Hey kids! Do you like to get the most for your money? Do you like to not overpay for anything? Do you love not getting played for a sucker?
You better have answered “YES!” to all of those questions, because otherwise this post is lost on you.
Somebody recently asked this question on reddit: What is a genuine ‘We don’t want you to know this one, simple trick” from your profession?
We dug through all the answers to give you the choicest tips.
Enjoy!
1. Pizza tips!
Worked for pizza hut for 2 years.
Pepperoni pizza was $5. Double pepperoni was $8. A pepperoni with added pepperoni was $7, which was the exact same thing as a double pepperoni.
Only one customer I served had figured that out.
2. That electronics game!
A lot of electronics you buy that have varying premium versions are all the same sh^t, we just turn off features to sell them at different price points.
It’s cheaper to make and keep inventory.
3. The auto parts scam
Auto Parts: It is very common for the exact same part that was made to the same specifications, by the same people, in the same factory, at the same time, to be put in two different boxes and sold at two different prices.
You think with the more expensive brand that you’re paying for higher quality, but very often it is just the [NAME BRAND] part in box with a [VALUE BRAND] label on it.
The tricky part is knowing when that is the case and when it is not.
4. Don’t let debt collectors harass you!
If debt collectors are calling you, tell them you want proof of the debt and you want all future communication in writing, no phone calls.
If it’s a legit debt you will still owe the money, but they will contact you by mail and stop calling you. If they keep calling you after you tell them to stop, they might be breaking state or federal law, or both, and you should report them to the FTC and your state attorney general.
If they can’t demonstrate that the debt is legit, and they’re smart, they’ll stop trying to collect it.
5. With kids, consistency is key
Nanny here. The one secret that results in sleep trained babies and well behaved children: consistency.
If you need a child to change their way of doing things, then you must not give up on it or them. (Well, in 99.99999% of cases)
6. Get any book EVER!
Interlibrary loan. We don’t have this book? I bet SOME library around the world does. They’ll ship it to us and you can have it. free of charge.
7. Free food!
Bakeries often throw all their baked goods away at the end of the day. If you come in to my shop and you nicely ask if you can take some stuff home, I’ll happily give it to you rather than throw away perfectly good food.
8. Those travel “packages” are a scam
I work in tourism.
“Packages” that bundle tours and hotels and flights into one price for a “great deal” are usually more expensive than just booking the individual components separately.
9. How to make sure you get it fixed
If you dropped your consumer electronic and its not obvious but also not working, don’t tell the tech support you dropped it, just say it just happened.
Everyone of us rather RMA it for you, but once you say its your fault you tied our hands. You might need to perform troubleshooting you know to be fruitless, but just do it or make a reasonable impression that you did so we can move along to your rma.
10. Legal minds…
In law the public sees the ‘fight’ and assumes that both sides are generally hostile towards each other.
However, they will give each other tips on what they did right and wrong as soon as the trial ends and it isn’t uncommon to find out that a prosecutor and defense attorney are actually close friends
11. A lot of tax preparation should be free.
Not my industry but about 40% of Americans have taxes simple enough that the government has all the information needed to determine what they owe.
The government could recalculate your taxes, send it to you and then have you confirm or correct it. But they don’t do that because the tax prep industry lobbies hard against it.
Anything that makes taxes easier hurts them.
12. Coding tips!
I used to teach programming.
Are you trying to learn to code, and getting stuck? You do not need special coaching or mentoring. You do not need a boot camp. Most probably, you need to try something and be okay with it failing.
Fire up Python, type some random bullsh^t in, press enter, and get an error message.
Notice that your computer has not exploded.
Notice that things are okay.
No, you do not yet have a $300k job at Google. That’s fine.
Most of the way that people fail to learn to code is not that they can’t understand GraphQL, or MapReduce, or Deep Learning, or the Paxos consensus algorithm, or quicksort. It’s that they get scared and confused.
The best mentor is not one who you’re paying a bunch of money to explain your code to you. The best mentor is one who helps you get comfortable trying things, failing, and trying more things.
Real programmers spend a lot of time staring at weird error messages.
13. Wow kid! Cool story!
Not me but my brother. He worked with pre-school children. Whenever they tell you something you don’t understand, just say “wow”, “that’s crazy”, etc. back at them. 90% of the time their just telling you about some weird thing they did/thought about, and not asking a genuine question or expecting you to say something specific back to them.
14. How to work customer service
Talking to a customer service representative like it was a friend will often loosen them up and open up to give you a good deal and advice.
15. The funeral home scam
Funeral director here. You are absolutely not required to go through a funeral home. Anything we do you can do yourself. Most people just need us because they are too overwhelmed to take care of things on their own but really it’s not mandatory.
Edit : for clarification, you still have to have a mortician if you want to have the body embalmed (which is a total scam generally), and you cannot burn the body yourself you have to give it to a crematory. Other than that, you can clean and dress the body yourself, make funeral arrangements yourself, hold a ceremony in your own home, and buil your own casket.
Hope some of these helped! Because people are taken advantage of wayyyy too much these days.
They more money you’re able to hold onto (and possibly invest) the easier your future becomes.
Always remember that.