How about this tale from my past?
It happened some years back when I worked for a construction equipment manufacturer. As you know the automotive industy is a wee bit sensitive about getting their supplies just in time, right? Thus, if you work with inspection of initial samples you feel the heat under your bottom quite often, when shipments turn up late because purchasers have a hard time realizing that the job is not quite done by simply placing the order.
Anyway, some bright spark decided to assign two people to get those delayed shipments to the assembly lines in the shortest possible time. Naturally, yours truly became an obvious target. I mean, we all know how those pesky inspection types hold things up, right?
One day one of them turned up and asked me to hand over five parts she claimed I was “withholding”. I checked the part no. and told her I didn’t have them and that they were to be inspected on arrival. She proceeded to dress me down and point out at some length that they “arrived yesterday, and assembly is waiting!” to which I replied “fine, but they haven’t reached me”.
So we started searching. The missing parts had indeed been accepted at the gate the previous day, but were nowhere to be found. Staring accusingly at me she told me that she had to inform her boss… and did so… He looked at the part no. and said… "But you collected those at the gate yesterday………"
To make a long story short she had done so, and neglected to inform me or anyone else about it (IQ 65?
). To top it all, the assembly mgr. Burst through our door the next day, demanding to know “how in **** we inspected the incoming parts, since they were obviously trash”. You guessed it. It turned out to be the five missing initial samples…
/Claes
