What would you say if you could be completely honest about your job? Would you share all the dirty secrets and things your boss or management would never want the public to know? People in this online thread had the opportunity to spill all the hot tea about their jobs and they didn't hold back.

Internet user asked: "Blanket NDAs Are Now Illegal, What Can You Finally Tell Us About Your Former Employer?" and it led to some very interesting answers which show why NDAs are even a thing. From not talking about your paychecks to horribly treated employees, you can find anything among the answers. Perhaps you will even find some stories very relatable.

#1

They ignored shut down mandates during covid and then lied about it underoath and the judge overseeing the case still sided with them despite providing evidence they had done so on both counts.

There is no justice in this country. There's just corporations and everyone else.

Image credits: nevertoomuchthought

#2

They tried to get me to sign one when I retired but I just laughed at them and walked out. When you retire you are not under any circumstances required to sign an NDA!!!

Image credits: Tede6977

#3

Two different places I worked created roles for minorities with a plan to not retain them so they can hire more minorities to satisfy quotas. If you were any good, they would promote you to a real job and hire another minority. Someone in HR told me “the reports only show how many the company hires, not how many they keep.”

Image credits: azlmichael

#4

My separation agreement ends today so. Sorry about it guys. ??‍♀️ I'm 36; 35 at the time.

Abercrombie and Fitch home office.

They knew their boardwalk was dangerous (I didn't). People had been slipping and falling on it for years. Then Me happened. I slipped and fell, which caused an L1 burst fracture. I ended up needing urgent surgery to fuse T11-L3 in order to stabilize the fracture. I was hospitalized for 8 days and out of work for 5mo. They are self insured basically meaning that they administrate their own worker's comp stuff, not the state. They f****d it all up so comically badly. They made my life a living hell on top of it being an actual living hell because of the horrific pain I was in due to injury and surgery. I had to quit my side job as a server, expenses skyrocketed, and I was isolated and financially devastated as a result of the accident. And I cannot stress enough how incompetent the claim administrator assigned to my case was - if she could screw it up, she did.

Their people talked a lot of s**t to my attorney about how badly they wanted me to come back. I had another job offer during that time that I passed up on as a result. Then on January 20, they informed me that "my position was eliminated due to a reduced budget" after record breaking profits. And so they threw me out like trash.

I'm left with PTSD, daily pain, and a rigid spine full of titanium that never needed to happen. And they f*****g fired me, which we are all absolutely certain was not retaliation in any way shape or form.

So. That's my honest review. Blessedly I start my new job on 4/10 so I won't have too much of a gap in my pay schedule to make me homeless. F**k everything that entire f*****g company lets slip out their lips.

Image credits: noodLLESS

#5

I discretely took my NDA (I was in charge of them) when I left. My boss is a f*****g b***h and not even her kids can stand her. That is all.

Image credits: Driftwood1884

#6

They layed off 160 people so they could afford to give the COO a 30% raise.

Image credits: 30andhurty

#7

They misused pandemic assistance funds.

Image credits: Quercus408

#8

I worked for a great Fintech start-up that got acquired by another company that was pretending to be a Fintech, but was actually a private equity company that would buy and gut competition. The owner of the new company is a real life billionaire villain. He bought an island and cut off beach access to the locals. A real piece of s**t.

My team wasn't touched in the acquisition because we were deploying the product to the customers, so we were the ones that brought in the revenue. At one point, the new owner was a huge twat to my awesome boss. At that point we started a mass exodus. 90% of the team left in the next 2 months. This killed a $10M project and set the f****r's acquisition goals back by years.

Image credits: Fandorin

#9

I worked for a school district that changed grades to boost graduation rates.

Image credits: RoscoeFreidland

#10

The filtered water dispenser in the cafeteria produced floaty chunks of goodness for too long a time. I had to drink bottled water.

Image credits: Outrigger047

#11

I unlocked the file cabinet, took my NDA along with the whole stack of NDA’s and shredded them. I never told anyone. I just didn’t want anyone else to be hurt by the horrible company I was working for if they did end up saying something. I was able to save a patients life by speaking out. The company was going to sue me but never did. The lady I saved sends me a $50 gift card for a local grocery store every Christmas. She sends it anonymous but I know its her because she’s the only one I know in that city where it’s sent from.

#12

If you have an Apple credit card, your personal info is not safe. I watched managers save customers info into their personal phones to connect with them on socials if their income was over a certain amount. If you were rude to customer service, your personal info was blasted into a group chat where other managers would look you up on social media and make fun of you. And this took place at VERY high levels of management, like operations manager level.

Image credits: shhhofia

#13

He's actually a really nice guy. Former marine, took about 6 months off when he adopted a young boy to get him acclimated into the family

Image credits: ThisAnswerIsLit

#14

A big gym in the north east of the USA used to be a local favorite until they made big moves and went public

It used to be run by cool people who loved fitness and they hired people from big corporations like the oil industry to run certain parts for going public

Everything went to s**t. First internally and then soon after a few years I think the company was sold into a lesser thing that it originally was

Image credits: typesett

#15

we had a client, who sold himself as a technical consultant. he was completely inept guy, whose only skill was to wow non-technical people by dropping technical jargon, most of it he didn't even understand what it meant.

he had couple of clients, who apparently had given him a blank check to take care of any IT problem they would have. this guy would invent emergencies, then have a lot of 'work' done on his behalf. I'm pretty sure this was driven by him realizing at the end of the month that he couldn't afford all the expensive s**t he was into, so once again our phone rings and he asks to look at something completely useless.

his customers adored him as he was smooth talker, dressed nicely and had a lot of good references, unfortunately from other people he was borderline or totally conning.

Image credits: aamurusko79

#16

“yOu CaN’t DiScUsS yOuR wAgEs.”

B***h, we all knew you were hiring people at a higher wage than people who had been there for years and had more qualifications.

Image credits: PeteGraffe

#17

Barclays would refund those charges for exceeding your overdraft if it was clear you had a good income or decent savings. But they’d enforce those charges on the poor single mothers who were struggling to live.

Image credits: kitjen

#18

The weather forecasting company I worked at a while back didn’t actually forecast. They just copy/pasted products from the National Weather Service and slapped their logo on it.

Image credits: freesedevon

#19

One of my old bosses reprimanded an employee after the employee called HR to file a complaint about him. This is because the HR employee happened to be a friend of the boss in question, and the HR employee blabbed about it to the boss. The boss did not get fired but he did get reassigned not long after. Not sure what happened to the HR employee.

Image credits: NotConsistentCalc

#20

Our sales department deliberately used deceptively vague language when selling extremely expensive travel packages to disabled passengers.


They routinely left caregivers stranded with no accommodation other than “the floor” or sleeping in the same bed as their patients. They also routinely failed to provide accessible bathrooms for disabled passengers. They also lost/damaged wheelchairs and mobility aids. There was little to no sympathy for these passengers and their caregivers when they rightly complained.

When I tried to raise the issue with higher ups I was labelled a trouble maker. I left the company back in 2019 but I know nothing has changed in regards to sales. The price for the cheapest trip offered was over 2k cnd per person for a two day trip. The average booking was 8k for a 5 day holiday. They charge much more now.

Can you imagine paying 8 thousand dollars and not being able to shower, or your mobility aid being lost. Then when you complain you are told you were never promised anything only “we will do our best” or “that shouldn’t be a problem!”

F*****g disgraceful.

Image credits: moodychurchill

#21

Not an employer but a client had my company sign a NDA to never reveal his personal life. One of the worlds most well know financial guys worth 10’s of billions.

Anyhow tear down and rebuild he and his wife’s personal home. Demoing her bathroom and huge black very real looking dildo falls from the top of her vanity cabinet. The timing was such that she walked in right at that moment. Everyone looked at it and then her.

She says “well x doesn’t f**k me anymore” she picks it up and kisses it. Walks out.

Image credits: quicktojudgemyself

#22

I worked for the political consultant best known in DC circles for having gotten a dead fish in the mail from Rahm Emanuel.

The consultant was a super weird boss. Full of shady business practices, including expensing all of his personal s**t like family vacations to the business.

But this is the story that tends to blow minds:

My former employer had me print out his emails so he could handwrite his responses, which I would type up and send back.

ETA: no, I wasn't his assistant lol. He was too cheap to hire one. So he'd pull people off time sensitive client projects to do this c**p, which turned everything into chaos. One of the many reasons turnover was high and the business failed.

Image credits: rotatingruhnama

#23

A publication I worked for completely embezzled from the parent company. The editor in chief hired their best friend as creative director. Creative director contracts their husband as a “men’s fashion editor” when the publication had no men’s fashion section and was not a fashion-related pub. He was paid thousands monthly on retainer and almost never came into the office, and if he did he never did any work. On top of that he was paid usage fees for travel images he took and were printed. That family took a one week trip for a story, brought their child, and submitted a $40,000.00 expense report after for it. Oh, then there were the future invoices for her husband’s usage fees for his photos, while they were being paid to be there because it was for a story.

Other editors in chief from other publications were given a $25,000.00 clothing budget every year and a daily black car driver to take them to the office. When I worked for another title in the building that EIC submitted a very high expense report which included his groceries. The company would even provide interest free down payments to EICs for homes but they stopped doing that.


Meanwhile they ran multiple rounds of layoffs a year, consolidated staffs so they worked across multiple titles, and paid peanuts to regular employees. I was laid off from that company twice within 2 years and they didn’t vest my 401K match because both times I missed the cutoff by months.

Image credits: The_RoyalPee

#24

A window and siding company in the Midwest, not Renewal By Anderson.

They will inspect the work that needs done, come up with a number for the work. Add a grotesque amount to that number. Then, offer you 'discounts' to get closer to the actual amount to make it seem like you're getting a great deal. If they tell you they'll give you the "manager discount as a one time courtesy" to 'sweeten the deal' it's b******t.

For example, say they quote you at 35k for the job, but can drop it down to 15k after discounts and specials, 10k if they do the manager discount, 10k is the actual true amount for the work and the discounts are b******t fluff.

They also brag about being rated A+ with the BBB. That's only because they exploit a loophole with keeping that score with the BBB. You can be a s**t hole of a business and be A+ as long as you acknowledge customer complaints and have written proof you did whether you actually resolved it or not. Just have to acknowledge the complaints.

They claim a lifetime warranty on all of their windows and siding, however, will only honor the warranty if they can gain from it. An example being, a customer I worked with had his window broken during a storm. He called them to come out and said they could replace the window... However, they would be charged to repair the frame itself as it was damaged. I inspected the frame, it was pristine. The window got hit with a branch and only broke a single pane. They're a scummy f*****g business.

#25

That the founder is purposely bankrupting the companies so no inheritance will be left to the family

#26

I worked a few years as a recruiting manager for a large staffing company. They do not respect employment law. They hire minorities with the anticipation to let them go a few weeks later after they get credit for hiring X amount of minorities.

They are incredibly sexist. Most companies would explicitly say they only wanted men even though we had women better qualified.

Most times, they will lie about a job being temp to hire in 90 days because they have to fill the positions or risk losing the customer.

I was criticized for treating my employees as humans and not numbers. I stayed in contact with them, would find them other placements, and if I knew a layoff was coming, I would let them know so they weren't blindsided.

Anyone who came in looking for work but was "over qualified" I wasn't allowed to place. I was also criticized for placing an amazing woman who was trans. My boss lost her mind.

I believe that right is right and wrong is wrong. We need to be good to others and give people chances!

#27

The old timers at the pharmaceutical plant used to go swimming in the tanks they used to make medicine in the summer when it was hot out.

Yep, there was old man balls in some of those pills.

This was a name brand pharma company too. One you’d expect to have good quality.

It doesn’t happen anymore obviously.

#28

They intentionally had a creative meeting, scouted and booked people with down’s syndrome with the sole purpose of ‘1 up’ing’ a rival brand who booked people in wheelchairs for a catalogue shoot.

The more messed up part - most of the discussion was cantered around what mental disability was physically obvious on camera, to appeal to mothers, while laughing about ‘how will [rival brand] top that!’

Sadly, this goes for all xyz rights or movements out there

#29

They bought back a shitload of shares from employees under the pretense of “we know the extra cash is better now than later!” and then went public shortly thereafter.

The bonus is that the CEO then admitted he was using “some” of that money to finance his divorce.

#30

I worked at the food production plant that makes all your fast food fries. Do NOT ever eat curly fries, the line does not go down long enough to fully clean, that batter is a week old on that line and covered in ground germs, and we're still picking off golf balls and sprinklers heads up until packaging. And I AM talking about Arby's and Jack in the Box.

#31

I worked at this company where I did marketing. This was a really small business with only about 10 employees. Most of the work I did was on a laptop that would constantly shut down. It got to the point where I would have a panic attack because I would lose an hour of work. It would shut off every 15 minutes, and instead of just buying me a new laptop, they would try to have geek squad look at it but they would never solve anything.

Long story short, I ended up getting laid off because I guess they didn’t like me complaining about how I couldn’t get my work done. They had a previous person who got laid off and was writing horrible reviews. So due to this, they threatened me and said if I say anything about the company, they would come after me.

I know now that was completely illegal as you are able to legally express your opinion about the company and you can’t get in trouble if you say “I believe” or “I felt.” I’m convinced the manager and his wife were probably doing illegal stuff honestly. They were also one of those companies that acted like everyone was a “big family” which I didn’t realize until later in my career was a red flag.

#32

They were reusing butter from customers plates and giving it to the next person.

Edit: I did report them and got fired. Because of wait times during COVID, the statute of limitations passed and they got away with it.

#33

My engineering firm knew how to “fudge” gps tracing data that they reported to clients to prove we were onsite.

#34

They bribed customers with gift cards to give the company 5 star reviews. I now don’t trust any reviews.

#35

All City of Chicago employees, no matter how minor or entry level, have to take anti-corruption training. I was a library page (bookshelver) and my training included scenarios like, "A patron offers you tickets to the White Sox game in place of paying for a book they lost, what do you do?"

#36

I worked for a company that f****d up itself by biting off more than it could chew, and then a competitor went under, which flooded the market and f****d over the company I worked for even more

Most of the company has been laid off by now

CEO went before anyone else

The new CEO?

*the same f*****g s****y CEO that sunk their competitor*

Who the f**k would see a competitor fail, have it nearly take themselves down too, and then hire the same f*****g idiot a few weeks later

#37

Ever find out in statewide news that your employer ****ed you out of a massive bonus?

9.5 years ago, the company I worked for at the time was sold. The former owner set aside what averaged to $20,000 per employee as a gift to everyone working there at the time. State wide news reported on it, citing the dollar figure and saying it was "scaled by years of service." This was how most of us found out about the bonus.

The next day, most of us received $100-$350 bonuses. Mine was 1/70th what I was supposed to get. Now, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, but what the hell, right? A few people rolled in with 6 figure vehicles over the next two weeks. This was also after many of us worked ridiculous unpaid overtime for the previous year. And raises were 0% for the year. Oh, and the "profit sharing" annual bonus was a fraction of the previous years' because executive management changed the way the metrics were calculated. So, they put out a story about philanthropy and screwed us all out of tens of thousands.

If you think that's bad, the company did something 100x worse a few years later. I won't share that one, too identifying. Glad I don't work there anymore, and most of the executives probably already have a large pit reserved for them in hell

#38

The president put the embezzled money into a separate account called "Advertising"

#39

That one secret bra store’s secret is that when they measure people for bras, they tell them an off the wall size that only they sell. Like 32DDD. So many people came in and said “you’re the only one who has my size!”

#40

I don't believe I ever actually signed an NDA despite the fact that I should have. I can say with full honesty that I ran at Will Smith once while brandishing two knives.

The production company that did "Concussion" (2015) did a company buyout of a haunted house I was working at for a wrap party. Will only came through once and only after multiple people basically guilted him into it because "dude we bought a haunted for a night and you aren't even going to go through once?"

He had security detail the whole way through. Anybody holding anything remotely close to a weapon was basically shut down the moment he walked through their set. In retrospect maybe they were protecting us from his unstable a*s.

#41

DynCorp Intl, a huge govt contractor, hired hundreds of foreign nationals to work in Afghanistan. They refused to pay them for months, eventually abandoning a lot of them. Telling those that quit that they are responsible for their own way home.

#42

Everything was someone else's fault and we had to "sort it out among yourselves" whenever we had issues between the staff. There were entrenched cliques warring with eachother by the time I left, and all anyone did was CYA.
I went from getting production information a month and a half ahead to three days prior. Couldn't plan out the space for the product in advance, and got stuck scrambling on Friday (when I got the production schedule) and Monday, when stuff stated coming in.
F**k you, Charlie

#43

Lol working at a logistics firm. One of the higher up managers proclaimed in a zoom meeting about using company resources & gifts that he was being paid $400 USD per drink by another logistics company. The person tried to pretend she didn’t hear him and then he loudly said it again. Dude was scrubbed from existence & I have no idea where he went but he definitely got shadow realmed.

#44

I never signed mine. I was given a ton of onboarding paperwork and a stack of work to do right off the bat, and the AA started flirting with me immediately. I had some concerns about potential professional backlash working for this particular business, so I just turned my onboarding packet in without the NDA. She (the AA) didn’t notice because she was too busy inviting me to happy hour.

#45

They consider their own incompetence to be a trade secret...

hint, it's not.

#46

Workers routinely chose not to wear hard hats while working onsite. Then again, that's probably not a big deal in an office building.

#47

The CEO's daughter accused me of rape because I wouldn't alter any official documents, she wanted to hide her excess spending of company money from her father. When I was proven innocent, her father offered a hefty sum on top of my severance package so that I wouldn't press charges. I had to sign the NDA in order to get both, but it officially expired four days ago.

Edit: My lawyer advises against saying the name as I could be sued for slander.

#48

Like any narcissist, at least one of his kids hate him. He moved to exploit workers while you had to pull teeth to get a raise. He exploited Covid loans and ended up with a brand new Tesla.

He always told me not to have an us Vs them mentality, while constantly reminding me that I’m upper management and not to be friendly with my staff. I came from the bottom up in that company and my staff meant the world to me. I was firm when needed, but they all knew I had their backs.

After 10 years, I got fired 2 weeks after I came home from vacation bc a suck up kissed his a*s. He had told me upon coming back that I’d never have the GM position e when the current retired. Once all that happened, I stopped doing extra. Kiss a*s guy worked 75 hours the week after I got fired and then quit.

They spent 6 months having to redo EVERYTHING bc I was the one who developed our digital systems. Almost all of my old staff quit within that time.

The company I work for now I absolutely LOVE. They really appreciate me and my experience. Never going to manage a place like that again bc I don’t want that pressure. 5 years was long enough. (We also have a lot of their clients so it’s funny that it happened.)

#49

Gladly. I used to work at a company that handled customer support for Bayer products, yes THAT Bayer. This was around the time of the Boston marathon bombing. Bayer manufactures, among many other things, lawn care products sold under a brand called Bayer Advanced. Bayer knew at the time, and still knows full well that their neonicotinoid based pesticides are in fact responsible, at least in part, for bee colony collapse. We were told this by a Bayer employee during training, but forbidden under the NDA of ever mentioning it to any customer or media, if asked. We each had a 10x12 laminated sheet of what we could and could not say to the customers, placed next to our workstations. Interestingly, I was never once asked about it.

I was raised by an old hippie. I was taught respect and love for the environment at a young age. Working for that account was appalling. I was fired a few months later for "poor performance" and escorted to the lobby with a box of stuff from my desk by two very serious looking security guards, to join my half dozen now former account coworkers who had also all just gotten the boot.

F**k you Bayer. F**k you too Todd. Bruce and Michael, you guys were cool.

#50

My last job regularly made us work forced overtime, usually 10-12 hr days, 5 days a week. On holidays we were told we couldnt have lunch or break time because it was "too busy" which is very illegal. I worked 15 hours straight on christmas with no breaks. They also made us do extensive setup before our shift which usually took about 30 mins and was not paid (also illegal). Oh and female employees were regularly harassed and abused by customers. We were not allowed to hang up on these customers for any reason at all even when they were threatening to kill us or getting sexual (both of these happened to me multiple times) we were just expected to deal with it. Oh and when we all got laid off on our day off they immediately shut down access to our pay stubs (it was all digital, no paper copies) so we couldnt collect unemployment.

They were sued for all the illegal stuff they did. I got a cool $50. Whoop-dee-doo.

I dont recommend anyone work for this company. It rhymes with Shnicrosoft

#51

Localish pizza chain I worked for sells the big cookies, ‘secret recipe’.

It’s the recipe on the bag of chocolate chips. The exact recipe just made in large batches.