I've seen some work done by federal subcontractors on what amount to black boxes for tugboats and barges, and it's about of this quality actually - shiny metal

I've seen some work done by federal subcontractors on what amount to black boxes for tugboats and barges, and it's about of this quality actually - shiny metal boxes, good machining, then you open them up and the inside is a mess, green wire everywhere, etc. If you know you got the contract anyway and know that aren't dealing with technical people anywhere in the customer chain, you don't have to worry much about quality, it just has to barely work. I was working for the competition at the time, and like to think that the black boxes we made were better than that, although the first couple of revisions were also a mess... at least ours got better!