OK, most of us have seen outlets that were painted the same color as the wall. They have a hundred layers of paint and it closes the holes for the plug prongs.

Well, When I was working at the paint desk, a lady asked me what type of paint to use to paint an outlet. After telling her several times she shouldn't, I finally gave in because she was wastimg my time.
I told her:
1) Shut off power until the paint dries.
2) Use only 1 coat of primer and 1 coat of paint max.
3) Keep the coats as thin as possible, and keep it as flat as possible (no brush marks)
4) No metallic paint
5) If you change the paint color or repaint, replace the receptacle. If you feel uncomfortable doing this yourself, contact an electrician.
6) Never paint a GFCI, switch or anything with moving parts, smoke detectors, or anything that gets hot.
7) If possible, look for oulets/plates/etc that fit your color scheme (we have almond, ivory, white, gray, brown, and black devices, and a multitude of plate colors)

As much as I hate painted electrical fixtures, I figured that, in theory, if these rules are followed, there shouldn't bee much problem, especially having an electrician periodically replacing receptacles. Do any of you guys see anything even remotely dangerous here? I asked my manager, and he said it was okay (as far as our store's liability), but then again, he's not an electrician, painter, or insurance expert.

I feel that I was put in a compromising position. By giving this advice, I might have saved a life (say, if someone wants to paint the smoke detector and ends up painting the holes shut and it can't sense smoke), but I may have opened the store up to a potential lawsuit if something goes wrong.

If I didn't give this advice, there's a chance we could be sued, but more of a chance we would win because we told them nothing instead of the wrong thing. The disadvantage is I wouldn't have given the customer vital information, which could lead to possible failure of a device, expecially GFCI's and smokes.

I'm no longer employed there, I got a job paying a little less, but a lot less stressful and closer to home.

So what do you think? good advice? bad advice? anything you would add to the list (I would never take anything off the list). I guess I just need some closure here.