1

These thirty facts are common knowledge to people who work in specific industries, but unknown to the rest of the population. Thanks to the internet, these specialized folks have been kind enough to share their unique knowledge with the rest of us, and you might be surprised with some of the cool facts that you learn.

2

I worked as an insurance adjuster, most people have no idea what homeowner's insurance actually does. Here is a very simple guide to understanding what is covered by homeowners insurance: > A sudden and one-time occurrence While there are some exceptions to this, understanding those few words will help you understand 95% of what is and is not covered by your policy. * Note: My experience applies to US insurance only

3

Virtually every piece of copper, aluminum, or steel you come across has been chopped to bits, refined, melted down and used to make whatever object it's a part of. Dozens, if not hundreds of times. Copper pipe? Probably started out as hundreds of different wires from various devices from around the world at one point.

4

If you call 911 for something minor (flu-like symptoms, sprained ankle, etc.) you will usually be sent to the waiting room and triaged like every other walk in. You aren't saving yourself any time and we take great pleasure in watching your face when you realize the toe pain you've had for a week isn't a priority just because you took a ride in the boo boo bus. On the flip side, depending on the system, EMS providers can do a lot to treat issues. Just because something is serious or even life threatening doesn't mean we load the patient, fire up the sirens, and zoom to the hospital (with a few exceptions like trauma and stroke). Rest assured, the 10-15 minutes we're in the back is being used to treat the problem and (hopefully) have you pretty much fixed by the time you get to the ER. We have a lot of medications and tools to use and it's safer for everyone to do as much as possible in the driveway or parking lot if we can. Please don't pound on the door yelling that we need to go when we're starting IVs, calculating doses, determining if we need advanced airways, etc.

5

Neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer's,Parkinson,...) starts way before the first symptoms appears. No one wake up suddenly one day with Alzheimer's. From actual data, it seems that the disease is rampant for 10-15 years before the first symptoms. Some research say that you can start identifying abnormalities 20+ years before the memory loss begin. And it works for all neurodegenerative diseases AFAIK.

6

Hair is not alive. If your hair is damaged, you can't "fix" it. No matter what that bottle of conditioner tells you. Products that claim to fix damaged hair just deposit a coating of wax, simethicone, or dimethicone on the hair shaft that makes it look smooth. This build up will eventually make your hair limp and dull. The best solution to damaged hair is a haircut.

7

Heartworms are treatable for dogs, but not for cats. Also, keep on top of your heartworm prevention for your dog; if they get heartworm but you can prove that they've been continually covered (which isn't difficult; the receipts are good enough, and your vet will have them in their database), then the heartworm prevention manufacturer will pay for the treatment.

8

Truckers leave extra space between themselves and the vehicle in front of them because if they are fully loaded they need the the extra space to be able to stop without flatten the someone. A truck can weigh the same as more than 50 small cars. They don't leave the space, out of the goodness if their hearts, for a couple of cars to squeeze themselves into and create a potentially fatal situation!

9

Not my current field, but when I worked at Starbucks not a lot of people understood that a larger espresso drink does not always = more caffeine. A tall drink has 1 shot, grande has 2, and a venti also has 2, unless it’s iced and then it gets a 3rd shot. So many times customers would order a grande latte and say “you know what, you’d better make that a venti, I can use the extra caffeine” when in fact the larger size is just more diluted with milk. If you are looking for more caffeine, a drip coffee is going to be the most bang for your buck. Also, this seems really obvious, but a lot of people would get upset when they ordered a flavored coffee and saw that I would put syrup in it. No, coffee beans do not naturally come in caramel, vanilla, toffee nut, raspberry etc. flavor.

10

The best treatment for a child with anxiety is treating their parent’s anxiety.

11

I work in live chat support. We can see what you type when you are chatting with us, before you send it.

12

As a chemist the thing that gets me every time is the, "I don't want chemicals in my..." Literally everything is a chemical!

13

That if your IT guy is not busy, he is doing a good job, not a bad one and you don't need to fire him.

14

Turning your computer or phone off and on again will fix a solid 70-80% of all problems the device likely has.

15

In Jewelry, a diamond is a luxury expense not an investment. Gold is the investment. If you try to sell your engagement ring you’ll get maybe 20% of what you initially paid for it. Jewelers can get diamonds for a fraction of what you paid for it.

16

Coffee shops spend more on milk than coffee.

17

The first thing you do if you think your computer is being hacked is unplug it from the network (or disable the Wi-Fi).

18

An elevator will go up to the top of the hoist instead of crash to the floor in most catastrophic failures due to the counter weights.

19

Most people are not good at detecting lies, and consistently score no better than chance (50/50) when tested. The score goes up slightly when it's someone they know that they're talking to, but not much. Ironically, most people rate themselves as very good at detecting lies, but they're wrong.

20

Touching your fresh tattoo with your unwashed fingers is bad. It's absurd how many times we have to tell this to people.

21

A corporate policy of requiring users to change their passwords every 90 days **does not** make your system more secure. It tends to actually make things less secure.

22

Potential cancer cells develop in the human body every day and our immune system efficiently kills them without any trouble and we just go on living our lives like nothing ever happened.

23

One of my favorite facts about alcohol ads: In the US, nobody is allowed to be shown actually drinking the product. They can only be shown 'enjoying' it in ways that don't involve drinking it – so essentially holding it, pouring it, handing it to a friend, etc.

24

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 safety of flight.

25

When you delete a file from your HD, only the information of how to reach these memory slots coherently is deleted. The raw information remains there until overwritten. That's why companies (should) destroy their disks on decommission instead of just formatting them.

26

Drowning is silent. I pulled out a kid literally less than a foot away from a large group of adults and not one of them noticed that his head was totally submerged and that he was struggling.

27

Nominal pipe diameters are not indicative of their actual diameter. So a 1" pipe is rarely actually 1" in either outside or inside diameter. Why? I have no idea. But if you drill a hole of exact diameter and stick that pipe in there, you're going to have a bad time.

28

There is a surprising amount of infrastructure under your feet. You’d be surprised how much public utility runs underneath private property. Always call before you dig.

29

There is no difference between a violin and a fiddle other than how you play it.

30

Most 911 calls an ambulance receives on a daily basis are not remotely close to being emergencies.

31

The toner in your printer is plastic being melted on to the paper.