What is a well known 'public secret' in the industry you work in that the majority of outsiders are unaware of?

NotSpez@lemm.ee to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 629 points –
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Bro this is the fucking world! It’s just smoke and mirrors. Like the commercials. Everyone at McDonald’s smiling and happy and loving their job. Then look at reality.

That’s every job, every field. It’s just held together by duct tape and bubble gum.

It’s just held together by duct tape and bubble gum.

🔥 Hot take: Applies to the mainstream tech industry too in my eyes... an abundance of unstable implementations and hacks that can break at a moment's notice - all prettied up with a fresh coat of paint so it "looks and feels new" to sell a new license each year or give the user a reason to keep paying that subscription. No value added whatsoever.

Fintech, construction (Solidworks, Autodesk), media & design (Adobe CC), Microsoft (Windows, office), the whole lot

Adobe and Microsoft should be dismantled. Both are some of the worst monopolies in existence!

This here is the best comment to address the OP question. Just to be clear, I 100% agree: every job, every field is just held together by duct tape and bubble gum.

Not everywhere. I work in one of those jobs (facilities management for a building with critical infrastructure) and we're very thorough and do our jobs well.

However, I know some of our other facilities phone it in.

I didn't mean my comment or the OPs to be an aspersion on how well anyone does their job. It's more a comment on perception vs reality. For example, look at how many people came to observe and realize how many US government operations are held together through gentlemen's agreements (aka duct tape and chewing gum) that Trump was able to dismantle simply by not agreeing.

Ah, I see what you mean. If my coworkers and I suddenly decided to stop giving a shit, there's not much that would prevent that as long as we don't let it get too bad. A lot runs on trust.

Our company has mechanisms to try to force us to do a good job, but that just means working towards the metrics rather than the spirit of our job. Often doing our job well means knowing when to ignore the red tape.

So I think you're right, the whole world runs that way, it's an intractable problem.

There is an open joke at the corporation I work at that there are about 5 people who if they quit at once the company would be under within a few months. I really do not think it is wrong.