'Talk about a hot mess': Fabrication shop accountant reveals a car manufacturer's money-grubbing scheme after they gripe about a $250 price difference on an invoice, halting production until they pay up

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Aug 29, 2025 7:00 PM EDT

Every now and again, the blue-collar employees can watch their corporate counterparts implode from their own bad business, and for the fabrication shop accountant in this story, the victory never tasted so sweet. After juggling a nightmare client for years, chasing down invoices and begging their accounts receivable department to close out their open balances, this accountant was fed up with his company's "business partner." 

The thing about a partnership is that communication needs to go both ways, but this client was determined to drive a wedge of distrust and money-grubbing schemes between themselves and their sole supplier. As it turns out, alienating your supplier leads to a supply-chain holdup that can affect the whole company. 

Never mess with your foundation. 

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    Cheezburger Image 10547688192
    via Kzenon

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    You need the parts but don't want to pay. Right S In the 70's (yes I am old) I worked for a small fabrication shop. I filled several roles. One was billing and one was accounts receivables. We
    via ScientistOtherwise34
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    had a machine shop as well. One of our clients was a rather large maker of a specialty truck product. They would order certain parts from us to use on the trucks. This required the machine shop to make
    via ScientistOtherwise34
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    the dies and then we would make the parts. They would constantly make changes. Our contract said they would pay for any increase in cost. Now the change orders might add 2 to 5 cents per part. They
    via ScientistOtherwise34
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    would say alright and we would produce the new part. We would send the invoice for the new part. which would get rejected because the contract said the part was 35 cents each, not 38 cents each. I
    via ScientistOtherwise34
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    would have to explain that they had changed the order so they had to pay the new price. They would refuse and would only pay the original price. Finally I stopped the plant from making the parts that
    via ScientistOtherwise34
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    they were not paying the proper price for. They used a JIT (just in time) inventory system so they had no backstock in inventory when we stopped shipping. They called in a panic. Where were the parts. We
    via ScientistOtherwise34
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    told they refused to pay so we refused to ship. We went back and forth for a few days, then we had a check and all change orders were approved. The week they were down cost them several hundreds
    via ScientistOtherwise34
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    of thousands of dollars. The total of the difference between the original price and the new price on the parts was around $250 total. After the contracts were up, they found another machine shop. And they wanted the tools and dies we
    via ScientistOtherwise34
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    made. Cost them a pretty penny for those and they balked, so we would not ship them out. More downtime. You would think they would learn but they started doing the other shop the same.
    via ScientistOtherwise34

  • Parts suppliers are truly the backbone of an entire manufacturing business. Without parts, you have no product to build, and thus, a corporation must maintain good relationships with its fabrication team. That is, unless they want to start all over from scratch and watch their shareholder value plummet. 

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    Blue Veritas731. Apparently, they weren't quite the 800 pound gorilla they thought they were.
    via Blue_Veritas731
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    davidkali. Junior execs only work 6 months at a time, save hundreds of thousands of dollars during their tenure, and move onto a new company with that on their resume, before the millions of dollars of losses long term. Short term profit vs long term profit. Only one earns you bonuses.
    via davidkali
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    Liveitup199 One place I worked made engine parts for Ford. If you failed to deliver the parts on time and shut the plant down because of lack of parts. The company got fined $1 million a day.
    via Liveitup199
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    FawnAndFeral ⚫ Lmao, just classic corporate penny-pinching gone wrong. They thought they were being clever, saving a few cents here and there, but they ended up biting themselves in the ass big
    via ScientistOtherwise34FawnAndFeral
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    time. Just goes to show, ya gotta pay your dues, man. Short term savings ain't worth causing a friction with partners. Feel bad for the other shop now lol. Talk about a hot mess.
    via FawnAndFeral
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    2lovesFL ⚫ FWIW, I watched a company get a contract for a very large corp, and that customer became more than half of their volume and profit, over a few years.
    via 2lovesFL
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    then the corp started to squeeze the mfg co, on price. Because that 1 customer had become so important, they had to meet their demands, next year same pressure to cut price, until they finally balked, and lost the contract, and had to downsize, and find new customers.
    via 2lovesFL
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    THat corp was known to do this over and over to smaller suppliers, becoming a majority of the suppliers volume, then squeezing them on price until it was no longer profitable.
    via 2lovesFL

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mc employee job malicious compliance invoice work wages reddit story factory pay back manufacturer reddit thread blue collar manufacturing
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