In 1893 Sherwin-Williams advertising manager George Ford first sketched the Cover the Earth logo, a prophecy of Sherwin-Williams paint—vomited on us all.        The spill was intended to symbolize abundance and dominance according to Ford , insisting Sherwin wasn’t just selling paint but rather submerging the world in it.  Showing the prescience of Nostradamus, their discharge now covers the earth.   Like the time EPA inspected Sherwin’s Stage Coach Trail manufacturing facil

THE chicken and egg are the most acclaimed of the causality dilemmas, a paradox philosophers have been tempted with since they sighted the first chicken.  Or egg. And though science has finally settling that score , I still spent the week in the grips of that classic paradox. Unsure where it all began.   Eight days ago, I received a tip I felt compelled to peruse—making that impulse seem the cause of my week spent obsessing.  Until I mention that I was only compelled to fo

Proving that dreams really do come true, I was hired last week as an expert witness in a paint dispute.  Paid by the hour to impart paint knowledge, including what every dealer and store manager reading this screed already knows: painters do some dumbass shit .   To prepare for deposition I inspected the job gone bad, finding application errors which caused a six-figure failure.  One which, like most complaints I inspected during my 30-year career, could have been avoided if

In a complaint filed in Superior Court in California’s San Joaquin County, a former Sherwin-Williams employee alleges that the company “rounded down” his time each time he clocked out.    “As a matter of established company policy and procedure ."   That employee’s accusations mirror those in other cases , and those made directly to me by the hundreds of Sherwin-Williams employees I spoke with as I investigated wage theft at that firm. Among the accusations is that Sherwin en

At their national sales meeting in Orlando last month , Sherwin-Williams CEO Heidi Petz instructed hourly employees attending the event not to clock in before breakfast. Further, she required they clock out after each session and back in when they start the next. each day walking the show for eight to ten hours.    But Heidi only had to pay them for six.   The practice left managers short the requisite hours to fulfill their weekly obligation to Sherwin, forcing them back

Earlier this week I posted the pilot episode of a new podcast series called Mark Lipton Live , where I summarized the findings of my investigation of wage theft at Sherwin-Williams .    Recorded earlier this month, the episode lays out my case against Sherwin, which forces employees to work without pay as a matter of practice according to the hundreds of Sherwin-Williams employees I interviewed.  In the episode I speak to how each class of employee is impacted by these schem

In July of 2022 I pondered whether slowing sales in Sherwin’s Consumer Brands Group portended a shift in DIY shopping habits , as early data suggested.  Four years later that trend is easily seen, and not just in the results at Sherwin’s CBG but also in the results at Masco. Which, like Sherwin, is struggling to maintain its market share in the DIY segment.   Last week Masco reported a 15% decrease in their volume through Home Depot during the fourth quarter of 2025, a stagge

On Monday I reported that Pittsburgh Paints had removed their eponymously branded products from the shelves at Home Depot, unwinding the first of Irick’s Follies .  The second being he belief that Walmart could sell paint .   When the agreement to put PPG’s best-selling store and dealer brands into Home Depot was announced in 2022, I opined the idea seemed fraught: unlikely to generate growth in excess of the cannibalism which seemed assured. And the move was certain to lo

After all that , former Sherwin-Williams executive Monty Griffin had some advice for me, like a bug on the windshield telling the driver to change lanes. Still  unable to hold his thumbs, allowing me to call his basic comprehension  into question.     In an email sent in reply to my post, Griffin suggested I seek legal counsel prior to mentioning his name again, perhaps thinking there was some law protecting assholes from being called out?  His threat begs further rebuke,