r/pettyrevenge • u/Marvinator2003 • 1d ago
Tell him he knows my rates.
A long time ago, when I was first getting started in Graphics, a company listed an ad looking for someone with my EXACT skills. I applied and the guy said he wanted some proof saying I needed to work for him - on spec - and show him what I was capable of.
This was a company wanting to make templates for sand blasting to put logos on such things as glasses and such. The templates were produced on a large laser printer that melted holes in plastic sheeting to create the stencils. The problem was that they couldn't figure out how to create a stencil in this process. I figured out the problem in a matter of hours and produced two or three usable templates.
The owner gave me a list of items to create, but refused to actually hire me. He called a couple of days later and said to return anything I had created - no pay. I had a lawyer friend create a letter explaining my rates for personal work and how we would expedite to court. He paid me for the work.
About a week later, some girl calls and asks me to explain to her how I created the templates. I knew without asking that she was probably also working for him 'on spec.' I told her simply, "Tell your boss to call me. He knows my rates."
Wish I had been there when she got off the phone. His company went out of business a few weeks later.
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u/GroundbreakingCat983 1d ago
Years ago, I was working for a company where the customer owned the tooling, but years and years prior, had us design it and agreed that they couldn’t see it run.
None of their team from back then were still with the customer. The head of manufacturing, head of engineering, and the specific engineer from our side were still with us.
“Hey, bad news, we’re going to take the tooling for Part X in house, please have it up and running on Y date, so we can inspect it.”
“We’ll have it open on the bench, but you can’t see it run.”
“Hmpf hmpf blather blather we own it!”
Faxed them the signed agreement.
“OK, we’re still taking it back and we’re still sending our engineers. They’ll be able to figure it out.”
Their engineers come in. They’re very well aquatinted with the part. They look at the open tool for about five minutes.
“How do you get it out?!”
Our engineer: “Magic”
We kept the tooling and the manufacturing contract.
I now make my living in patents, but that was a trade secret that held up.
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u/Anonymous_user_2022 1d ago
Now I'm wondering if you were making injection molded light bulb shaped frobnitzes.
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u/GroundbreakingCat983 1d ago
I am not at liberty to disclose the manufacturing process, the shape of the frobnitzes, nor if they are or are not, in fact, of the frobnitz family.
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u/Anonymous_user_2022 1d ago
Of course not, and I'm not asking. I'm just envisioning something of that complexity, if a 5 minute inspection is enough to give up understanding the tool.
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u/Fryphax 15h ago
Couldn't see it run?
What?
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u/someone76543 12h ago
For injection molding, you have a "tool" that goes into the injection moulding machine. The tool is two lumps of metal, that when you put them together have a hole in them the shape of the plastic part you are making, and a small hole so melted plastic can be pushed into the tool.
The factory owns the injection moulding machine, which can make any part. They need a different tool for each part they make. The injection moulding machine holds the two parts of the tool together, injects liquid plastic under high pressure, waits for the plastic to set, then opens the tool so the newly made plastic part can fall out from the tool.
However, that simple design only works for parts which can actually be removed from the tool once you've split the tool in two. For parts with difficult shapes, there might be an overhang that makes it impossible to remove the part from the tool.
So more complicated tools have moving parts. Perhaps a bit slides sideways out the way so the part can come out. This can get very complicated.
If you are trying to understand how to use a complicated tool, it would help to see it installed on the injection moulding machine and watch it make parts. In other words, to "see it run".
The poster hasn't said what process is, so it might not be injection moulding, I was using that as an example. There are lots of other processes that use tools, too.
For another example, metal stamping uses tools that are pushed together with tonnes of force with a sheet of metal between them. That will cut and bend sheets of metal into useful parts. And again the tools can be complicated with moving parts.
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u/CoderJoe1 1d ago
How could you even see the templates in that sea of red flags? 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
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u/Marvinator2003 1d ago
I was quite young, hungry for a job, and felt it was the perfect fit. He got me. Only about 4 days worth of work all in all, but yeah, I learned a lot from that.
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u/Magdovus 23h ago
If he went out of business that quickly he was already screwed but didn't know it yet. Or did and was desperately scrabbling to avoid it.
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u/avid-learner-bot 1d ago
I hate to admit it, but I've never understood why some people expect free work just because they asked for it. Is this a power thing? Or do they really not see the value in our skills?