I'm being "forced" to put a company magnet on my personal car

Question

I'm not sure how to handle this situation without being fired, even though I think that would be an extreme measure.

A little background:

I work for a company that frequently requires employees to go on-site to customer locations. When the customer's location is far enough away or it's an overnight stay, we usually rent vehicles. However, that's considered unreasonable for close customer locations. In those cases, we are reimbursed mileage on our personal cars.

The situation:

A big customer of ours and one that I have to go to frequently is now requiring all contractor cars to have magnets on them to indicate they're a contractor. These magnets just have the company name on them. My issue with this is that I just bought a new car not long ago and I'm doing everything possible to take great care of it. I don't like the thought of repeatedly putting on and taking off a magnet. There's a decent chance it could be scratched. I've also seen cars get sun-baked where the paint fades at uneven rates due to a section of the car being covered a lot.

I'd like to be diplomatic about this, but I can't think of a solution to suggest to my boss. Any advice?

Answer 1

I'm assuming this is essentially just there to ID the car as belonging to a contractor in order to allow the client to manage parking?

If so, would it be feasible to display the magnet inside the car? on the dashboard or similar? That way it's still visible but you don't have to worry about attaching it to the paintwork.

If this isn't an option there are steps you can take to protect your car's paintwork (I'm with you on this one.. I can get very picky about protecting my paintwork!).

• Make sure the paintwork has a good coat of wax or sealant on it.
• Keep a bottle of Quik Detailer (similar products from other manufacturers are available) and a supply of clean microfibre cloths in the car
• When you need to apply the magnet a quick spray of the Quick Detailer and buff it off with a clean microfibre and then apply the magnet.
• Sunbaking is unlikely to be an issue (only certain types of paint are affected - Vauxhall's red paint in the 90s and the SEAT OVNI Yellow are the usual suspects) as modern paints are much better at resisting it and the relatively small amount of time it will spend with the magnet on relative to the car's life will mean any difference is negligible. You can always vary the location you apply it too though if you're worried or know that your car is susceptible.

If you'd like some more information on options for protecting your paintwork see here for a primer (no pun intended).

Answer 2

I'd like to be diplomatic about this, but I can't think of a solution to suggest to my boss. Any advice?

Ask if you can affix the magnet to the inside of a window, facing out.

I've done this with parking stickers that I didn't want to permanently attach to my car. As long as it was visible, they didn't actually care.

Answer 3

Park your car elsewhere, and walk to the office.

If the magnet is simply used to identifier contractors' cars, why not park in an adjacent lot (where nobody is looking for magnets) and walk to the building?

Answer 4

The customer's rule is that cars must be marked. That rule is not yours to change, and neither your manager's.

The only solutions are:

1. Attach the magnet to your car. Ask on Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair on how to do it safely.
2. Attach the magnet to another car and use it. That's the only thing your boss can do: give you a rental car. This is not an unreasonable request.
3. Don't drive a car there at all. Take the bus or park your car outside premises and walk the last mile. Most likely not feasible, but I'm putting it here for the sake of completeness.

Placing the magnet behind a windshield is unlikely to be possible. If they wanted markers to be placed there, they would not put the extra cost to make them magnetic.

Answer 5

You could also put a thin material as buffer between the magnet and your car.

Depending on how strong the magnet is, you could:

• Put a really thin fabric under the magnet like one of the soft fleece things people put into their laundry to perfume it or stop colors from bleeding

• A tissue paper might do as well. You can change it regularily to avoid dust scratching your paint

• Tape the underside with masking tape. The slightly crincled texture is flexible enough to avoid scratches

  All these materials have to be changed regularily to dispose of dust particles that would otherwise scratch the paint. Especially if you drive on construction sites you want to change the buffer every time.

An alternative offered by Ellesedil is to apply the buffer to your car permanently:

There are actually automotive products on the market that are essentially a thin material, specifically a transparent film, that is applied to the car with the sole purpose of protecting the paint. The shorthand term for this film in automotive circles is "clear bra" and is designed to be essentially imperceptible unless viewed up close. This provides really long term paint protection and removes all of the drawbacks you list in your suggestions. But, it costs a little more than a box of tissue paper. Other options also exist, but a clear bra best matches what you suggest in your answer. – Ellesedil

Answer 6

If it's your personal car, check your insurance. Standard only covers commuting to a single place of work, not visiting customers.

The company therefore can't make you use your car.

Answer 7

I would expect more scratching from pebbles thrown up by other cars on the highway than from a magnet, but you can't avoid these if you move your car out of the garage.

Getting a wax coating makes sense, but more than that is unlikely to be worth the money. Your car will depreciate in value whether you use it or not, and doing so while being reimbursed is the best deal you can get. Any potential buyer in several years will care more about the state of the motor than about whether there was a magnet attached or not.

Answer 8

Ask your boss to put clear vinyl coat on whatever panel you're putting the magnet on. Clear vinyl is pretty hard to see and does a pretty good job of protecting paint.

Answer 9

Being diplomatic means choosing your battles.

If I was your boss and you started causing trouble about this I would be annoyed with you. If you're the employee that makes a stink about something stupid, how are you going to handle real challenge? It wasn't my decision in the first place, it ultimately came from an important client. It seems security related, and clients tend to be particularly strict about that stuff.

My advice is to accept it for what it is and move on. Show what a team player you are, get a raise, and spend some of that money getting your car detailed.

Answer 10

First, depending on the quality of the magnet you can get lucky and have a few scratches or sun marks or you can have rust on the location. I would not allow a magnet to be attached.

If the magnet is for security reasons ( i.e. allowing entrance into certain areas ) then you can suggest to your boss that they use your license plate as a form of contractor identification as it is actually more secure than a magnet stuck on a vehicle. If some visible company logo is required, you can suggest a printed ( color ) stock placed on the dashboard. Under no circumstances should you allow any item to be attached to your car's exterior and you can cite probable damage to your vehicle as the reason.

Answer 11

By providing hire cars for longer-distance site visits, your employer has already shown to some degree that they wish to limit the burden on your personal property. If their request to you places your property at risk in a way that makes you uncomfortable, make sure they're aware of the potential problem so they have a chance to do what they can to help solve it.

Let's break down the possible options:

1. There's a way to attach the magnet provided without damaging the car. Then you don't really have a workplace problem and you should do this and move on, with consultation with Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair on how to do this safely.
2. There's a way to meet the customer's wishes (identifying the company your car is associated with) without attaching a magnet to the paintwork. That's between your boss and the customer, who might be quite happy to agree to a satisfactory solution, such as putting something in the window.
3. You can't negotiate an exemption from attaching the magnet and you can't be sure it won't damage the paintwork. In this case, it's a question of how much of this cost associated with keeping this customer your boss is willing to bear for you. If the risk of damage isn't certain, perhaps your boss would agree to cover the cost of any resulting paint damage should it occur. Or if they won't simply make a hire car available for visiting that particular customer, perhaps your boss could lend you their own personal car!

Answer 12

Have you looked at ways you could mount it in the window? Explain exactly as you did here.

There's a decent chance it could be scratched. I've also seen cars get sun-baked where the paint fades at uneven rates due to a section of the car being covered a lot.

Then see if there is an easy way to affix it inside your window like a sun-shield. I managed to find magnetic ones on Amazon with a quick search.

You could also try putting a thin blanket between the magnet and the car, but I'd try to window shade idea first.

Answer 13

Move the magnet to a different place on your car every so often. That will prevent the same spot from being protected from the sun.

I have a couple magnets on my car and scratching has never been an issue. I would not worry about the car getting scratched while putting the magnets on and off unless you have steel fingernails.

Answer 14

What did you expect? "We have all contractor cars tagged. Except Jim's car, he's afraid that the tags damage his paint so we let him"

It is not upon to you or your boss to dictate the client his own security rules. Imho it sounds reasonable that contractor cars become tagged, I also think that your fears are unfounded. Should one of my coworkers come to me with such wishes I would not have him fired but will place him on the list of "difficult" persons, as he wants to bend reasonable rules because of unreasonable fears.

In my place it is ok to "bend" certain rules if the reason justifies it. For something as client security rules the mark is quite high. To even begin discussion, one must have a very well founded reason.

An example for "bendable" rules is the requirement to only use company issued work boots: It is fine when somebody uses other shoes, as long as they have the needed safety certificates (to please both insurance and lawyer), cover the ankles (see before) and the exterior is not too different from the company issued ones (so somebody in the upper floors can still boast about the fancy uniform work dress the company uses to project their image).

However I'd like to present you some viable ways

• Evasion

  • Park your untagged car somewhere else (Will have detriments for you: "It takes so long for him to come, just because he thinks that the tags will damage his paint")
  • Use a taxi. Detriments: See above.

• Minimizing impact

  • Cover the magnets with adhesive tape to avoid scratching.
  • While I don't share your fear of sunbleaching, I'd suggest to alternate the location of the tag to avoid it.

• Alternative

  • Affix the tag on the windows, place some soft fridge magnets on the inside, so that the tag magnets have something to grab on (Pay attention to be outside of the airbag radius should you drive around with a tagged car).

• Verify it

  • Question your fears of the damage. Wait until damage happens, then have your boss compensate you.

Answer 15

You have your concerns... and I want to try to reassure you that most of what you are worried about in your post are mostly minor.

The modern printable vehicle magnets are soft and very flexible and come to the manufacturer on huge rolls instead of rigid sheets. I am familiar with companies using magnets for partial and full vehicle wraps (temporary or seasonal) and they actually protect the vehicle better than a custom paint job.

It is highly unlikely that they would directly cause any damage to your vehicle. If you are still concerned, ask for a design that includes rounded corners instead of a straight rectangle cut and there will not be any sharp edges on the magnet sign to begin with. Think of the flexible magnets that go on fridges, and imaging how difficult it would be to cause any damage to your paint with one of those.

As far as damage from uneven sun wear, you can easily remove it once you leave the job site. They are easy to attach and detach with no more effort than peeling a banana. If you travel to this job site 3 times a week for a few hours at a time... 10 hours of sun exposure during 77 hours (winter) or 90+ hours (summer) per week will make very little difference.

Also does the contract require that you have a magnet sign on both front doors of the car, or is it something that you only need to have on the driver side? (Requiring on both doors makes it more of an effort for you, and its possible you get distracted and forget to add/remove the opposite driver side sign).

Is it something that you would be able to first park and then affix the sign to the door, or does the sign need to be in place before driving onto the property?

For me the bigger concern would be if the sign is stolen, vandalized or falls off.

As an employee are you responsible for the damage/loss?

When you requisition the signs from the boss, recommend that you get 4 copies of the sign even if you are only required to put on one on the drivers side door. Explain that because they are easily removable, they could be lost or stolen and that it is better to have extras in the trunk then to show up on the job site and be refused access because the sign falls off during transit with no backup available. Explain that you think that 4 should be sufficient to last the entire year. (What you want to do is set the expectation that these are "disposable" and not valuable company assets that you need to be held 100% accountable).

Also, it is not really all that much more to order 4 custom signs than it is to order just the 1.

In fact the cost to get custom signs is less about the material and square footage cost to print and more about the setup and custom art. In printing, the cost per item always goes down the more you order... but if you order fewer than what you actually need then you end up spending considerably more in the long run.

Answer 16

If your license plate is a ferrous metal, attach the magnet to the license plate. If it's not, get a slim piece of steel and bolt it (with the license plate bolt) to the bumper between the license plate and the bumper (so it's not visible from the outside). Attach the magnet to that spot on the plate.

You'll probably want to attach and remove the magnet when you enter/exit the customer's property, but if they have a guard shack, you can get out and do it there (passive/aggressively showing your displeasure with the process). If they don't just slap it on when you've pulled into a parking space. (To be fair, where I live in the USA I see quite a number of vehicles with FOP (Fraternal Order of Police) badges attached to the license plate partially obscuring the plate number, but that may be a bit of a special case.)

Unless you live someplace extremely hot and sunny, it's very unlikely that you're going to see fading differences from having the magnet attached to the car, even if you're there for a full 8-hour work day. Just make sure you're attaching it to a different location every time you're there, or move it if you're there several days in a row.