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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Auirom on 2025-02-05 14:20:06+00:00.

I shared this in a comment a while ago and was told I should share it so I thought I would finally get around to sharing it with a little more information.

About a decade ago I worked for a big name company electrostatic powder coating semi wheels. The GM (who was actually a really good boss) got a trainer to come in and teach me what I was doing right and wrong. After a week we got things narrowed down with the settings on the machines that my quality improved a lot and my quantity of wheels I could paint in a day improved by about 5-10 per day. I was now averaging anywhere from 50-65 wheels a day. I used those same setting for almost a year before that same GM started messing with them.

I had a few wheels from a trash company come to me covered in dried mud one day. Not the first time and wasn’t going to be the last. I had knocked off as much as I could before stripping them and did my best to blow off what dust was left. I still missed some spots on the edges. Usually when this happens I end up with tiny holes on the edges of the rims. That day the GM had come back to get a count of paint to see what needed to be ordered.

GM: “What’s with all the holes on the edges of these wheels?”

Me: “It’s from dirt. I didn’t get it all off when I blew off the wheels.”

GM: “Dirt doesn’t cause this. I think your settings are the issue.”

Me: “I’m telling you it’s dirt. Everytime we get these customers wheels in with dried mud all over them this is what happens.”

GM: “Dirt doesn’t cause this. I’ll have some people come in to check this out.”

He left after that. Fast forward to next week and he meets me in the morning with about 4 other people.

GM: “These guys are going to look over the machines and adjust things so we no longer have issues.”

Me: “I told you it was dirt.”

GM: “The professionals are going to adjust the settings and you will leave them where they are at. If you don’t you will get written up. This is not up for discussion.”

Ok. Message heard loud and clear. I’ll leave it to the professionals and not touch a thing. Thankfully my powder gun had multiple settings. I asked the “professional” to set his new settings on another preset.

The next day I noticed the wheels I painted were coming out yellow. I also noticed that the paint was very thin in certain spots. Due to my new settings the positive charge was blasting powdered paint away from the wheels.

A few days go by GM comes back and sees all my new painted white wheels yellow and asks why everything is coming out yellow. I told him it was because the oven was set to high

GM: “Why didn’t you change it? That’s over a 100 wheels that need to be redone!”

Me: “I was told not to change the settings the professionals set so I didn’t touch it.”

He walked over and turned it down and told me to leave it. A week later I get called into the office. One of our biggest customers was complaining that their wheels needed to be removed and repainted after a week or two due to starting to rust. We delivered over 150 wheels a week to them.

GM: “What is going on here? The paint too thin and the customer is complaining. Do I need to call the professionals back in to look things over?”

Me: “It wouldn’t change much cause I haven’t touched anything on the machines since they were out last time.”

GM: “Just fix it. I don’t care what you do just fix it.”

He never questioned me again when it came to powdered coating.