Secrets from Behind the Scenes! Do you have any?

[strawberrisc]

I usually wonder all kinds of shit late a night! For instance:

I was watching Long Lost Family last night and I wondered whether, when they tell people that parents/siblings have passed "off camera" do they still visit them or is it just done over the phone?

For people who are TV extras, is it like the Ricky Gervais series. Are you largely ignored or to the main actors ever speak to you?

People who work in retail, e.g. supermarkets or clothes shops do you ever get given anything totally for free?

I think I need more sleep!

I used to work for Eurotunnel and could cross for a pound. Even went overnight to Disneyland Paris with one day's free entry for £14. Plus £2 for the return crossing. We used to go to Boulogne for dinner

I used to work in one of the buying depts at allders hq and they did sample sales every couple of months where stuff was at least 50% off.

Tarara. Did you have a mate with a blue house who worked for Ford?

I work in education and am very jealous about the big box of pencils! There are plenty of “behind the scenes” situations there. Not as interesting as free food and dink though.

When I was a PA I used to get loads of free gifts from a stationery salesman who I flirted outrageously with!

Went to a work show today, every other stall seemed to be gin, giving free samples, to have there and then. I don’t like gin. But others had lots and lots. Didn’t do badley on Prosecco and vodka.....

I used to work for Virgincare on a Band 5 pay (about £25,000) and we were offered a10% discount off a Virgin holiday for £7,000 a night.

Oh... Virgincare also stopped ordering our biros.

I used to work the bars at a top flight but not top 6 football club. I have lots of stories about footballers from 20 years ago that I doubt any of you have heard of.

I used to work for Liberty. We used to get an allowance of fabric per season and an item of clothing per season. Also if anything was damaged it was written off and we could take it. We never chipped/scratched anything we liked the look of!

Im now a teacher in a prep school. We get champagne and other things for Christmas and £50 John Lewis vouchers at the end of year.

My dad worked for Massey Furguson most of his working life. Our gate was red; our shed and fence was red; our house and everything in it was red.

Massy is classy but zetor is bettor

Slim pickings at a GP surgery. Back in the day there'd be the odd sandwich at lunch meetings, but that's all gone now.

The best perk came after Aveeno was blacklisted. In some sort of effort to change people's minds, they took to sending boxes and boxes of mini tubes so we were never short of handcream! Until GDPR came along and the docs had to sign up to receive it, but never did.

We do get 30% off non prescription items at the pharmacy.

Twice I have received a FREE biro.

I get a free flu jab AND the odd weight loss boot camp aka norovirus.

And I get to volunteer for trainee phlebotomists to practise on my crap veins, which adds a frisson of excitement missing from many of my previous roles.

elQuintoConyo I would love that!

I worked in McDonald’s while I was a student. You got a free meal while you were working. And if you were on a close you could take home the leftover food after it had been counted as waste. Oh the glamour.

Why was Aveeno black listed?

When I worked in a small bakery (that made everything fresh each morning in the back of the shop) we could take home the cakes and bread left over on Saturday afternoon

We also got sandwiches/sausage roll and cake for lunch for 1/2 price

My DH used to work for a billionaire on a private estate (not a famous one, just a very wealthy family from overseas). We got £1,000 of department store vouchers for our wedding, plus a few "freebies" over the years - items which the housekeeping staff were instructed to toss out because they were used, or marked, or unsuitable, or things which were stacked untouched and forgotten or simply abandoned in outbuildings.

A brand new electric shower still in the (damaged) box, spotted in the builders skip... amongst other things that I shall not list!

There would be anything up to £500 in Christmas bonus plus a gift (usually a piece of designer clothing), the occasional crisp £50 or two as a tip for glancing in the right direction at the right moment, but the payoff was years of coping with entitled, financially and morally corrupt, frankly bizarre behaviour, plus a 50% chance of getting fired every day for looking in the WRONG direction at the wrong moment.

That was 20 years ago. Good times, but DH is firmly of the belief that being rich doesn't make you happy, it just makes you paranoid!

Behind the scenes in my job, not so fascinating. Although I can tell you what happens when you complain about poor investment advice if you like.

When I worked in a supermarket we'd get 10% off our shopping and we had a shop in our reception where we could get pretty much anything from the bakery for 10p,massive joints of beef/pork/whole large chickens/a whole salmon for a couple of pounds each,we also had a heavily subsidised canteen where we could get a full english with toast and a hot drink for £1.50,lunch,dessert,a cold drink and a hot drink for £3.50.

Another job I worked on a perfume counter and we were told to use any perfume we liked and we'd get to take home testers if packaging or the size was changing of a perfume or aftershave for free even if they were full and had only just been opened,we got 10% off the rest of the store and 25% off from the perfume counter and we'd often be given freebies that came in with the deliveries.

When I worked in a private nursery anything we ate or drank was all free including a 2 course hot meal every lunch time and come Easter,the summer holidays and Christmas we'd get tons of expensive presents each from the parents(My first Christmas I ended up with cash,a large bottle of expensive alcohol,a leather manicure kit,tons of gift cards for the more expensive shops,expensive chocolates and perfume)we also got a couple of bonuses through out the year and we'd get gifts at Christmas from the owner of the nursery and from our supervisor and the our head boss spent a fortune paying for our Christmas do in a nice restaurant.

I think every job I've ever had has had added bonuses as well as a good wage.

@ChesterGreySideboard due to cost. If you have a letter from dermatology saying it has to be Aveeno, you get it. Otherwise you get Cetraben.

Though may depend on area.

@SubisYodrethwhenLarping that remnds me of Barbara from The Royle Family taking home damaged cakes! 🤣

Years ago I worked in Argos. I was on the desks where you go to collect your item - things were absolutely flung down the conveyor belts with no care whatsoever, and all the people working upstairs in the stockroom used to wear their trousers tucked into their socks because the stacks of boxes were infested with fleas. I still don't shop there.

I’m an editor and before that was a journalist for several years (not that kind though). I get offered quite a lot of free stuff but more often than not I can’t really spare the time to do it (if it’s a holiday or hotel stay or whatever) or to cover it (beauty products, accessories etc) as it would get so little interest from my audience that I can’t justify taking the freebie! People know when journalists are just writing payback copy for a free item and it’s just boring to read.