45 People Are Sharing Common Knowledge Facts They Learned From Their Jobs, and We’ll Never Think of These Professions the Same Way Again

The next time we go to Starbucks, we’re definitely bringing a color wheel to aid us in ordering our coffee, so we end up with just the right amount of caffeine.

A Reddit user kindly elaborated on this common knowledge amongst baristas by saying, “The reason dark roasts taste bitter is not because it has more caffeine, but because it’s burnt and that’s just how ash-water tastes. Heat destroys caffeine, so darker roasts have the least caffeine of all.”

Well, we know what kind of deli we’re going to next! Really, this makes perfect sense as the mom-and-pop type stores’ employees will likely care more about the place, know the customers personally, and simply have more time to clean.

Regarding the latter bit, that’s not a dig at supermarket employees — we’re just saying they’re under a lot more pressure to move customers along quickly. People who go to smaller shops, however, usually don’t mind chatting with the staff while they wait for their purchase to be ready.

Okay, we know you’re probably thinking, ‘Thanks for the knowledge, but I’m not going to walk around with toothpaste in my mouth all day,’ but hear us out! The trick is to still spit out the excess toothpaste, just don’t use more water to do it.

No, you won’t have toothpaste dripping out of your mouth that way, and there’s really no difference in taste than when you brush your teeth and then rinse. Try it once and see!

Before anyone gets upset at this one, we’d like to remind them that the OP wasn’t talking about working in an expensive five-star restaurant.

Truthfully, if you’re opting for fast food, you should be aware that it’s not going to be particularly fresh, healthy, or even sanitary — depending on the place. If you just need something quick and cheap while you’re on the go, this is what it is. Let’s all save ourselves the trouble of pretending it’s going to be fresh.

Fun fact — Webster’s dictionary is updated annually and is completely revised every 10 to 12 years. This makes total sense, as not only does the way people use certain words change, but the world evolves too, forcing us to come up with new terms for things.

Only recently, words like ‘metaverse,’ ‘laggy,’ and ‘terraform’ needed to be added to our vocabulary. We’re sure that soon Pete Davidson will become an official definition for people who inexplicably routinely date people way out of their league.

We’ve all seen those job offers with absurd requirements — “Must be 30 years old but never need to take time off to see their kids. Needs to have two college degrees and 20 years of experience (but still be below the age of 40) and be willing to work for minimum wage.”

That’s never the end of it, though, is it? “Is required to never need a bathroom break, take a sick day, or be human. Must smile at all times!” Um, maybe we’ll just stay unemployed.

Now that we know this, it actually seems incredibly obvious. The last thing that someone needs in a fire emergency is to go around looking for the keys, or debating about who had them last. In fact, the same policy is used for military vehicles, for the very same reason.

Of course, you then run the risk of someone stealing such vehicles and causing mayhem. Perhaps that’s why this was an industry secret… until now.

This OP added to their tidbit, “Too much tension in those muscles makes them act like a corset and prevents you from breathing deeply.” That explains panic attacks and the sensation of feeling tight in one’s chest.

If you do find that you’re having trouble breathing due to anxiety, just remember the 333 rule. Look around to identify three objects, then focus on three sounds, and finally move three body parts. This method should help ground you, allowing you to breathe normally again.

As one Reddit user so aptly put it, “Five hours of trial and error can save you 10 min of reading the instructions.” Really, women tend to give men a hard time for refusing to ask for directions when navigating because, seriously, your manhood won’t fall off if you admit you’re lost!

That said, we’re all guilty of thinking we’re too good to read the instruction manual. And we all end up resorting to it several hours — and headaches — later anyway.

Our first recommendation, by far, is to not commit crimes. If you can’t help yourself, though, our next piece of advice would be to find a lawyer based on their actual skillset — rather than your assumptions of their talent based on their price.

As for the fact that these defense attorneys don’t have repeat clients, we guess that’s a good thing. Either those people have stopped committing crimes, or they’re in prison and deserve to be there. Whichever it is, we’ll take it!

The OP went on to say that people really don’t understand how serious large vehicles are. They continued, “Don’t hang around too close to us either, even something as simple as one of our tires blowing up can kill/seriously injure you by itself or cause us to completely lose control of our rigs if it’s a steer tire.”

It turns out that people who get freaked out driving behind a truck aren’t so superstitious, after all — their instincts are legitimately telling them something.

Selling plants this way makes the shrub in question more affordable and accessible to customers. Rather than the store needing to wait for each seed to grow, they can have a plant ready for sale in just a few weeks.

Furthermore, this method ensures that each variety of vegetation will be the same since seeds are genetically distinct. So, if you want a plant with specific qualities the mother plant has, it’s best to use cuttings rather than trying to grow the same exact thing with seeds.

While we completely understand what the OP is saying, we have to respectfully disagree with the implication that there’s no worthwhile expertise involved in IT.

Knowing how to weed through the millions of answers on Google, which ones to try, which are totally bogus, and how to implement said advice without making things worse, is a skill — and not everyone has it. We appreciate the OP’s humility, but they should really give themselves more credit.

Fashion magazines are a bit of a chicken and an egg situation. Is something trending because people saw it on a bunch of fashion sites? Or is the trend on fashion sites because everyone’s been wearing it lately? Well, it looks like we have our answer to this age-old question.

Truthfully, that would explain how horrible fads like Crocs ever came to be. Or crop tops — trust us, no woman ever thought to herself, “Wow, I’d love to feel insecure every single time I sit down!”

Some things just aren’t worth trying to save money on, because it’ll likely cost you more in the long run. For example, if you try to get a cheap cosmetic procedure, you’ll end up spending way more attempting to fix it.

Or if you don’t want to spend too much on good-quality shoes every few years, you’ll find yourself paying for low-quality shoes every few months. And, as the OP points out, cars are one of those things that just isn’t worth being frugal about.

Now we understand why some people allow the plants outside their houses to become overgrown and wild, creating the look of the place being haunted. Not only are the plants apparently a great security system, but who would want to break into a haunted house?

Normally, our advice would be to grow as much shrubbery around your property as possible — and convince the neighbors you’re a witch. However, seeing as how no one can afford to buy a house in this market, it seems like a moot point.

When watching any kind of movie, it’s best not to believe that it’s 100% true — especially if you’re watching Netflix’s Cleopatra documentary. That being said, some bank heist films are more realistic than others.

According to former bank robber Cain Vincent Dyer’s YouTube video, the most accurate films are Dog Day Afternoon, The Town, and Cherry. The least true-to-life is, by far, the series Money Heist, which is also from Netflix.

There are a lot of jobs in which you can just learn as you go and it’s completely fine. Work that involves driving a large vehicle when other people are around, though, shouldn’t fit into that category.

It’s also worth adding that forklift driving doesn’t require different levels of certification. Meaning, if you’re qualified to drive a small forklift in a department store, then you’re allowed to drive a large one at a construction site too. Yikes!

This morbid, albeit somewhat confusing, tidbit was clarified in the post’s comments. The OP explained that they’ve witnessed two heart attacks at events in hotel atriums, so that makes a bit more sense.

As for the number of people passing away in hotel rooms, that’s largely due to over-usage of various substances while partying. Another reason is that if someone has tragically chosen to end their life, they tend to do the deed in a hotel.

Another professional voiced a similar frustration to the OP’s, saying, “​​Same with heat. My tenants just can’t seem to figure out how heating works.”

They continued, “They’ve got warm water radiators. They shut them off when they leave a room and then complain about the flat being cold. They go into a room, turn them on, then leave the room half an hour later and shut them off again.” Well, it turns out that we’ve been using the AC wrong this whole time. So, we’re still sweaty and also broke!

We’re going to add a caveat here and say that some legitimate professionals do use TikTok to educate people. However, the vast majority of these TikTok videos are created by random influencers who have no idea what they’re talking about and are trying desperately to go viral.

If you want to get serious life advice from a social media site, at least check that the creator of the clip is an expert in the subject first and that they’re genuinely trying to help people rather than just become internet famous.

We’re going to add to this that the idea of your teacher failing you because they “hate” you is completely misinformed. Like with any other career that deals with people, there’s a moral element that most professionals will adhere to.

Even if not, it’s a lot more work on the teacher’s part to fail a student, rather than just fudge a passing grade. So, if your educator gave you a poor grade, you deserved it and they couldn’t ethically boost your score any further.

Our brains believe the OP, but our taste buds insist that this person is lying. We swear those “fresh” baked goods taste better from the bakery than when we defrost them ourselves!

Now that we have this information, we’d like to propose a theory that all food is tastier when someone else prepares it. Something in the act of making your own meal strips it of its flavor. Do any scientists want to run an experiment on this?

People who have been to Japan often insist that the sushi there tastes completely different than that of American restaurants. One of the reasons for this could be that they don’t flash freeze the fish in Japan, as it’s believed that ruins the quality of the food and alters the texture.

Furthermore, Americanized sushi has all sorts of crazy additions and combinations. In Japan, though, the dish is simply fresh fish, rice, and vegetables.

It seems that most professionals turn to Google, regardless of what the field is or how trained they are in their careers. In all fairness, why try to learn everything yourself when there’s tons of information from those who came before you?

It’s not like your lawyer is getting your entire case from Google. They just use the search engine as a starting point and then tailor that information to your specific situation.

We imagine that the first person who tried the rice trick was basing it off a method photographers used in the ‘90s. When filming in tropical climates, it was advised for professionals to store their camera equipment with silica gel desiccant to protect it from humidity.

Or, in the DIY version, they used uncooked rice instead. While it’s unclear how effective that particular method was, preventing damage from water in the air isn’t exactly the same as fixing a device that’s completely soaked.

The only way to truly protect your privacy is to go live in the middle of the woods somewhere, without any technology, and even then Big Brother would probably still find out if they really cared to look.

Some people think using a VPN solves the problem, but that’s not really true. A VPN hides what you’re doing from your ISP and Wi-Fi providers, but the website or app you’re using knows that you’re there.

As much as AI seems new and mysterious, it’s been around much longer than you’d think. The very first AI wasn’t properly credited as artificial intelligence, because the term wasn’t coined yet. However, back in the 1950s, John Von Neumann and Alan Turing created the technology that AI is based on.

Furthermore, many people argue that country officials receive new AI long before it’s released to the public, and they cherry-pick which artificial intelligence we know about. Decide for yourself whether or not you believe that.

This sentiment holds true for all professionals. For some reason, people seem to think that if you work in a certain career, you have all the information related to that job right at the tip of your tongue.

No, language teachers cannot read your mind and figure out what word you’re trying to remember. A mental health professional will not diagnose your cousin’s friend’s ex-boyfriend based on your description of them. And, no — a chef doesn’t know every single recipe under the sun by heart.

Truthfully, this holds true for any place that’s open to the public. As gross as this idea may seem, keep in mind that we’re subjected to other people’s germs all the time and yet we survive.

Nobody’s washing the clothes you try on in a store’s changing room. No one is wiping down the bus seat between rides. Don’t even get us started on door handles or park benches! Really, just live your life, enjoy, and always carry hand sanitizer with you.

Another professional added to the OP’s point — and our fear of flying — by saying, “There is no such thing as a perfectly functioning aircraft. Every plane you fly on has a multitude of maintenance issues, just not severe enough to affect the safety of flight.”

Is anyone else reminded of that episode of Friends in which Phoebe successfully grounded a plane by insisting that there was a problem with the left phalange?

Given the recent trend of people using art museums as locations for demonstrations, we can understand why these places don’t trust the general public with priceless pieces.

Another reason is that a lot of the artwork is extremely fragile and can only be exposed to the conditions of the museum (such as light) for limited periods of time. Furthermore, some art needs to be restored before it can be properly displayed. Either way, there’s even more beauty in a museum than what you see.

If the idea of an elevator rapidly falling down — or up — terrifies you, allow this Reddit user to put your mind at ease. “The counterweights are generally countering the weight to a pretty close tolerance, so it won’t dramatically accelerate. Ever notice walking into an elevator and it moves up a couple of millimeters? That was it adding more weight to the counterweight.”

Another kind soul added, “There has never been a fatal accident caused by an elevator falling and crashing. Elevators have had safety brakes since 1852.”

The OP went on to suggest that companies should “destroy their disks on decommission instead of just formatting them.” Another person advised, “You need to write random data there, at least twice to have any sort of certainty.”

In general, we recommend that people assume anything they put on the internet will be there, in some way or another, forever. That’s why it’s so important to be so selective about what you put online. The internet doesn’t forget, and neither does cancel culture — just ask Kevin Hart.

Anyone who deals with children knows that how they react to falling down or bumping into something is largely dependent on how the adults around them behave. If the kid sees their parent panicked and hysterical, they’ll begin to cry.

If the parent assures the child that they’re okay and can continue playing, the kid will move on. As the OP put it, “Children look to their parents for guidance to learn about what is and isn’t ‘safe.’”

With this in mind, if you want to have your dream hair color in time for a specific occasion, we recommend that you start quite a few months ahead of time — maybe even a year depending on how dramatic of a change you want.

Also, it’s not worth trying to use home box dyes or a cheaper stylist who may not know what they’re doing. That’ll cost you way more money and time in the long run. Just leave this one to the experts.

Apparently, there’s a saying in the music world that goes, “It’s a fiddle when you’re playing it, and it’s a violin when you’re trying to sell it.” Although we prefer this Reddit user’s comment, “A violin becomes a fiddle when it comes within 30 feet of a banjo.”

In all seriousness, though, musicians who prefer to play fiddle-style music rather than violin-style tend to use an instrument with a flattened bridge so they can hit more strings at once. However, that’s at the discretion of the individual.

Believe it or not — it’s far from rare for a manufacturer to alter their product so that consumers will perceive it as more valuable. For example, soap doesn’t need to foam in order to work.

However, when people don’t see soap suds, they think they’re not actually getting cleaned, so companies add the foam in. Really, it’s our own fault that we don’t have faster-loading pages or soap that doesn’t hurt when we get it in our eyes.

We wish we’d known this before we angrily wrote a message cursing out the chat support person, without any intention of sending it, but just because we needed to get it out of our systems.

In hindsight, though, this explains how live chat support agents always answer our questions so quickly — sometimes seemingly immediately after we’ve hit ‘send.’ Dear customer service representative, we’re sorry, we don’t really want you to be forced to watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians until the end of time.

Despite the fact that mice and rats are interchangeable in our minds, they’re actually very different animals. It’s kind of like how no one can really see the difference between Margot Robbie and Jaime Pressly but we’ve been advised that they really are two separate people.

As it turns out, not only are rats more cautious than mice, but they’re also far more intelligent. Undoubtedly, there’s a correlation between being smart and being anxious.

Some people look down on certain types of jobs, but we’d argue that these professionals have got it figured out! No student loans, learning practical skills, and making more money than many people with corner offices.

That’s not to bash anyone who has a different kind of career, we’re just saying that there’s value in any honest work and all professions should be respected. The OP may not wear a suit to work, but they can keep their bathroom from flooding, which is more than we can say.

As frustrating as it is to use an app that’s buggy, release dates are pretty difficult to move and sometimes you simply can’t get all the kinks worked out in time.

That’s not to say that developers can’t work on the app after it’s been released, fix the bugs, and then offer users an update. But, as the OP said, as long as the app still works, it’s not worth delaying things.

We’re certainly not medical experts ourselves, so we’ll allow this Reddit user to explain what they mean.

“The heart is contracting, but ineffectively (an arrhythmia, it’s basically lethally uncoordinated) and therefore not pumping any oxygenated blood to the body. Which equals death before too long. So the idea is to stop the heart so it’ll reset itself to a normal rhythm.” So, basically the human version of ‘turn it off and then on again.’

This tidbit is especially important to know as if you’re expecting drowning to look the way it does in movies, someone could be right next to you, need your help, and you wouldn’t even know it.

Here are the real signs of drowning, and not the Hollywood version — head low in the water, tilted back, with mouth open. Eyes closed or open but glassy/unfocused. The person is vertical in the water but not using their hands or legs. Sometimes, they’ll be gasping or panicking, but that’s not always the case.

It’s always a good policy to treat human beings like, well, human beings. First of all, as the OP pointed out, it’s likely that someone understands you — even if they can’t respond.

Second, even if they don’t necessarily comprehend your words, people can feel energy, tone, and body language. Third, even if you’re not being understood in any way whatsoever, what about yourself? Don’t you want to be a person who treats everyone with dignity?