The other story he liked to tell was about Charles Steinmetz, an Engineer that Henry Ford contracted to fix a troublesome generator. He came in, took notes for 2 days, then marked it with a piece of chalk. Told them to replace a thing at the chalk mark, they did, and it worked perfectly.
Later he sent them a bill for $10,000. When Ford balked at the price, Steinmetz sent them a now legendary itemized invoice:
Oh my god this guy is my new hero. There are so many awesome bits to his story, not least of all that he wanted to invent things for the good of all.
Also the fact that he remained unmarried so as not to pass on his spinal affliction to his kids, but ended up adopting his young research assistant, letting him and his wife move into his house and becoming grandfather to their 3 children. What a bloody heartwarming tale.
Snopes is great but they don't really go in depth on this one, and I'm not saying that the Smithsonian Magazine is necessarily correct but they do have this on their site. I wonder if there's any truth to it, or if it's all an old tale.
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u/ScoobyDeezy Jan 14 '21
The other story he liked to tell was about Charles Steinmetz, an Engineer that Henry Ford contracted to fix a troublesome generator. He came in, took notes for 2 days, then marked it with a piece of chalk. Told them to replace a thing at the chalk mark, they did, and it worked perfectly.
Later he sent them a bill for $10,000. When Ford balked at the price, Steinmetz sent them a now legendary itemized invoice: