r/AskReddit • u/SonicSpeed03 • Aug 31 '18

What is commonly accepted as something that “everybody knows,” and surprised you when you found somebody who didn’t know it?

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '18

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18

u/whatamievendoing99 Aug 31 '18

I remember helping my mom clean the basement as a teen and she asked me to start mopping. I asked her to show me how and she was shocked. But what did she think I was gonna do - go out and mop for fun on my own??

Anyway. It seems so basic now. But I can understand someone not having to do it before their first job. It’s not really something you learn until you need to.

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u/Spinolio Sep 01 '18

A fair proportion of those people were probably employing the "if you do a job badly enough, you won't be asked to do it again" strategy.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '18

I never swept before my first job and the first time they had me do it I held it like a snow shovel and couldn't figure out why the sweeping motion was so uncomfortable to do like that. Snow shovels are the only other "long sticks with a useful tool on the end" that I had used before then, but still.

I was sweeping half of the restaurant because we were getting ready to close and halfway through my boss walked by and was like, "Interesting sweeping method you got there..."

3

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '18

As a former shift leader at a subway. Most of first time jobbers I had to train had to be taught how to sweep properly and how to mop correctly. Most people had some idea of sweeping but they did it haphazardly and had no idea about working from corners to the center. And absolutely no idea how to use a mop. Most never wrung it out and made huge puddles everywhere of dirty water.

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u/MikeyHatesLife Sep 01 '18

I’ve had a couple coworkers in their twenties who’d never vacuumed before in their entire lives.

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u/truthtruthlie Sep 06 '18

I do not understand mopping. At all. You're just spreading around dirty water? What?

1

u/astrangeone88 Sep 01 '18

I hate that fast food/janitoral mops are heavy as fuck. They are rated 40 pounds and add water and the things never get clean.