I never saw or heard of any huffers lurking around, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist. The neighborhood wasn't great at the time. Car break-ins were very common.
The company folded around 2002. Grandpa Pigeons used to be one of their biggest accounts, so that was a huge loss when the stores closed. They gained some momentum by getting accounts with Target and Walmart, making paint for their store brands. But the owners were cheap and tried to increase profit by lowering the quality of the paint. They ended up losing both accounts.
It was a really toxic work environment. The owner was very anti-union. So much so that he opened a warehouse in Centralia, Illinois just to make sure the workers couldn't join. Not sure of the specifics, but I think if you opened a location a certain distance from your main business, employees couldn't unionize. I always heard stories of the VP, the son of the owner, throwing tantrums. There were holes in the office walls from being punched or objects being thrown. When I worked there, I always heard yelling behind office doors.
As I said before, my dad's job loss hit us pretty hard. He used to have a (crappy) company car. He would take us all with him when he was sent on work trips. He started working there in high school to save up for a Beetle and worked his way up over the years. It was a second home for him. He even came up with the slogan "Picky painters pick Panda Paint." I don't think my parents ever recovered financially from it. But I'm glad my dad is out of that stressful environment.
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The company folded around 2002. Grandpa Pigeons used to be one of their biggest accounts, so that was a huge loss when the stores closed. They gained some momentum by getting accounts with Target and Walmart, making paint for their store brands. But the owners were cheap and tried to increase profit by lowering the quality of the paint. They ended up losing both accounts.
It was a really toxic work environment. The owner was very anti-union. So much so that he opened a warehouse in Centralia, Illinois just to make sure the workers couldn't join. Not sure of the specifics, but I think if you opened a location a certain distance from your main business, employees couldn't unionize. I always heard stories of the VP, the son of the owner, throwing tantrums. There were holes in the office walls from being punched or objects being thrown. When I worked there, I always heard yelling behind office doors.
As I said before, my dad's job loss hit us pretty hard. He used to have a (crappy) company car. He would take us all with him when he was sent on work trips. He started working there in high school to save up for a Beetle and worked his way up over the years. It was a second home for him. He even came up with the slogan "Picky painters pick Panda Paint." I don't think my parents ever recovered financially from it. But I'm glad my dad is out of that stressful environment.
Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk
