Post secrets you know from your previous/current jobs

[Allie]

Have you seen those commercials with the animals and arms of the angels playing in the background?  It's awful how people treat those dogs.  Even worse is that the same thing happens to children all the time too, but you can't put them on TV with sappy music and ask for donations.

Oh, and you probably know or live around way more sex offenders than you could ever imagine. 

[TheBuddha]

Secret:  I could drink on the job at my desk whenever I wanted to with a fully stocked bar in the building.

No wonder those beer loads I used to pick up in Irwindale were never ready on time, everyone was drunk...

[Stache-O-Lantern]

If you like your car be nice to the Valet.  Tip when you arrive AND when you are leaving if a different Valet retrieves your car. If you don't tip and are a return customer you have been warned. Have some class. Stiffing the Valet (it happens all the time) say's more about you then the person providing the service.

I was a valet for 3 yrs in college at 3 different restaurants/bars and private parties.  It was unusual, but not unheard of, for people to tip on the way in.  Generally no one got special treatment for a tip on the way in unless it was very generous.  Even then the ability to give the car "special treatment" is often limited by the reality of the parking situation at a particular venue, and how busy you are at the moment.

Accidents with the cars were rare, but there were a few over the years.  I think mostly a tip isn't going to prevent that.  Accidents are accidents.

bonus pro tip: Never toss the keys at a valet, they will make an effort not to try to catch them, like I saw one time a valet let them bounce off his chest-arms straight down at his sides.  You will look like a tool, dont do it, you are not in a Lexus commercial.

As far as tossing the keys at the valet, sure that's a d*** move, but there is a better reason to never throw keys.  Storm drains.  They are everywhere.

[grantmeaname]

Oh, and you probably know or live around way more sex offenders than you could ever imagine.

That's not true. Every time one of them moves I get a postcard about it. I've been trying to make a trading card game out of them.

[clarkfan1979]

Someone is going to get fired. That is all.

[Allie]

Oh, and you probably know or live around way more sex offenders than you could ever imagine.

That's not true. Every time one of them moves I get a postcard about it. I've been trying to make a trading card game out of them.

If you knew how many adults and teens commit sex offenses and there isn't enough hard evidence or they plea the case away you would cringe.  I moved into a nice neighborhood with no registered offenders but know of three unregistered offenders who live within walking distance. 

However, a trading card game sounds quite enjoyable. 

[Vanchica]

Banks are terrified of unionization and of being burdened with a fiduciary duty regarding their lending (sales) practices. The introduction of account fees in the 90's was the revival of the industry- the old model of 'gather deposits/lend them out at a higer rate of interest than that paid' was slumping. And everybody is sleeping with everybody else. Do not sit on the couch in the staff room. Bank robberies are constant and not reported to the media, they are rarely dramatic- just a druggie in the queue who presents a note. They stall til the police respond to the silent alarm. There is practically no cash that isn't time-locked in a cash machine anyway. Cash is filthy and will make you chronically ill if you work in the cage, handling it day after day. Get vaccinated.

[Zaga]

Regarding viruses and porn on computers, at my last corporate job we were not allowed to install anything ourselves.  Even something simple like updating Office was all done through IT.  It was annoying, to say the least, but I'm sure it saved the folks in IT a boatload of problems.

[FunkyStickman]

Regarding viruses and porn on computers, at my last corporate job we were not allowed to install anything ourselves.  Even something simple like updating Office was all done through IT.  It was annoying, to say the least, but I'm sure it saved the folks in IT a boatload of problems.

They do that here, too. I use a lot of portable software because the tools they give us to use are crap.

Being a former IT guy here, I of course know how to get around the anti-portable-software measures.

[sol]

Being a former IT guy here, I of course know how to get around the anti-portable-software measures.

Most of us just keep a USB thumb drive with the few apps we really need, and run them from there.  No installations required.

[mtn]

Being a former IT guy here, I of course know how to get around the anti-portable-software measures.

Most of us just keep a USB thumb drive with the few apps we really need, and run them from there.  No installations required.

Both of the companies I have worked for disable USB drives. Everything is done through email/shared drives/sharepoint.

[Cwadda]

In our lab at university there was a drainage error above the ceiling. The ceiling collapsed and got water all over the new $250k mass spectrometer, ruining it. Surprising that no one died, considering it operates on something like 50k volts of electricity.

[FunkyStickman]

Being a former IT guy here, I of course know how to get around the anti-portable-software measures.

Most of us just keep a USB thumb drive with the few apps we really need, and run them from there.  No installations required.

Both of the companies I have worked for disable USB drives. Everything is done through email/shared drives/sharepoint.

Yup, that too.

[Allie]

Oh, and you probably know or live around way more sex offenders than you could ever imagine.

That's not true. Every time one of them moves I get a postcard about it. I've been trying to make a trading card game out of them.

If you knew how many adults and teens commit sex offenses and there isn't enough hard evidence or they plea the case away you would cringe.  I moved into a nice neighborhood with no registered offenders but know of three unregistered offenders who live within walking distance. 

However, a trading card game sounds quite enjoyable.

Well two teenagers making out could be 'sex-offenders' so I wouldn't put much stock in the title.

This is true in some cases, but not at all what I was referring to.  I should edit my statement to replace "commit sex offenses" with "victimize children in a sexual manner".

[nobodyspecial]

Well two teenagers making out could be 'sex-offenders' so I wouldn't put much stock in the title.

So is somebody taking a pee in an alley or showing their butt at a football game.

It has started to become a problem here. People who 20 years ago accepted a police warning for "public indecency" rather than be arrested are now finding that the police background check they need to coach a soccer team or visit a school is listing them as a sex offender.

[Rural]

Well two teenagers making out could be 'sex-offenders' so I wouldn't put much stock in the title.

So is somebody taking a pee in an alley or showing their butt at a football game.

It has started to become a problem here. People who 20 years ago accepted a police warning for "public indecency" rather than be arrested are now finding that the police background check they need to coach a soccer team or visit a school is listing them as a sex offender.

I think its a problem everywhere. Here, if he's 18 and she's 17 for another month, he's a sex offender. Especially if he's brownish and she's pinkish. (Note: I am pinkish if not 17).

[aspiringnomad]

At a previous job I saw that the very underpinnings of our financial system were at serious risk and that complete system failure was averted only by individual or relatively small-group decisions, rather than by the broad-based wisdom of the market that we have always taken for granted. Those interventions were by no means inevitable and so neither was financial market recovery in the next decade, much less one as quick and robust as what occurred. Obviously, a lot of people know about this, either through media reports or financial crisis tell-all books written by those closely involved. But seeing it up close and trying to envision the consequences of the various events that nearly transpired was pretty surreal. Puts in perspective the recent market gyrations because to my (very limited) knowledge there is nothing remotely like that going on now. But I think after we made it through that, this very recent blip is a walk in the park.

[Silverado]

Well two teenagers making out could be 'sex-offenders' so I wouldn't put much stock in the title.

So is somebody taking a pee in an alley or showing their butt at a football game.

It has started to become a problem here. People who 20 years ago accepted a police warning for "public indecency" rather than be arrested are now finding that the police background check they need to coach a soccer team or visit a school is listing them as a sex offender.

I think its a problem everywhere. Here, if he's 18 and she's 17 for another month, he's a sex offender. Especially if he's brownish and she's pinkish. (Note: I am pinkish if not 17).

Racist

__________

If you are in supply management, always do a thorough tooling audit. Always. Demand to see receipts.

[nobodyspecial]

I think its a problem everywhere. Here, if he's 18 and she's 17 for another month, he's a sex offender. Especially if he's brownish and she's pinkish. (Note: I am pinkish if not 17).

Racist

I think the poster is saying it only becomes a legal problem in the USA if there is a certain differential albedo

[Sibley]

I think its a problem everywhere. Here, if he's 18 and she's 17 for another month, he's a sex offender. Especially if he's brownish and she's pinkish. (Note: I am pinkish if not 17).

Racist

I think the poster is saying it only becomes a legal problem in the USA if there is a certain differential albedo

While it is racist, it also happens to be an accurate statement of how it works in some places. If mommy and daddy don't approve of their little (white) girl dating a black boy, it's not unheard of for them to make a complaint based on the 1-2 year age difference but is really motivated by the fact that the kid is black.

This did happen a few times where I grew up. In my town, the police didn't go for it, if they talked to the kids and the kids were fine, they'd actually scold the parents. But that isn't how it always works.

[Rural]

I think its a problem everywhere. Here, if he's 18 and she's 17 for another month, he's a sex offender. Especially if he's brownish and she's pinkish. (Note: I am pinkish if not 17).

Racist

I think the poster is saying it only becomes a legal problem in the USA if there is a certain differential albedo

While it is racist, it also happens to be an accurate statement of how it works in some places. If mommy and daddy don't approve of their little (white) girl dating a black boy, it's not unheard of for them to make a complaint based on the 1-2 year age difference but is really motivated by the fact that the kid is black.

This did happen a few times where I grew up. In my town, the police didn't go for it, if they talked to the kids and the kids were fine, they'd actually scold the parents. But that isn't how it always works.

Indeed it is racist; I was pointing out that the overuse of the sex offender charge (for consenting teens of similar ages, not saying it's overused in actual abuse cases) is often exacerbated by systemic racism. Of which I see a depressing lot, especially considering I'm not personally subjected to it.

[Sibley]

The first 1-2 years after the death of a close loved one, people are messed up, but unfortunately it doesn't necessarily show in obvious ways. It can really screw up long term financial well-being, because they will make horrible decisions.

Also, there are a bunch of people who drop dead of heart attacks between 40 and 60.

[tat96]

As a National Guardsmen and a former employee of a first responder and disaster prevention agency for a state capital/very large city prone to natural disasters I can say that most people are overly optimistic of how much the government is going to do for them in the aftermath of natural disaster.

This should not be news to anyone in the post Katrina world we live in, but many states NG's are not able to respond in force necessary to save lives or evacuate people.  My advice is to have at least 7 days of food and drinking water available at all times.  I responded to a state emergency several years back and it took us (NG) over 48 hours after the disaster to even get together several vehicles and debris clearing equipment and get to the site of the disaster.  This was considering 90% of the roads to the disaster area were clear and we had full cooperation from government and local law enforcement.  I think people need to keep in mind that many NG members will be affected by natural disasters just as much as everyone else.  Everyone is under the impression that most of the NG is just sitting around in a building all day just waiting to get the call like a big city fire department.  This is not true.  They have 9-5 jobs like everyone else and have to drop whatever they are doing to go help you.  Often times this means driving across the state to an armory, gearing up, getting orders and supplies, then turning around to drive to the affected area.

Lastly, what a NG member is able to do for you post disaster is greatly influenced by several factors (such as):

Did the President declare it a federal disaster?  If not, the state is going to pay 100% or close to it and probably only has limited funds to repair stuff they have to pay for (roads, bridges, etc.).  In other cases stuff simply wont get fixed if federal dollars are not immediately rolling in.

NG members will/may not be able to provide medical aid.  We were not authorized to use our medical supplies on civilians in one incident I worked.  We had to call the ambulance if we saw a civilian in need of medical aid.  Using our scarce medical resources on a civilian meant we now can't use it on our forces.

We are probably going to be armed but have no bullets or authority to prevent crime.  We guarded debris to ensure no criminals stole copper or looted but if we saw someone stealing stuff we called the cops to deal with it.  We are simply just doing a "show of force" by standing around with guns.  In NO after Katrina this was a little different as some NG units were given authority to detain and ammo to defend themselves.  Most disasters never get to this level though (thank god).

At the end of the day, the only thing the NG is going to do is whatever the governor or "incident commander" tells them to do.  Do not be upset if a helicopter with a water bucket flies right over your flaming house and dumps it on forest 20 miles away. 

The National Guard in your state may have 20,000 Soldiers and Airmen but only 500 of them will be activated to deal with a disaster.  This is because the NG is very expensive if the federal government is not paying them.  Plus, your state may be super heavy on fighter jets when what you really need is water purification and engineers to clear debris.  The governor will only activate as few guardsmen as possible and only for as long as it takes to to accomplish a very limited mission and no longer. 

Lastly, if the Soldiers/Airmen in the NG are not ordered onto duty by Federal Title 10 orders (the President has declared a natural disaster and is paying them directly) as in the case of Katrina they may not show up at all.  I was 2nd in command of one disaster and I was shocked that most of the Soldiers we alerted and "told" to come in never showed up.  Turns out that unless you put them on Title 10 Federal orders they are well within their rights to not show up.  Of the few that did show up, most of them left to go home within 24-48 hours (before we could even start work) because they found out we were only paying them slightly over minimum wage (and we had no recourse to keep them).  When the state pays Soldiers (Title 32) they are being paid at a much lower rate than Federal troops get paid.  Hence, most of them will go bankrupt responding to a state disaster.  In effect, they will show up and help if they can but for most of them it is financially disadvantageous to drive all the way across the state for minimum wage.

[nobodyspecial]

And this is the reason we desperately need to increase our defense budget to buy more faster stealth fighters to counter the threat of .....

[Pooperman]

And this is the reason we desperately need to increase our defense budget to buy more faster stealth fighters to counter the threat of .....

[regulator]

As a National Guardsmen and a former employee of a first responder and disaster prevention agency for a state capital/very large city prone to natural disasters I can say that most people are overly optimistic of how much the government is going to do for them in the aftermath of natural disaster.

This should not be news to anyone in the post Katrina world we live in, but many states NG's are not able to respond in force necessary to save lives or evacuate people.  My advice is to have at least 7 days of food and drinking water available at all times...

Not shocking at all.  In addition to 7 days of food and water, a plan to get out of dodge and a destination already determined would be a good idea.

[bittheory]

If you ever call into an infomercial, which I doubt anyone on this forum ever has, or will do, you can always negotiate the sales price, especially when there's no price listed on the commercial.

When people called in, we have a "special offer" for the day, but as long as we sold the product over $50, it was profitable. We typically sold it for at least $80.

[EricL]

As a National Guardsmen and a former employee of a first responder and disaster prevention agency for a state capital/very large city prone to natural disasters I can say that most people are overly optimistic of how much the government is going to do for them in the aftermath of natural disaster.

(Snip)
Yep, all of Tat96's post is true.  I was in the NG when the LA Riots broke out.  We were issued bayonets, two magazines and 21 bullets each - and were lucky to get that.  There were several occasions where units met heavily armed gangsters.  They could do nothing legally (often the gang members weren't committing a crime at the moment) or practically.  In one instance a carload rolled up to a squad flashing automatic weapons. The Sergeant ordered his troops to "fix bayonets" which they did in unison. The gangsters drove off.

I'll expand on one of Tat96's points. The Army is reconfiguring the NG to be all support units rather than combat units.  This is great if your state NG units are medical or transportation or engineer units.  It's not so great if they're helicopter maintenance, paper pushers, etc. 

[LaineyAZ]

Records Management.  While most records staff make a valiant effort, almost all are understaffed.  That includes everywhere from big corporations to small businesses, gov't agencies, non-profits, schools, etc.
So if you have any documents that you feel you don't need to keep, like marriage certificates, property purchases or sales, divorce decrees, insurance papers, school transcripts, etc., because you think they are all being safely stored by the issuing company or agency, then please think again.  Yes, originals get lost, data gets mistakenly erased, and then you're stuck trying to recreate something, if it's even possible.  Go ahead and scan, but for critical documents please keep a paper or microfilm copy.

[nobodyspecial]

(Snip)
Yep, all of Tat96's post is true.  I was in the NG when the LA Riots broke out.  We were issued bayonets, two magazines and 21 bullets each - and were lucky to get that. 

So all those pictures of "rescue" helicopters at Katrina with troops pointing machine guns out of the open doors like a bad cliche from a Vietnam movie - weren't even loaded?

Not sure if that makes it better or worse

[PFHC]

A few small examples of the extraordinary waste that goes on in Big Oil:

• It is not uncommon for an offshore drilling rig to make more than $500,000 per day. Immediately following the big BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico that, I know of one that was making $575,000 a day, for nine months, doing absolutely nothing. That is $155,250,000 to sit there in the Gulf and float.
• I took part in a $25,000 meal that was put on for the President of a country we were working for. The President didn't show up.

[shelivesthedream]

A few small examples of the extraordinary waste that goes on in Big Oil:

• It is not uncommon for an offshore drilling rig to make more than $500,000 per day. Immediately following the big BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico that, I know of one that was making $575,000 a day, for nine months, doing absolutely nothing. That is $155,250,000 to sit there in the Gulf and float.
• I took part in a $25,000 meal that was put on for the President of a country we were working for. The President didn't show up.

How does it make money for nothing? Who's giving whom the $500k?

[Beaker]

A few small examples of the extraordinary waste that goes on in Big Oil:

• It is not uncommon for an offshore drilling rig to make more than $500,000 per day. Immediately following the big BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico that, I know of one that was making $575,000 a day, for nine months, doing absolutely nothing. That is $155,250,000 to sit there in the Gulf and float.
• I took part in a $25,000 meal that was put on for the President of a country we were working for. The President didn't show up.

How does it make money for nothing? Who's giving whom the $500k?

Drilling rigs are frequently owned by independent companies and then rented out to exploration companies or the supermajors (Big Oil). I imagine the prices he quoted are to rent the entire rig and the crew to operate it. They are expensive beasts, especially the offshore rigs.

Like any really pricey capital equipment, they tend to be booked out in advance. And they presumably have contracts, so once you've booked them you're paying for them whether you use them or not. So when the Feds put the brakes on all the Gulf development after the Deepwater Horizon debacle, whoever had rented those rigs probably got to pay for the privilege of not being legally able to use them.

At least that's my guess. I don't work in the industry, but I did marry into it and take an interest in it. If I guessed right, I wouldn't exactly call that waste. More like bad luck.

[PFHC]

A few small examples of the extraordinary waste that goes on in Big Oil:

• It is not uncommon for an offshore drilling rig to make more than $500,000 per day. Immediately following the big BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico that, I know of one that was making $575,000 a day, for nine months, doing absolutely nothing. That is $155,250,000 to sit there in the Gulf and float.
• I took part in a $25,000 meal that was put on for the President of a country we were working for. The President didn't show up.

How does it make money for nothing? Who's giving whom the $500k?

Drilling rigs are frequently owned by independent companies and then rented out to exploration companies or the supermajors (Big Oil). I imagine the prices he quoted are to rent the entire rig and the crew to operate it. They are expensive beasts, especially the offshore rigs.

Like any really pricey capital equipment, they tend to be booked out in advance. And they presumably have contracts, so once you've booked them you're paying for them whether you use them or not. So when the Feds put the brakes on all the Gulf development after the Deepwater Horizon debacle, whoever had rented those rigs probably got to pay for the privilege of not being legally able to use them.

At least that's my guess. I don't work in the industry, but I did marry into it and take an interest in it. If I guessed right, I wouldn't exactly call that waste. More like bad luck.

You're spot on. BP held their contract and was legally bound to honor it during the moratorium.

I won't argue the semantics of whether it is waste or bad luck. It simply shocks me that that kind of money is spent for nothing and big oil still reports massive profits.

[dragoncar]

A few small examples of the extraordinary waste that goes on in Big Oil:

• It is not uncommon for an offshore drilling rig to make more than $500,000 per day. Immediately following the big BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico that, I know of one that was making $575,000 a day, for nine months, doing absolutely nothing. That is $155,250,000 to sit there in the Gulf and float.
• I took part in a $25,000 meal that was put on for the President of a country we were working for. The President didn't show up.

How does it make money for nothing? Who's giving whom the $500k?

Drilling rigs are frequently owned by independent companies and then rented out to exploration companies or the supermajors (Big Oil). I imagine the prices he quoted are to rent the entire rig and the crew to operate it. They are expensive beasts, especially the offshore rigs.

Like any really pricey capital equipment, they tend to be booked out in advance. And they presumably have contracts, so once you've booked them you're paying for them whether you use them or not. So when the Feds put the brakes on all the Gulf development after the Deepwater Horizon debacle, whoever had rented those rigs probably got to pay for the privilege of not being legally able to use them.

At least that's my guess. I don't work in the industry, but I did marry into it and take an interest in it. If I guessed right, I wouldn't exactly call that waste. More like bad luck.

You're spot on. BP held their contract and was legally bound to honor it during the moratorium.

I won't argue the semantics of whether it is waste or bad luck. It simply shocks me that that kind of money is spent for nothing and big oil still reports massive profits.

It makes sense since there are capital, maintenance, and opportunity costs to consider

[acanthurus]

Can you tell me the supposed benefits of ordering a draft beer?  Around here, I've found that it's not necessarily cheaper -- it's often the same price as a similar bottle and sometimes more expensive.  Is the theory that you get a full pint vs. 12 oz bottle (this is unusual in my experience)?  Is it supposed to taste "fresher"?  Or is it really irrelevant... just get the beer you like regardless of tap/bottle.

Just asking because I've always tended to "prefer" to order something on draft, but in retrospect I don't have a logical reason.

For certain styles freshness is a big deal. I live in the south, and I can't for the life of me reliably find double IPAs at the store that haven't developed some uncharacteristic bitterness that isn't there when fresh. Most other styles are fine, but anything really hoppy I have bad luck with in bottles. A friend who homebrews/beer judges explained why to me one time and even sent me a paper on the chemical reaction I was probably tasting, but I just remember "don't buy hoppy beers in summer".

[mtn]

This thread has gone a little stale but as a noob I will chime in: 

Don't ever buy anything from grocery store deli counters.  The unsanitary food handling is epic.  Re-dating of expired product is very common.  They usually have a young staff in place who doesn't have the nerve to stand up to the crappy manager (who is making hardly anything either and will have waste counted against them).  Trust me on this.

How many grocery stores have you worked at? My brother works the deli counter at one and has nothing but good things to say in the sanitation department.

[coin]

When I worked for an internet company, one day we discovered that a nation-wide telco had a standard password for some critical network devices, so any disgruntled employee could plug in, log in, and wreck stuff if they wanted. The password was really basic (like, "secret", "password" or "god" basic), it was so dodgy. The only saving grace was that most, but not all, these devices were locked up and you needed a pretty good knowledge of networks to break things.

That said some of our standard hardware had a password that was based off the name of a famous video game villain. It's probably been changed since, but was still kinda funny how nerdy the guys in networks were.

[yakamashii]

Major theme park part-timer in high school/college. If you perform intimate acts with your significant other(s) on dark rides, you'll have a peanut gallery - most of the tracks are visible on the video monitoring systems, and word about frisky couples spreads quickly to idle operators. "OMG, it's amateur pr0n time in the control room!"

Safety features on some of the slow kiddie rides are so stringent that shutdowns and evacuations are virtually ensured when there are significant delays in loading and unloading. If you or your kids have claustrophobia or special needs, or you see a special vehicle come out to accommodate you, and the ride operators are in a rush, ask to wait out a cycle or two until things are running more smoothly. Some operators won't think twice about sending people off on a ride that is certain to break down due to the delay.

[Sibley]

This thread has gone a little stale but as a noob I will chime in: 

Don't ever buy anything from grocery store deli counters.  The unsanitary food handling is epic.  Re-dating of expired product is very common.  They usually have a young staff in place who doesn't have the nerve to stand up to the crappy manager (who is making hardly anything either and will have waste counted against them).  Trust me on this.

Never get the salads. Stick with commonly purchased meats/cheeses only. And if you're going to buy fancy prepackaged items, you want them frozen or at a store that sells a lot of that sort of thing.

[forummm]

The manager at one deli came from at least 2 other deli manager jobs at different chains and bragged about re-dating product, especially cheese "it is just a date, it is cheese for chrissakes!"  She also liked to soak unsold fried chicken in buckets of water overnight, and we had to pull the meat off the bone the next morning to make chicken salad to sell.   

A lot of the dates on food are essentially meaningless--especially shelf-stable items. Most cheese will last almost forever (the original point of cheese was to preserve milk) in a refrigerated environment. They may eventually get moldy, but you can just cut off the mold (and the mold may not even be harmful--some cheeses are designed to have mold in them as part of the taste). Raw meats will spoil, but even then they can (not always) be safe to eat if cooked (they may just taste/smell terrible).

Was the fried chicken being chilled while soaked in water? If so, it was probably fine as long as the container and water were clean.

Did you ever notice that the cooked rotisserie chicken at the grocery store is often cheaper than buying a raw bird of the same size? That's because they take the past-sell-by birds that don't sell and cook them up for you. It's totally fine (and delicious).

Here's a decent summary of what those dates on food mean: http://99percentinvisible.org/episodes/episode/best-enjoyed-by/

[rantk81]

Probably not a "secret" to many others who write software, but....

A lot of software is written TERRIBLY.  Sometimes a project has 95% superfluous code that does absolutely nothing useful, and simply acts as a layer to other code.  Sometimes there are dozens of these "layers" as different groups of a large team try to assert their dominance/importance in the project.  Often times, even the better developers on a large software project will have no idea what large portions of the code does.

[Slow&Steady]

Make up and RX drugs are often considered HAZARDOUS waste.  Don't light that cigarette too close to your face!

[Elliot]

Hazmat doesn't always imply flammability.

[Pooperman]

Probably not a "secret" to many others who write software, but....

A lot of software is written TERRIBLY.  Sometimes a project has 95% superfluous code that does absolutely nothing useful, and simply acts as a layer to other code.  Sometimes there are dozens of these "layers" as different groups of a large team try to assert their dominance/importance in the project.  Often times, even the better developers on a large software project will have no idea what large portions of the code does.

This is true even if there are one or two developers.

[Spork]

Probably not a "secret" to many others who write software, but....

A lot of software is written TERRIBLY.  Sometimes a project has 95% superfluous code that does absolutely nothing useful, and simply acts as a layer to other code.  Sometimes there are dozens of these "layers" as different groups of a large team try to assert their dominance/importance in the project.  Often times, even the better developers on a large software project will have no idea what large portions of the code does.

This is true even if there are one or two developers.

While the lack of quality is often true.  The layers actually serve a real purpose other than to assert dominance.  Layered approaches and clear/stable APIs do have some real design benefits.  It makes it easy to break things down into manageable chunks and (if the APIs were done well) it makes updating one portion of the code possible without breaking other portions.

[Slow&Steady]

Hazmat doesn't always imply flammability.

Hazardous waste is not the same thing as hazardous materials (hazmat) and most makeup that is considered hazardous waste is flammable.

Edited to add: I just realized that maybe that was your secret and not in response to my secret.  If that is the case, I agree.  Hazmat can be so many different things besides flammability.

[retired?]

A few small examples of the extraordinary waste that goes on in Big Oil:

• It is not uncommon for an offshore drilling rig to make more than $500,000 per day. Immediately following the big BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico that, I know of one that was making $575,000 a day, for nine months, doing absolutely nothing. That is $155,250,000 to sit there in the Gulf and float.
• I took part in a $25,000 meal that was put on for the President of a country we were working for. The President didn't show up.

How does it make money for nothing? Who's giving whom the $500k?

Drilling rigs are frequently owned by independent companies and then rented out to exploration companies or the supermajors (Big Oil). I imagine the prices he quoted are to rent the entire rig and the crew to operate it. They are expensive beasts, especially the offshore rigs.

Like any really pricey capital equipment, they tend to be booked out in advance. And they presumably have contracts, so once you've booked them you're paying for them whether you use them or not. So when the Feds put the brakes on all the Gulf development after the Deepwater Horizon debacle, whoever had rented those rigs probably got to pay for the privilege of not being legally able to use them.

At least that's my guess. I don't work in the industry, but I did marry into it and take an interest in it. If I guessed right, I wouldn't exactly call that waste. More like bad luck.

You're spot on. BP held their contract and was legally bound to honor it during the moratorium.

I won't argue the semantics of whether it is waste or bad luck. It simply shocks me that that kind of money is spent for nothing and big oil still reports massive profits.

profit margins in percent terms are fairly low in energy.  The $ amount is large since these companies and their operations are huge.

[retired?]

A few small examples of the extraordinary waste that goes on in Big Oil:

• It is not uncommon for an offshore drilling rig to make more than $500,000 per day. Immediately following the big BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico that, I know of one that was making $575,000 a day, for nine months, doing absolutely nothing. That is $155,250,000 to sit there in the Gulf and float.
• I took part in a $25,000 meal that was put on for the President of a country we were working for. The President didn't show up.

How does it make money for nothing? Who's giving whom the $500k?

Drilling rigs are frequently owned by independent companies and then rented out to exploration companies or the supermajors (Big Oil). I imagine the prices he quoted are to rent the entire rig and the crew to operate it. They are expensive beasts, especially the offshore rigs.

Like any really pricey capital equipment, they tend to be booked out in advance. And they presumably have contracts, so once you've booked them you're paying for them whether you use them or not. So when the Feds put the brakes on all the Gulf development after the Deepwater Horizon debacle, whoever had rented those rigs probably got to pay for the privilege of not being legally able to use them.

At least that's my guess. I don't work in the industry, but I did marry into it and take an interest in it. If I guessed right, I wouldn't exactly call that waste. More like bad luck.

You're spot on. BP held their contract and was legally bound to honor it during the moratorium.

I won't argue the semantics of whether it is waste or bad luck. It simply shocks me that that kind of money is spent for nothing and big oil still reports massive profits.

profit margins in percent terms are fairly low in energy.  The $ amount is large since these companies and their operations are huge.

[JLR]

I used to work at a supermarket and was horrified by the way the produce department was run. I saw the manager spray flyspray over all the fruits to kill little flying insects. Always wash your fruit!

And at night a job for the checkout staff was to pick the mats up off the floor and lay them upside down over the potatoes to keep the light off them and make them last longer. So, whatever had been trekked into the produce department on people's feet during the day ended up on the potatoes at night.