This is What Happens When Companies Cut Too Many Corners and Don’t Give a Damn

If a company chooses to outsource a product, they should at least be responsible enough to make sure it’s being built to proper design parameters and specifications. Minor production errors are tolerable, but I’ve seen some major blunders in the past few years.

In recent years, quite a few tool brands have closed their long-running factories and shifted production overseas. There were times when, like now, I wonder if anyone from these companies actually inspects the imported tools they’re bringing in and slapping their name on.

Here’s what has got me thinking about all this yet again:

Last November I was given this American Flag pin around Election Day by a non-profit group reminding me to go vote. I took the pin home, and left it on my desk for a month.

Remembering a post on the Consumerist about inaccurate flags, err… patriotic decorations, I took a closer look at the pins. The flags on the pins each have 44 stars, in rows of 5, 6, and 7 instead of 50 stars in rows of 5 and 6. To top things off, apparently waving flags don’t need 13 full stripes.

I finally found a major supplier of these pins, and contacted them via online chat about the “USA Flag Pins” they advertise for potential customers to buy to share their patriotism and to express their American pride.

I was then told that 1) they were not aware that the number of stars is incorrect, 2) it may just be the picture of the item that is incorrect, 3) I should contact them when I receive the item and if there is a problem they will take care of it at that time.

I persisted, and after a long pause, they said that they would “enter my comments as feed back [sic] for upper management to review,” and that “unfortunately they are unable to put 50 stars on the item because of its size.”

I found these responses to be pure BS. Not only have I have seen accurate USA flag pins in the past, I cannot believe that I’m the first to catch this error. More than a week has passed, the flag pins are still up for sale on the supplier’s website, and nobody has contacted me about the issue.

Why is this a big deal? To start, many men and women have sweat, bled, and died to protect the ideals that the American Flag symbolizes. I find it to be insulting and disrespectful on so many levels for American businesses to be okay importing and selling these blatantly inaccurate flags for the sake of lower costs and higher profits.

This also makes me wonder about what else is being ignored or screwed up as companies look to cut corners and cost as much as they can get away with. This is not as much an argument against outsourcing as it is against irresponsible companies that outsource to the lowest bidders without ever verifying the quality of the products they’re supposed to stand behind. When something goes wrong and a flawed product is identified, companies, manufacturers, and retailers all point fingers at each other.

Finally, would an American manufacturer have been okay with flags like this leaving their factories? If for some reason a company must outsource, they should at least ensure that the overseas factories know what they’re doing.