Cheap USB drives? Yes. They're worth the price. Maybe. And that's a distant maybe. Really distant when you consider what your credibility is worth, let alone your brand's credibility. 

Spend a little extra. Get what you paid for.

It involves glue. 

I mean it. 

A colleague at another media company in Sydney told me, half-confidentially, about a production disaster.

Half-confidentially? Well, yes. If they were talking any louder, there wouldn't be a need for the Internet. Loud talk, public place where other industry members are assembled... hmmmm... not confidential. That, and the person involved gave me the OK to talk about the disaster as long as I didn't say their name or their company name.

However, combining those two and knowing that company's "success", I shudder at what else they do to their clients. 

The disaster? They decided, because of a customer who ruled that it's better to spend less and show off (i.e be a complete tight-arsed idiot and pay scant regard to the good information his experienced suppliers provided), rather than have a product that actually works and is properly made, that they would choose a supplier who they had never dealt with before.

For those of us in the know, that irregular supplier supplies, well... product. Product akin to something that comes out of a cow's backside - and that's on a good day. You may as well burn your cash when you light a cheap cigar - it will give you a similar pleasure. The product is really that intolerable. 

How did the disaster work? Badly. Really, really badly. 

Do you have an idea how USB thumb-drives work? 

Here's a quick overview. The body shell is manufactured to accept a circuit board which has the USB connector exposed. The circuit board is meant to mate with the body shell. Once the body shell is closed during assembly, the circuit board should be locked in place forever and be a useful, suitable connector to actually connect the USB drive to a device for use should be present. The idea is that you stick it into a computer or a hub and you can use it.

Do you agree? Does this seem reasonable to you? It seems quite simple and practical to me...

Was this the product that El Cheapo had bought? Hell no!

What did they buy?

A bunch of circuit boards with USB connectors, floating around in a bunch of body-shells.

Floating? The connectors weren't connected. If you tried to plug the 'drive' into a port the connector just flopped around. Maybe these USB drives needed Viagra? 

It gets worse. 

With the USB PCBs floating in the body shells, they decided to disassemble every drive and hot glue every PCB into every body shell. 

I kid you not. They hot glued every single PCB into every single body shell and then delivered the USB drives to the customer.

They sat around all night with hot glue guns and glued the PCBs to the cases so that they could sell this utter, utter sub-par product to a customer who paid top dollar for premium grade USB drives.

Hot glue is not compatible with the chemistry of a printed circuit board. Ever. If you have doubts about this, use your Google-fu. Acids, circuit tracks, etc... not a positive combination. A short term disaster and corporate reputation in tatters for the sake of a "little gift". 

They did it? Yes. 

Without. So. Much. As. An. Apology.  And accepting full payment. Full payment.

I wish I was not telling the truth. It frightens me to tell this plainly. It's 100% truth. 

Ladies and gentlemen, choose your USB guys carefully. 

We're here to help. We have ethics. We even make sure that we can give a square deal and make you happy. 

But we don't use hot glue. We just make sure the product is made correctly in the first place. We have our own staff in the region to do that.

As always, we're here to - well - help.

Best Regards - Virgil. 

NB - This article was delayed by six months so that no-one involved is exposed.