I know Stellantis isn’t really doing so hot right now, but we’re pulling for them to turn things around. That may be why this allegedly leaked memo from a Stellantis engine plant, the Kokomo Engine Plant in Indiana that builds the 2.0-liter Global Medium Engine inline four-cylinder turbo that is bolted into Jeeps Wrangler, Compass and Grand Cherokee, feels so especially tragic. Because it’s one thing for your company to be faltering and trying to climb out of a sales slump, and a very different thing for some unnamed employee to be smearing shit all over the place in your engine plant. Because that’s what that memo is talking about.
Yes, you read that right: a Stellantis engine plant has been having so many incidents of fecal-smearing all over its bathrooms that the Wellbeing, Health, and Safety Manager of the plant had to issue this plant-wide memo essentially pleading for whoever the hell is doing this to stop acting like a deranged chimp and cease smearing shit everywhere.
I wish I was kidding. Here’s the memo, as published by The Kokomo Press:
If that scan is too hard to read, here it is in plain text (if the post gets deleted, it’s here, too):
STELLANTIS
2/3/2025
Kokomo Engine Plant- All Employees
Is it unfortunate for us all to have to deal with an employee(s) that continues to create situations that are both unsanitary and certainly disturbing. Wiping feces on the bathroom walls, the disability handle bars, door latches, sinks handles, and the piles being left on the floor does nothing other than subject our facility and SBM teams to potentially dangerous biohazards that are completely avoidable. NOTHING. So, it begs the question for us to ask “WHY?” What is it accomplishing to perform such careless and disgusting act?
Effective immediately, SBM has been directed not to cleanup after such events. With the exception being the front locker rooms, each bathroom found in this grotesque state, will be immediately locked and taken out of service until further notice. There will be folks that have some complaints and concerns about this process, but we will no longer ask our SBM staff to clean up these types of events until a detailed investigation is complete. If needed, alternate methods may be used to help pinpoint the culprit.
Lastly, change is coming. Whether it be the newly announced EVO Program or future unannounced products, KEP is being looked at for sustained production activities far beyond 2023 Managing change is always difficult, but this issue should never be an issue that needs addressing from here on.
If you know of or can provide additional information, you are free to use our anonymous kep_safety@stellantis.com email address, and the information will be kept confidential. If you have further questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me directly.
R. Tyler Adams
Wellbeing. Health, & Safety – Manager
I think Mr.Adams asks a very valid question here, and the use of all-caps I think is justified: WHY? Yes, indeed, why, why is someone at this plant taking abundant, loamy shits and then smearing it all over the walls, sink handles, railings, places where people need to touch? And then the reference to “piles” being left on the floor? Dear lord, why, why, why?
I do have to take issue with The Kokomo Press‘ phrasing of these acts as “making Picasso Poop Paintings,” because while I get the urge for that analogy, is a genuinely terrible one from an art historical context.
It’s just lazy; there’s almost nothing in the works of Pablo Picasso that resembles poop smeared on a bathroom wall. Consider this example of Picasso’s work:
Photo: YUNUSI/Depositphotos.com
That’s 1937’s Guernica, and while Picasso’s styles changed and evolved over the years, nothing he did was remotely poo-smeared-on-walls-like.
Maybe if the author picked someone like, say, Franz Kline, it would be more plausible:
Photo: Artsy.net
But they probably wanted the alliteration of Ps in “Picasso Poop Paintings.” I get that. Well, if that’s the case, freaking Jackson Pollock is right there!
Photo: Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), National Gallery of Art
That’s much closer to something that could be rendered in poop on bathroom tile; I say this as someone who likes Jackson Pollock, too. They really should have said “Pollock Poop Paintings.”
Of course, this is trivial to the overall context of someone working at that Jeep engine factory smearing shit all over the place. Is it possible this is a hoax? It’s always possible, so our own Editor-in-Chief David reached out to the plant, who ultimately was able to get someone from Stellantis’ comms team in touch with us. (See update below).
Stellantis is committed to providing a safe and healthy work environment for its employees. The Company is currently investigating disturbing incidents at its Kokomo Engine Plant that have left bathroom facilities in an unsanitary condition. While the investigation is ongoing, the plant will ensure that bathroom facilities are regularly cleaned and sanitized and remain accessible to employees. Those responsible for these intentional acts will be held accountable.
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I’m from just south of Kokomo and see that The Kokomo Press strikes again ???? that page is satire and is labeled as such if you go look in the “about” section of the Facebook page
Fun fact: Apes and monkeys don’t generally play with, fling, spread or smear their own feces about unless they are extremely bored and frustrated… it only happens regularly in captivity.
Here we are folks.
This is your workplace. How’s it treating you?
Can you see the zookeepers through the bars of your cage from your office chair?
Do you feel free on the “freeway” heading home in your Nissan “Rogue”?
Are you angry at a world that seems to have forgotten all about you but you don’t know how to show it?
Smearing Feces LLC
Down in Kokomo
We’ll poop real fast and then we’ll smear it slow
Not where you want to go
Way down in Kokomo
You think you’re so tough peeing on the floor. Well it takes real guts to shit on the ceiling.
Seriously though, engine plant? I would of guessed Chrysler paint shop.
Unfortunately this is a thing that occasionally occurs at any large workplace as far as I can tell. No idea what leads someone to do that, but I’ve received emails much like that letter at multiple white collar offices.
When I was young, I worked for a department store, and one of my jobs was cleaning the bathrooms. I’ve never seen what seemed like, um, poo fights in the bathrooms. Cleaning poo five feet up on the walls is not fun. For some reason, it happened more in the ladies’ room than in the gents.
I feel for that cleaning crew.
I first saw this on the Toilets with Threatening Auras Facebook page, and I thought it was fake. Just…wow. And I thought my workplace had bathroom issues!
Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well.
The memo ominously hints that “alternate methods may be used” to find the perpetrator. Yikes. Such as what, exactly?
– Rectal swabs at the entry gate to compare against employee DNA samples?
– A poop-sniffing dog checking fingernails?
– Toilet cams?
They will never get my poop cams!
It is articles like this, that make the Autopian the best automotive site on the web. Thank you J.T.
With stories like this, I’m surprised there is no reoccurring segment on detailing.
Yikes
This is why we can’t have nice things.
“I do have to take issue with The Kokomo Press‘ phrasing of these acts as “making Picasso Poop Paintings,” because while I get the urge for that analogy, is a genuinely terrible one from an art historical context.”
Eh, given Picasso’s extensive history of beating the women in his life it’s eminently valid to make a strong association of Picasso with poop. The day can’t come soon enough for Picasso to be tossed in the dustbin of history.
Doesn’t give me a sense of confidence in vehicle build quality if this is an ongoing issue at the plant.
Freshman year of college there was a bandit on the loose of my dorm. For a few weeks in a row, in the wee small hours of several consecutive Saturdays, they would leave their, uh, mark on the tiles over on the shower side of the 3rd floor bathroom. To the point where there were such utterances as “The Phantom Shitter strikes again” or “Who is the Phantom Shitter?”
Never found out who it was, not sure if they got caught, but thanks for reminding me of that 30 year old memory
In my 1st year at university, our dormitory would occasionally be woken to the incredulous hoots of our cleaning ladies, after which we would find a single, literally incredibly enormous log in one of the men’s toilet bowls, clearly impossible for the cleaning ladies to deal with without hiring a crane. We never found out who was responsible, although premature creasing around the eyes and tear-stained clothing might have been a clue.
That’s a 45-year-old memory!
The cleaning ladies don’t get paid fairly for that job, IMO.