He Tried To Flag A Serious Safety Risk Before It Became A Bigger Problem, Yet Refusing To Listen Ultimately brought The Whole Facility To A Halt
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Quality inspectors notice risks that other managers may prefer to ignore.
One manager warned that a dusty parking lot could contaminate food production.
The plant supervisor dismissed him.
Then an outside inspector arrived…
Uh oh…
Read on for all the details.
Not My Lot, Not My Problem.
This happened decades ago for a food production company where I was a Quality Control Manager. I regularly checked the quality of the food we produced and the food production lines for four plants in the area.
For the most part, everything was in good condition, but there was one big exception.
One plant I inspected was operating within tolerance and received a generally good report, but I had to note one potential hazard: the parking lot was in terrible condition.
The dust that employee vehicles kicked up as they entered and left work could enter the plant and contaminate the food production line.
But when he tried to sound the alarm, the supervisor didn’t seem to care.
I gave a copy of my report to the Plant Operations Supervisor and suggested he get it taken care of before the USDA inspector noticed it.
His response: “You were here to inspect food production, not the parking lot!”
“I’m here to ensure the quality of the food product that leaves this plant.”
“Bull****!” And then he said the words every malicious complier thrives on: “Don’t tell me how to run my plant!”
However, the supervisor would soon come to regret this approach.
Six weeks later, the USDA inspector shut down the plant, citing the quality of the parking lot and the heightened risk of dust entering the food production line. Who knew?
But even then, there was a workaround that could have kept the plant open. Only… plant operations had demanded that I not tell them how to run their plant.
The quality control manager was baffled on how things could have gone so south.
Even so, I had to ask the following month—after the lot had been repaved and the inspector had finally approved the plant to be reopened—“Why didn’t you just close down the parking lot and have the employees park on the street?” Schedule the repave on a weekend, and the plant could have stayed in operation.
He didn’t lose his job. In fact, he retired from that company.
So I guess it was a lesson learned? But he didn’t talk to me again.
Some people would rather risk everything than admit they were wrong about something.
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The ego is a strange thing.
Maybe there’s another solution to this problem.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a deli counter employee who tells a customer they’ve gone too far when they want them to do their shopping.
If it were up to this commenter, they would have added this.
The quality manager stopped offering solutions after being told not to interfere with plant operations.
Six weeks later, the dang USDA shut everything down over that exact hazard and forced a parking lot repave.
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