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Anonymous #1
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Shady shit in the automotive industry 1
#22255908 - 09/18/15 12:00 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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I'm a quality engineer for an automotive parts manufacturer. Specifically, we make seat belt components. Two companies I have worked for now have tried to make me do some very unethical things directly related to the safety of car parts and it really pisses me off.
First, my last job wanted me to sign a paper saying that we performed testing for substances of concern in the parts we made, but the tests were never actually done. I really contemplated being a whistle blower and exposing them. One of the chemicals we were supposed to test for was hexavalent chromium, which we actually did use in the parts. However, I did the math on the surface area of the part and thickness of the chrome and it was below the limit for what was allowed. So I never blew the whistle.
Now the company I'm at has found a defect in a seat belt component that has a lower hardness than what is required. This is a big fucking deal because this means the part is weaker than its supposed to and your seat belt COULD break in an accident. About 20,000 of them are probably already on cars right now. The good news is that the tensile strength is just barely passing on these parts, and there is a safety factor of about 20 percent built into the tolerance so the parts are probably still safe. Now, we just found out about this and quarantined all of the parts we still have like we are supposed to.
Now here is where things get shady. The one thing I have always been trained to do is proper read across to similar parts. So now that we found this huge type of safety related defect, I'm supposed to check all other similar parts for the same defect. But my boss, and the CEO are telling me not to test the other parts because it gives us plausible deniability if they are all bad also. If every part we had has this same defect it will put us out of business so they don't want to even know if they do.
If they do decide to recall even just the 20,000 of these cars then it will still probably put us out of business.
The lesson here is that the automotive industry has extremely high quality standards and fail safes built into every component even more than ever in the past, but there is still a lot of unethical things going on. I don't want to be any part of it so I'm using my knowledge to make sure everything is as safe as possible. Fuck the CEO I'm testing those other parts because it's the right thing to do. I don't want to be pulled into court and have to say that I didn't do the right thing and go to jail over it. Fuck that! I'm pissed off right now.
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Anonymous #2
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #1]
#22256017 - 09/18/15 12:34 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Do whats rightman stand up for whats right!
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Anonymous #3
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #2] 1
#22256141 - 09/18/15 01:09 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Sounds like you should join a fight club
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Anonymous #4
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #3]
#22256189 - 09/18/15 01:17 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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People are assholes they deserve what they get when it comes to car accidents typically
but i mean if a kid dies then its your fault
Edited by Anonymous (09/22/15 12:44 AM)
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Anonymous #5
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #1]
#22256304 - 09/18/15 01:44 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Do the right thing even if it costs you your job. Hard decision to make, but if you decide to just go along with it and end up becoming liable or can be criminally charged, you'll look back on it and wish you did what you were supposed to rather than what you were told to. I worked retail and generally managers (before I was one) would stand behind cashiers when they refused the sale of cigarettes or tobacco but there were a couple who would just tell you to do it. Generally this is how things go down:
Can I see ID? Oh shit I left it at home, can't you just sell this to me? No I really can't I'm sorry. This is bullshit, c'mon do I not look old enough? Appearances can be deceiving, you could be 17 you could be 25 I come in here all the time EVERYONE knows me, can't you just do it for me this one time? I'm sorry, I really can't. Fuck this shit, I WANT TO TALK TO YOUR MANAGER RIGHT NOW
That's the point you call for them, and most will back you, but some are more concerned with keeping the customer happy than your troubles. They want you to take the entire blame for it. So you either refuse it and get a complaint called on you for refusing to do it after the manager said do it, or you do it, and it ends up being a sting and guess who gets a year of probation?
When it's your ass on the line, you do things by the book, fuck what others in charge want you to do. They want it done so badly, let them put THEIR name on it and take the blame when it blows up in their face.
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Anonymous #1
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #5] 1
#22256917 - 09/18/15 04:20 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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There are laws to protect whistle blowers so they can't get fired. I was really looking into it when my last job asked me to fake the testing. But since the safety risk was so low I thought it wasn't worth it.
But this is one of the worst things that can go wrong on your car. With no warning at all your seat belt just breaks if you get into an accident.
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Anonymous #3
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #5] 1
#22257526 - 09/18/15 06:56 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous #5 said: Do the right thing even if it costs you your job. Hard decision to make, but if you decide to just go along with it and end up becoming liable or can be criminally charged, you'll look back on it and wish you did what you were supposed to rather than what you were told to. I worked retail and generally managers (before I was one) would stand behind cashiers when they refused the sale of cigarettes or tobacco but there were a couple who would just tell you to do it. Generally this is how things go down:
Can I see ID? Oh shit I left it at home, can't you just sell this to me? No I really can't I'm sorry. This is bullshit, c'mon do I not look old enough? Appearances can be deceiving, you could be 17 you could be 25 I come in here all the time EVERYONE knows me, can't you just do it for me this one time? I'm sorry, I really can't. Fuck this shit, I WANT TO TALK TO YOUR MANAGER RIGHT NOW
That's the point you call for them, and most will back you, but some are more concerned with keeping the customer happy than your troubles. They want you to take the entire blame for it. So you either refuse it and get a complaint called on you for refusing to do it after the manager said do it, or you do it, and it ends up being a sting and guess who gets a year of probation?
When it's your ass on the line, you do things by the book, fuck what others in charge want you to do. They want it done so badly, let them put THEIR name on it and take the blame when it blows up in their face.
i think the magnitude of his job and a cashier's job are wildly different
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Anonymous #5
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #3]
#22257601 - 09/18/15 07:09 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Core principles are the same. Your ass is on the line, don't fuck around and just let them tell you what to do when you know it's wrong. That's the entire point of the post.
Would you like a more relevant one? I used to work in refineries, you're required to perform certain tasks before even beginning your work because not doing it puts many lives in danger, the general practice is to ignore those practices and adopt a general "it'll be fine" attitude. Plant blows up because you didn't follow procedure, guess who gets much worse than probation?
The cashier one was easier to explain and understand so I went with that one.
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Anonymous #6
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry *DELETED* [Re: Anonymous #4]
#22267830 - 09/21/15 12:57 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Post deleted by AnonymousReason for deletion: .
Edited by Anonymous (09/21/15 03:12 AM)
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Anonymous #4
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #6]
#22267881 - 09/21/15 01:56 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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What does that have to do with a drunk guy slamming a family of five off a bridge?
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Anonymous #6
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry *DELETED* [Re: Anonymous #4]
#22267935 - 09/21/15 02:38 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Post deleted by AnonymousReason for deletion: .
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Anonymous #5
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #6]
#22267958 - 09/21/15 02:55 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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You've gotta be zZZz or something.. Maybe Akira.
It's rare that clip is ever so relevant.
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Anonymous #1
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #5]
#22271856 - 09/21/15 10:11 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Aw man I missed the dumbness before it got deleted. What did it say?
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Anonymous #5
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #1]
#22271884 - 09/21/15 10:18 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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I couldn't begin to explain it. It made no damn sense at all. It was like totally random rambling about shit that really had nothing to do with the question of how the two are related. I don't remember what he equated it to either but it didn't really make any more sense.
All I remember is talk about someone getting their face ripped off.
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Anonymous #1
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #5]
#22289492 - 09/25/15 05:46 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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So we found out what happened that caused the parts to be weaker than normal. One of our suppliers who paints the parts for us stripped and re painted them after they came out looking like crap. But the way they stripped them was by burning off the paint in an 800 degree oven, which annealed the steel and caused them to lose their hardness.
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Anonymous #7
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Re: Shady shit in the automotive industry [Re: Anonymous #1]
#22294774 - 09/26/15 05:38 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous #1 said: There are laws to protect whistle blowers so they can't get fired. I was really looking into it when my last job asked me to fake the testing. But since the safety risk was so low I thought it wasn't worth it.
from the sounds of it there wouldn't be a job to protect if OP became a whistleblower. Pretty complicated situation.
I use to work for a call center where we were basically trained to scam people. We were told to accept application fees for apartments even if they weren't currently vacant, and when people called back just say sorry the apartment was taken.
We would also handle calls for maintenance for apartment complexes. We were trained to not actually help the people, get off the call as fast as possible because we got paid per call not how well we helped. We would take down their number and let them know maintenance would contact them; however, no one would ever contact them and these people would just keep calling back.
The owner would drive up in his convertible, walk around bare foot, and wonder what everyone was so stressed about? Gee, I dont know, maybe because we are fielding 300 scam phone calls a day while you bang your beautiful wife in your house by the beach all day.
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