The capitalist world is a place full of secrets, scams, and scum. Within that hive of scum and villainy, come people willing to reveal their employer's secrets for the greater good. Here are some stories and facts that people discovered while working within those cogs of capitalism, and they might be of use to you in exploiting the system for your own gain.

When buying contact lenses, the same contacts that you get for three months, one month, two weeks, and one day are the same lenses. But I didn't tell you that.

So I worked at Taco Bell for almost three years, and I'm here to tell you all the truth. So, ground beef is in fact real ground beef. It just has a lot of water and seasoning in it. But it's safe, I promise. The grilled chicken - I promise it's real grill chicken. You're fine. Go ahead and eat it. The shredded chicken - run, run the opposite direction away from the shredded chicken. You can swap out the shredded chicken for grilled chicken on any of the items, FYI, but the shredded chicken is all the bits of the chicken that you don't want to eat. And I promise you, eventually you're going to get a bone.Also, the steak, so disappointing. 'Cause I know it's like the most appetizing thing. It's 90% gelatin. If it gets left out for any amount of time, it turns into a slab of gelatin. Just trust me and stay away from shredded chicken and steak.

Any time you pay for shipping and handling, you're never actually paying for shipping and handling. This is actually a company secret for most companies you'll order from online. You see, once a year, UPS and FedEx actually have to go to these companies and renegotiate their service terms for the entire year.You see, FedEx and UPS charge these companies yearly to actually do business with them. So they'll probably charge them like, I believe, the company I worked for, was $100,000 a year. But every day, they would show up to pick up the packages that you had to ship. So here's an example. You decided to go on Barnes & Noble and you order a book off them for $10. The tax on that item is about a $1.79. So in total, you're paying about $12 for that book. You get down to your checkout and you're going out for shipping and handling, which is what you see is another $7 added into the charge. So you're thinking naturally well, that's just to pay to get it to my house. No, unfortunately, that $7 they just charged you is going right into the company's account.So basically if they do this all year long, they could end up making more than $100,000. So more or less, you guys are paying for their shipping costs and you're helping them profit as well. Have a good day.

I worked for GameStop from 2011 to 2018. I was a holiday hire, assistant store manager. Knew how to do store manager work. Read the entire employee handbook because it would be freaking boring. Did every quiz, everything, all of it. So, because I read the handbook, I know for a fact that if you open a brand new game and you declare when you return it that it was too mature for your child, based on the ESRB rating, they have to return it. It is in the handbook. It states specifically: 'can return new open games if it was too mature'.So do with that information what you will.

I was a manager at a McDonald's. I worked there for about three years. For the tea, they have a red jug for the sweet tea and a green jug for the unsweet tea. These jugs are four gallons big and for every four gallons of the red jug with the sweet tea, there is a full four-pound bag of sugar emptied into it.One pound per gallon of tea. Yeah, I stopped drinking the tea after I realized that because that's nasty.

I have worked at quite a few restaurants in New York city, maybe like four or five, I think. And I promise you this. If you've been to a restaurant in Manhattan, they have rats. They have rats. I did not say mice. I'm not talking Ratatouille. I'm talking, Master Splinter - big, huge rats.And you're like, well, I am not seeing them? Because rats are afraid of noise. So when you come in in the morning, that's when they're there. When you open the restaurant, they're there. But then once the people started moving around more, you go around clanging pots and pans and the more people show up, the more the rats stay away.I'm telling you, especially if it's Manhattan, especially if it's accessible from the first floor. Oh, baby! Yes. Yes, that restaurant has rats. I remember going into work on days, you walk in the morning, you just smell that a rat has died somewhere in the walls, somewhere inside of a booth and you can't find it.So the amount of covering up... air freshener and candles, yeah. New York City Manhattan restaurants are nasty. And there's probably going to be a bunch of us commenting a little thing like, oh yeah. Guaranteed. And anyone that tells you the restaurant does not have that - don't believe them.

I only worked at Claire's for like a summer, so I didn't have that much time there, but I do know - don't get your ears pierced at Claire's. Don't let your child get their ears pierced at Claire's. And definitely do not let your infant get their ears pierced at Claire's.I only had to watch my manager do two piercings before I was allowed to start doing them. And I only ever practiced on a teddy bear before doing it on an actual human being. A literal teddy. We were told to lie to the families. If they were worried about their child having any type of allergic reaction to the metal, we were told to tell them that the safest metal we had was the 24-karat gold option, which was obviously the most expensive, but that's not true. The safest metal at Claire's is actually the cheapest for $15. You get surgical-grade titanium. Yes, there's less options and they look less pretty. They don't have as many gemstones, but you can always change it later. And it's the only metal Claire's has that's surgical grade.

For two years, I worked at the largest social media company in the world. Let's call them Smacemook or Vetta. I worked in advertising operations and yes, they are listening.

I'm gonna speak in a little bit of a code so that maybe I don't get sued. I worked for a person who was the head of plastics for a company that kind of sounds a little bit like Ronson and Ronson. And when I was working for them, I walked into their home with a plastic container and they said, 'Take that out of my home right now'.And I was like, 'Hey, you're the head of plastics for Ronson and Ronson? Why would it be not okay to bring plastic into your house?' And I was like, 'It's 'BPA-free'. And they looked at me dead in my face and they were like, 'Take that out of my house now. There is no plastics allowed in my house whatsoever. BPA-free means nothing. It just means we replaced it with a chemical equally or more toxic that just hasn't been banned yet'. And I will never forget that. Do with that information what you will, but I do not use plastics in my home when I can help it.

I used to work for Starbucks a long time ago, and here's some secrets. Most of the time, we used to spell your name wrong on purpose. We just get told, "Spell their name wrong. They'll do free advertising for us". You're going to put it on your social media, you are going to talk about it. If it goes viral, you've just done an advertisement for the company. If you're not nice to your barista, they will give you decaf coffee. Tastes the same. You're just not going to get the coffee kick you need. Likewise, if you're nice to your barista, you are going to get stuff knocked off. They won't charge you for extra shots. They won't charge you for extra syrup. They'll make your coffee beautifully. The love you give them is the love you're getting back. Look for the person with a black apron. Now, I don't know if they do this anymore, but those people are coffee masters. They have been trained to make beautiful coffee. They know what they're doing. They'll make it expertly. Most of the staff will have tried all the foods and all that. So get them to make you something that they think is nice. 'Cause I'm telling you, it is always a winning combination. Might not be on the menu, but they'll mix a couple of flavors together to make you something beautiful.

I have not seen anybody talking about Pandora. Okay. Pandora jewelry. When you shop at Pandora, you're literally shopping for sentimental value because there's not a single charm or a bracelet you can take to an actual jewelry shop and actually get any cash back for it. There's so little gold in that jewelry that it's worthless. It's all silver, it's all cubic zirconia. You wouldn't find a Swarovski, a diamond, or a crystal at all. In that store is all the CZ stones that we find anywhere. And two, it varies from franchise to franchise. I worked at a few, some are really good at being organized and stuff, but a lot of them - it's dirty. They don't keep things up. You could probably look in between the things on the floor and you might find a charm underneath there, honestly, that filthy. And we all steal, all the employees.

So I used to work for Bath & Body Works, and this really isn't a secret, but I do get asked this a lot still to this day. And most of the employees should still be wearing a pin on their apron that says like a hundred percent guaranteed. But for those that keep asking, you can still return those old used products and tell them you did not like them and exchange them item for item. Even burnt candles, lotions, sprays, wallflowers, soaps. Yeah. All those. Just go in there and tell them that you did not like it. The fragrance, it's not burning right, or you didn't like the lotion, whatever. They don't ask questions. They will let you exchange them.

I used to work at Victoria's Secret. If you like the semi-annual sale, buy whatever you want, and then go back in 14 days and you can price adjust. They will let you do it (or they're supposed to). They don't like it, but if you're nice, you can at least buy that much additional stuff now that everything's half off.