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Ford employee fired after 11 years for stealing cookie he’d actually paid for (www.dexerto.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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A Ford employee says he lost his job after being accused of stealing a $1.95 cookie, only for the company to later realize he’d actually paid for it.

60-year-old Kurt Kromm had worked at Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant for 11 years, but told Shifting Gears he was fired after the company believed security footage showed him taking a cookie from the break room without paying.

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[–] 34 points 3 months ago (16 children)

At one point in my life, I coveted and desired to own a Ford above all else.

Today, I can proudly say I have never owned a Ford, and I will NEVER own a Ford. Ford has become an exceptionally shitty company in the past decade or more. For all the history they have, I hope/desire/wish they will cease to exist in the near future.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    There always used to be a joke in the UK about Fords being cheap on the second-hand market. You could get parts easily, so they were cheap to maintain, as well. But you'd see the ads saying 50k miles, new clutch, new exhaust, new CVs, bearings, etc. because they fell apart all the time. This was back when Japanese cars were proving to the world how reliable cars could be. Nobody I knew wanted a Ford, though some people got them if they were really cheap.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I had two family cars that were Fords in the late 80s and 90s. One (Taurus) had its front windshield randomly explode on a hot summer day, and its oil pan later rusted out. The other (Mustang) somehow had no back seat floor by the time it was 10 years old (completely rusted out).

    I have no idea how they treated their employees back then, but you weren't missing much when it came to the vehicles unless you're talking about a time before I was around.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago

    I rented a Taurus back in the early '90s for a thousand-mile drive. At one point the window crank (which some cars still came with back then) fell off in my hand, fortunately with the window still closed as this was in December. I reported this when I returned the car and the rental place was like "yeah, of course it did" and they didn't even charge me anything extra.

    I had a buddy who went to the GM institute for college and then went to work for GM in the late '80s. His first project involved tearing apart a Lexus and an Infiniti when these first came out and counting the number of production defects they found. He said a typical American car at the time had 300-400 defects. The Inifiniti they tore down had 2; the Lexus had 0.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (8 children)

    It’s a shame. My parents owned two ford vans for my entire childhood and both served my family extremely well for more than two decades. I have owned three and they have all been excellent. I can’t say that I’d buy a new ford with everything that I’ve read recently.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (7 children)

    I used to be a Honda/Toyota fan but now Chinese EVs are looking like the future on all fronts... Quality, safety, features, range, and most importantly price. They completely wallop every other manufacturer.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (2 children)

    Do you have a Chinese EV?

    I've had extended test drives in a few plus long term hire for work and they definitely aren't better than the European counterparts in any way.

    I suppose if you are from the US they would seem good quality, though since Americans have astonishingly low quality expectations in their domestic vehicles.

    Chinese EV are a bit cheaper at the moment partly because USA tariff means there is global oversupply elsewhere and partly because the Chinese government allows them to be sold at a massive loss.

    Here in the UK they sell them but there are huge issues with getting basic service parts and if it needs accident repair (like a new wing mirror, any glass, lamps) it isn't going to happen and you won't be legally allowed to drive without a wing mirror in the UK.

    Chinese manufacturing industry doesn't have to complete with european environmental or labour standards and they have a lax approach to where the raw materials come from to say the least.

    Make no mistake, the price will go up if they reach a monopoly level.

    If you buy a cheap Chinese EV you are personally contributing to undermining the society we live in, exploiting child labour, and polluting our air and seas. I wouldn't want that in my conscience.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Make no mistake, the price will go up if they reach a monopoly level.

    They don't really seem to do that. Any industry that the Chinese government points at and decides to dominate, it just happens.

    Look at solar. It was expensive as hell and super slow to advance. They decided that they were going to do solar now. They set up a city, offered people an increased basic income to move there, Told the banks to offer extremely favorable loans to companies that were going to make solar/solar components. It's been decades now and the prices haven't increased.

    Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of problems with a lot of their humanitarian issues, but when they poked at tesla and said, let's do those next. It's just China doing what China does, and in the end, the worst of it will be putting the west's auto manufacturing out of business. They've ready done it with textiles, plastics and consumer electronics.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    When china decides to dominate an industry it doesn't "just happen" they set out to undercut all established business and keep losing money until none remain. That's a strategy, it's not organic.

    To put it in context; almost all mobile phones are built in china. The period between 'generations' in mobile phone architecture is about 4 years, give or take a few months. They only need to undercut the non-chinese manufacturers for 4 years before the cost of re-tooling for the next generation of product exceeds any ability to recoup that cost and the opposition goes bust.

    For vehicles a production platform is used for 8 to 12 years before it becomes obsolete. This is why a lot of European car makers seem slow to adopt ev; they were invested in the previous generation that couldn't easily be adapted to EV use.

    Now we are seeing VW and BMW producing actual designed EV's and they are very good (the new 3 series will set the bar for quality). Renault have the excellent Renault 5, if you are in the market for a hot hatch.

    I don't think we will know the outcome of this for a decade or so.

    One thing is for sure: letting China put domestic production out of business is very very bad indeed. This isn't a dig at China per se, the principle applies whatever countries are involved (Microsoft and the USA are a similar example). India is also picking up pace in the EV market and will give China competition.

    On the plus side; the Chinese might be very good at copying things and scaling up production quickly but they don't innovate in the same way as the west. Their laws on intellectual property means they don't need to take risks with R&D but that also means their corporate culture doesn't reward risk taking (as much as there is any risk in a state backed business).

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  • [–] -3 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Since they really like to film your face while driving and love stealumg data for... Reasons, that's a no for me

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

    Im not defending privacy overton pushing shenanigans, they are all bullshit.

    But that face camera thing is about to become an EU mandate.

    All the companies are gearing up for data suction (EU or otherwise), if they don't already have a robust system in place.

    China is bad for it, yes, but so is everyone else.

    It's all bullshit from all sides

    edit: I have since been updated on the actual wording of the mandate and it doesn't specify face cameras specifically, just some mechanism for dealing with drowsy/distracted drivers.

    I expect most companies to do this with camera's but it's not a specific camera mandate.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    The face camera is actually a really good idea. And for a few hundred dollars, that driver is not alert let's pull off the road safely could be handled in car, on local models and never have to send any fucking telemetry off to anywhere.

    But of course, that info will be sold.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

    In principle that application of a face camera holds up, subjectively.

    In practice that won't be it's primary use case.

    It absolutely will bes sold, even if they are banned from saving face profiles directly (which ostensibly they are, for now) it'll just be "anonymous'" data collection. Until they get caught, then they'll pay a cost of doing business tax (fine) and continue on their way.

    It's just another vector for creeping changes that invade privacy for the benefit of corporations out the continued tightening population control of governments.

    In this case, think ring doorbells + GPS as an opening gambit.

    Like how courts orders for "all of the phones in a particular area at a particular time" are a thing, but with a mandatory face cam.

    edit : because these are the type of activities that go on at these companies, unchecked mostly.

    edit edit : God dammit ford

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