Non-disclosure agreements (or NDAs, if you’re fancy) are a lot like pinky-promises. Except, if you break an NDA, you’re going to end up with a lot more than an angry friend . In fact, you might end up at the wrong end of a lawsuit .
They’re put in place for a variety of reasons, but many have to do with keeping industry secrets from falling into competitor hands .
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Some NDAs expire after a few months, years, or even decades. Others may be indefinite, or as long as a secret is meant to stay secret . But many end at some point, leaving those no longer under their grasp to tell their secrets. These Redditors did just that , actually.
Now we know where they’re getting their contestants!
“Cash cab gets most of its contestants through a try out process where it pretends to be another show. Then a producer says they will get you a cab to go to the next location which is how people get surprised.”
That actually makes a lot of sense.
Shady business is shady.
“GE knowingly put [expletive] compressors in their fridge units knowing they would fail within a year.
“Rather than do an extremely expensive recall they offered to replace the units for free if someone complained knowing that a large percentage of people just buy a new unit.”
Even things that aren’t made in China, are, somehow.
“Used to work in a warehouse where we made feminine hygiene products. The pads came out of one machine into several different branded boxes. Both the nickel gas station pads and the 10 dollar a box pads.”
“Also we had one product of pads where we imported them from China, then repackaged them into our own boxes.”
“I didn’t have a problem with that. The problem I had was the box had an emblem saying ‘made in America.'”
Imagine knowing about a movie years before it comes out.
“I once read an audition side for a then-unnamed Pixar project that eventually became the monster bomb known as The Good Dinosaur . The titular dinosaur, named Arlo in the movie, was named Simon at one time.”
I guess some secrets will stay secret.
“When Chili’s first got their Awesome Blossom, there were no machines to cut the onion, so we did it by hand. I had to sign an NDA before they showed me how to do it. This was in November, 1990, Ft. Worth, Tx.”
Not the bees. Not the bees!
“I used to work in a call center that had Bayer Advanced (yes, THAT Bayer) as a client. Bayer knew/knows full well that their neonicotinoid based pesticide/gardening products killed bees and were responsible for colony collapse.”
“We were instructed to bold face deny and/or lie to the customer or caller if we were ever asked about it.”
“We were also instructed to lie about the spray nozzles on the bottles. Bayer knew they sucked ass and were almost always completely DOA defective, but they refused to admit it and decided it was cheaper to just keep mailing replacement nozzles.”
Time to get your party on.
“You know those Jackbox party games? They have a database full of about a hundred Jackbox games that were pitched but not used, since rejected games often get featured in later party packs.”
“Notably, one of those Jackbox games is called Poop Cake.”
“Won’t detail how it works in case it does get released, but there is a rejected Jackbox game called Poop Cake that exists and is officially documented for potential future use.”
How to test a new idea:
“When Google Stadia was just a thing that was being thought about by the company, their totally useful helpful market research demo wasn’t even a little indicative of what they were doing.
“They showed five seconds of a cutscene from what I think was an Assassin’s Creed game, just a bird flying over a forest, and asked whether it was good.”
That aged horribly.
“When Intel unequivocally announced that they were not developing mobile phone hardware, I was testing their mobile phone hardware kits.”
Intel did try to get their foot in the mobile market years ago, but failed. At least they still have the corner on computers.
I always figured this was the case.
“The outcomes of quite a few reality shows I directed, were rigged.”
Another user backed this up, saying, “I had a friend who was on a European version of Survivor . Some things were rigged or played up.
“But a lot of it was stuff like, the crew would hear that two contestants had an argument, so they had to re-enact the argument for the camera, which was awkward.”
When you get to witness the beginning of the end:
“I had to sign an NDA before working with Sears. It was basically saying I wouldn’t talk about the tactics they were using to survive in a changing world. That didn’t age well.”
“It was difficult to keep a straight face during orientation…”
“…but I knew they were going to be bankrupt in a few years, the writing was on the wall, but at the time I needed the job experience. We also had to sign a non-compete agreement, which I laughed at as well, internally of course.”
Beware of any store selling candy on clearance, I guess.
“I found pallets of candy in the top of the racks that was behind displays and furniture in my Wal-Mart, one pallet had been the home of a mother rat and her brood.”
“Did you know rats don’t like raisins but will eat the chocolate off and leave the raisins in a pile?”
“Management decided to put the unopened bags of candy on sale in the clearance aisle instead of disposing the rat infested pallet.”
TV show spoilers are serious business.
“Spoiler alert if you are watching Teen Wolf and haven’t gotten past episodes filmed in 2013 but… the character of Allison Argent will be killed off.
“I was on set when that death was being discussed by cast members and was therefore required to sign an NDA that made me liable for something like $2 million in damages if I disclosed what I knew before the airdate.”
YouTube isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
“Everyday there are thousands upon thousands of very horrible videos being uploaded on YouTube, and it’s up to a human being to go through them and take an action.
“As you can understand, a lot of agents develop depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other mental problems due to the nature of the videos they are watching.”
Heads up if you live in Sydney?
“In Sydney, Australia, there was in our company a ‘Sydney Mode’ check box in the program we’d use, that added a flat 10% price increase to our service ‘because marketing shows Sydney residents are more willing to pay more.'”
