“Window Cleaners”: 50 Industries That Are Way More Dark And Sinister Than Most Realize

Casinos. They setup the facade that everybody is having a great time. But they are experts in psychological manipulation and are taking advantage of every move you make. Reality is fundamentally manipulated at every turn. Truly dark and sinister.

I'd say Sales, such as call centers and cold calling. Nothing worse than being told to hit KPIs and targets just to sell people s**t they don't want, sometimes forcefully, under the threat of loosing your job.

Been there, never doing it again, no matter how desperate. Such an unethical practice when you think about it.

Fast fashion.

Non-profits. They like to talk all rainbows and unicorns, but they are some of the most toxic, backstabbing, nepotistic workplaces I've ever been in.

Chiquita Banana and any of the banana republic companies. These are companies that essentially bought entire countries in central America. Bought, paid for, and own all of the local utility companies, and they control the government. They're all behind a lot of assassinations to control these countries and keep them company owned.

Advertising.

If publishers wanted to, they could easily identify any and all users, all of their interests, darkest secrets, and vulnerabilities. If you share location data, they know where you live, and they know exactly where you go.

Sure, it seems benign when they want to sell you a cool new brand of underwear, but that amount of data being available is the most insane vulnerability we have in the modern era.

I'm going to say Finance but not for the reason most people think. I work in trading, and my colleagues are some of the smartest people on the planet. Former chemists, physicists, virologists, aerospace engineers, statisticians, materials scientists, and etc. They all get burnt out barely able to keep their research going and being for grant money, then they get recruited into financial firms to do the same kind of work they enjoy but get paid 10x or even 100x. They don't have to deal with customers, and they see direct indicators of the quality of their work.

Finance takes people who could be changing the world for the better, and once they cross the event horizon there's no going back. The other half of the problem is how difficult it is to get funding for research to improve the world, but finance is the black hole from which there is no escape.

Anything where people are involved.

The Tomato industry. I went to a lecture for extra credit in college on the history of the tomato. I was expecting to hear how people used it and where people started growing them and what not. What I got was essentially a full season of the sopranos. Extortion, m*rder, blackmail, vandalism, you name it...the tomato industry was rife with the worst s**t.

Childcare.


I work with people who are straight dumb, some who are mean, and the well meaning get burnt out.

And your child isn't always safe from other children because there's really nothing we can do about bad behavior. They might get bit, and like there's nothing I can do about it but write up a report and scold the kid. And they'll get bit again.


Low pay, low support, lack of adequate training for any kids who fall into neurodivergency, lack of supplies, no time/space/room for one-on-one care, high turnover.


School up the street is in the middle of a police investigation. Detectives are involved. Research the center HARD before placing your kid there.

Real Modeling (not being influencer lol).

Cruise Lines. Man overboard tech exists that would drastically reduce the number of lives lost at sea but it comes at a cost. The large cruise line I worked at wouldn't even consider it unless a competitor did it first. It will never be implemented.

Dog shelters.

There’s a lot of people that breed dogs without knowing what they’re doing, and just doing it to make money.

Dogs are born with illnesses and disabilities so get ditched and left behind, ending up in a dog shelter.

Here it’s filled with dogs still “too healthy” to pass away but “too weak” to live. If we wouldn’t take care of them they wouldn’t survive for a day.

If you ever want to get a dog, please get one from a GOOD shelter. Know what you’re getting, but please don’t go find a cheep breeder.

Medical devices. You think your cataract surgeon thinks it's unsafe to do both cataracts in the same day? Yea right, they just can't bill as much if they do them both same day. You think that iStent will help your glaucoma?? B******t, it does almost nothing, but the surgeon gets to bill your insurance a lot of money for that procedure - so we're doing it. Oh, you have astigmatism?? How about laser assisted cataract surgery? It's great for eyes like yours. Forget that the complication rate is much higher, and that it's not covered by insurance because the outcomes are so bad. It's PERFECT for you.

I mentioned a few ophthalmic procedures, but the list goes on for every specialty. Your medicine is likely influenced by the highest bidder. I hate to say it, but you can't trust any medical provider in the US.

Temp agencies who provide housing.

Real estate

I'm a copywriter for a US real estate corporation and cant wait to get the f**k away from them. Disgusting industry. But right now i need to pay my bills.

I am going to go with Jewelry. A fair number of people are aware of "blood diamonds" and some people are aware of the s**t that DeBeers has pulled and therefore avoid diamonds altogether, but it is much deeper. You will be hard pressed to find a gemstone mine that isn't exploitive of its labor force, and even harder pressed to find one that isn't exploitive of the environment. It is an industry ripe with money laundering, ties to organized crime, and human trafficking. Industry standard terms are very careful to make it sound like they are protecting consumers (so governments don't step in) but actually protecting the industry. For example, a diamond that is manufactured from pure carbon to create a true diamond lattice with a hardness 10 etc. *must* be prominently labeled as "lab created" or "synthetic" in marketing. Meanwhile a low-grade diamond that has a coating on it to completely change it's color can be called "natural" and the fact that it is "treated" can be in the small print. And you can get a piece of white quartz, and sell it as a "natural diamond simulant" without problem. A "cultured" pearl will usually have less than a mm of pearl around a bead of shell or even plastic. And *all* commercial pearls are cultured.

In my country: window cleaners and roof builders.

They are run like mob organisations. If anyone would be stupid enough to start a window cleaning or roofing business, they can count on actual bombs, arson, intimidation and violence. The businesses that run the show have their own terfs and tresspassing will result in getting a bomb in your mailbox.

It's not even a joke.

Probably all of them. Every industry I ever came across tries to do the minimum required (effort/social/sustainability) to make the most (money) for themselves.
Food industry: race to the bottom for least amount of proper ingredients in their products. Pharmaceutical industry: maximize profits to the point a part of the customers go into bankruptcy. Tech industry: longevity of products just a little longer than warranty. I can go on and on.

edit: typo.

The towing / tow truck industry, at least here in Toronto where it is very territorial and well connected.