, allergies, other medications, etc.

It’s not that doctors are careless and pay no attention to what they’re writing, but a pharmacist literally knows more about the medication your doctor is writing for and how it’s potentially going to affect you. Their job isn’t to slap a label on a bottle and send you on your way, but to carefully verify that the prescription was written correctly and the medication that is being dispensed is going to be safe.

In addition, if you ever have to be registered at a pharmacy (even if you’re only going there once for something temporary), make sure you let the person who is registering you know about every single health condition you have, every allergy, and especially every other medication you’re currently taking. Giving this information to them can literally be life or death.

Username: [deleted]

They have had advanced technologies for decades, and it is easy to keep things secret when the penalty for breaking this oath is severe. The reason that more advanced technologies are limited to public release is more a factor or profits.

Corporations, which have powerful lobbying arms, secure advanced technologies via deep black government research. They then release subsequent public improvements to known technologies with the goal being to reach the advanced final iteration far into the future after milking profits each generational release of the technology.

There are breakthroughs in the black world that have not even been conceived of in the civilian reality, and won't be for many more years, and even then, only if certain other breakthroughs occur to reach them.

Now, that is just the technologies that are deemed benign and of minimal threat to national security. Those are licensed for backdoor profiteering in order to fund the dark side of the military industrial complex.

The technologies that are a threat to national security, those are kept under wraps, with countermeasures researched and developed so that we not only have the upper hand with the technology, but also in ways to neutralize it.

There are also technologies so ridiculously powerful, and dangerous, that if the typical civilian were to get ahold of it, could result in major repercussions, damage, and even death. Now can you imagine if someone with ill intent were to purposefully try to exploit such technologies?

We are at a point in human history that the breakthroughs are coming through faster than we know what to do with them, or the full implications of their discovery that could benefit, or irreparably harm humanity. It is, for that reason, the United States focuses so deeply on intellectual property policing and ensuring that only that which is deemed "safe" is allowed to trickle out into the world we see everyday around us.

Username: DeepBlackGold

There's another reason Bezos is so rich (but also keeps getting invited to testify before Congress)... Amazon is actually completely terrible at running a shipping operation for OTHER companies ("Amazon FBA"), on purpose. They make money off of constant "mistakes" (often wholesale just losing products completely) at the warehouse that the customer has to find, report, and beg for reimbursement for, often after incurring a "disposal" fee.

They also charge YOU, the client, if anything goes wrong with THEIR shipping causing the customer to complain. They also allow customers to use the product and ask for a refund with no questions asked or the item returned...and charge everything back to YOU.

Customers order an expensive product they don't actually want in order to qualify for free shipping, then ask for the expensive product to be refunded, keep it, and then YOU have to pay for all the shipping (which you already did, but now it's a lot more) and eat the cost of the expensive item refunded too.

They will stop allowing you to sell or market on their platform if you have too little inventory, but also change the inventory maximums all the time so you can't order the right amount and have to trash perfectly good product if there's "too much."

(Most sellers have long ordering processes that ship from overseas on boats, so by the time the order arrives Amazon wants LESS, not more...or maybe they decided they want A LOT MORE because it's the holidays...and you don't have enough, etc. etc.)

Basically you end up paying Amazon to manage their warehouses and shipping for them. But if you don't, you can't advertise on their platform where everyone shops and expects items to be shipped from.

And if you manage to sell a lot anyway they steal your idea and manufacture it themselves (FBA users are required to detail their entire production process and partners as part of the qualifying process).

Username: Ok_Campaign_5101

I work in telecommunications. I work on a wide range of networks. Analog and digital ds0, ds1, ds3, sonet, dwdm. I also do a lot of tdm troubleshooting.

To help with context. The phone line running to your house is called a POTS (plain old telephone service) line and it's technically a ds0 and it operates on 50+ year old network called TDM. This predates the internet by a good bit.

A lot of 911 and your city utilities (especially water) run on ds0 circuits. The voice circuits often times run over the old tdm network. They do not make new hardware to maintain the network. All replacement parts are "refurbished" but they are regularly dead on arrival. Most replacement parts we use are just pulled from stacks of old parts. When a failed device is removed from a circuit, it is added to the stack.

Then to top it off, no one really knows how to work on them either. We are not properly trained to work on ds0 circuits. Especially analog circuits. There used to be people in all groups that had deep knowledge of eveything. They were properly trained engineers. They were all offered early retirement packages about 10 years ago. They all accepted packages. Their knowledge was not passed down due to how suddenly they all left.

Its scary to think about honestly. 911 services and water treatment are some of the most important circuits we have and they run on the oldest, weakest, most unreliable part of our network. And its not all the teleco's fault. The governments don't want to spend the money to upgrade to anything more stable. They won't even upgrade to ds1s. They are old but we have ways to atleast run them over newer equipment to increase stability.

In many cases they are even paying for fiber circuits but refuse to upgrade their side of the circuit to use the fiber. So the brand new top of the line fiber circuits sit there unused while we scramble to get their ds0 working again.

Username: theshane0314

When 911 gets called and emergency services are dispatched, every change of status is tracked. Change of status in this instance meaning: Enroute to a call, transporting a patient, arrived on scene etc. that kind of thing.

These times are tracked to help measure performance and identify problems. We want to make sure people are getting their emergencies met in a timely manner. One of those measurements is known as a “chute time”. This measures the amount of time between dispatch notifying a service of an emergency and the responding crew being inside their response vehicle, ready to roll out.

There is another failsafe, to make sure people aren’t just getting into the vehicle and not moving, called a “turn-out interval”. This is also measure from the time of initial dispatch. By this mark, the vehicle is expected to have moved 50 meters/150 feet away from its parked location, towards the scene.

None of these time requirements are affected by the severity of emergency or type of emergency. Often by the two minute mark, the dispatcher doesn’t really know yet what is happpening, just *where* it’s happening to within a reasonable degree.

**Where I am** (not speaking for other states/provinces/countries) the chute time is 90 seconds for ambulance and fire services. Police don’t have them. They have no maximum amount of time to respond. Just get there when they can. Which is problematic for a lot of reasons.

Obviously, if it’s a violence related call, they have to go in first. So you may have fire and paramedics awaiting a block or two away for 5-75 minutes, sitting in their trucks not being able to go to scene. Not to mention that delay affects the people that are awaiting police intervention on their behalf.

Kind of fucked huh? Fire and ambulance have response targets measured in seconds. Police response targets are measured in whether or not they showed up at all.

Username: Jesterbomb

I work in phlebotomy - I draw your blood. Older people (40+) love to TELL me to "use a butterfly." I don't know where the fuck they got this from; it's universal. We deal with it 50 times a day and we all hate it. Why?

A, butterfly needles are very expensive and I've even had some jobs limit my stock to just a COUPLE to use per day. Seriously they're stupid expensive and the company (even when I worked for the hospital) hated purchasing them, so they almost never did. If we're working a job where our boss literally hands us 5 to use PER DAY, we're saving them for kids and actual hard sticks. Not someone with a big fat juicy antecubital vein.

B, the patient is unknowning asking for a smaller needler. A butterfly isn't a smaller needle. We have what's called straight sticks in the same exact size as a butterfly. The butterfly lays flatter so it's better if I'm hitting your hand or forearm, and it's got tubing attached to it which is great for draws that require over 5 tubes.

But lemme tell you....the size between 23gauge and 21gauge is so minute that you don't even notice it. The amount of times I've stuck patients with a 21gauge butterfly and they praise me saying "see the smaller needle just works better!" And I'll finish and tell them "that wasn't a small needle, it was a butterfly. A butterfly doesn't mean small needle."

C, don't fucking tell people how to do their job, please. I know what needle to use on what patient. I've had patients get out of my chair and walk away because I didn't have butterflies in stock. That's ridiculous.

Y'all don't even know what a damn butterfly does you just think it's "small" and that's not even the case. You're getting stuck with one of the smallest needles ANYWAY - a 21gauge is nothing compared to 18 or 16s. Please stop making blood draws harder on your phlebotomist by pretending to know the ins and outs.

Username: Autumnlove92

That ring you're spending three month salary on costs only a couple hundred dollars to make. The center is the highest cost, but even that is at a daily market price, reduced for whatever manufacturer you're dealing with.

Same goes for the metal. If you but an already finished ring the bottom line is even better for the retailer. Most of the times they already have molds made of their stock designs and cast/set the over seas, like in Thailand for practically free.

If you want the best bottom line, buy your own diamond and try to find a freelance designer with some connections to a place that can 3d print the wax for you. Don't use your own metal, most places will charge extra because they need to cast your ring seperatly and they will probably end up mixing in fresh stuff anyways.

Most big box places will offer "custom" designs, but you can be sure they will tack on the cad price, if not double it. Don't get suckered into having a ton of small stones all over the ring either. They will try to sell you on the carat weight of all the diamonds together, but the really small melee only cost like $20-$30 a peice. Pulse they are ugly and you end up paying more when you could get a better center stone.

Do your research. Don't just walk in and buy something that is on sale or a wedding set discount. These are often shit they couldn't sell or have poor quality stones. And don't bother with platinum.

It looks just like white gold but is way more expensive. It's slightly more durable, but you'd be better off just taking the ring off when you want to chop wood or whatever people do to fuck up rings. And are you ever goin to melt it down and sell your platinum for a profit? No.

One last thing, don't pay to have your ring cleaned. All they're going to do is blast it with steam and put it in the same cleaning solution you can get for 5 bucks anywhere.

Username: Camel_Holocaust

Not so much a secret as a pro tip, but if you’re ever injured on the job and get workers’ comp, your case will likely be referred to a PBM, whose job it is to try and interfere with your doctors’ prescribing behavior and save the company money.

In workers’ comp, like other types of managed care, if your doctor prescribes you something, the PBM can try to stop you from getting it by refusing to pay the pharmacy and providing whatever bullshit explanation they think will make sense to the pharmacist. However, the difference that’s unique to workers’ comp is that somebody has to pay for it if it’s prescribed.

This means that you can still get the medication as prescribed even if rejected by the insurance company if it’s billed to a 3rd party by the pharmacy (basically a collections agency for prescriptions). So if you happen to find yourself injured on the job and the meds you’re prescribed are “rejected” at the pharmacy for not meeting first-fill or formulary requirements, insist that the pharmacist bills the meds to a 3rd party and that your doctor is in charge of your care, not the PBM.

They still might harass your doctor and there’s no guarantee the pharmacist will do as you ask, but it’s worth a shot since they legally have no authority over whether or not you receive the medications you are prescribed by your doctor.

They want people to think they have power over your treatment, but really all they can do is bully the pharmacist who doesn't actually have to listen do them at all if they choose not to. They can always bill to a 3rd party and ignore the PBM.

If you get workers' comp and a pharmacy tells you that the medication your doctor prescribed you for the related injury isn't "approved," they can still give it to you. The only consequence is that your employer (or their insurance company) will actually have to pay for it instead of the middle man they hired to save them money at the expense of your care.

Username: TPA_Grunge_97