What are you guys paying for gas?

[LuketheDog]

This guy has figured it out...

Yep, he has it figured out: make your billion bucks and then go around making nice speeches. Unfortunately a lot of the stuff he was talking about like quality, anti-fashion, and flexibility are no longer unique benchmarks of Patagonia and are not in practice like they were...my best friend's wife works for them in Ventura, CA, I hear all about it.

I paid $4.24 for 87 yesterday afternoon in Littleton, hit the $75 cap at the pump again without filling the tank...

 

[Deleted member 28227]

The syncrude that is the product of the tar sands is indeed turned into gasoline, diesel, etc. Every crude produces different ratios of various products, but if they don't yield gasoline and diesel, a refinery would have no interest in refining it.

Thanks! I was trying to @ you but I couldn't remember you handle.

That makes sense, but to your statement, upping production in the Permian is going to produce more gasoline per barrel than importing from Canada. So Texas is really where we need the increase for gas to go down correct? (conceptually)

 

[BuzzH]

There are some interesting studies showing that some people work more at home than they do in the office. You'll also see studies to the contrary.

I think it would be a mistake to generalize any group in this- from employees to generations. There are certainly lazy folks out there. One of the chief skills managers and business owners will have to develop, is how to hold people accountable and yet still offer flexibility. This isn't easy, and no one has perfectly figured it out, but be sure that old ways won't cut it.

And I think it is worth mentioning that everything hinges on businesses being successful - whether it is the business you own or work for, or the businesses and their employees that pay the taxes that fund your public sector gig. I believe this is the proper attitude to have within reason. In a very high level but real way all are on the same team.

A huge part is hiring the right people from the get-go. If you do that, everything falls into place, they job will get done.

As long is the job is done, nobody really cares how many hours you work each day, they just don't.

I recently had my roof on a rental property done, the business that did it bid the job and in that bid was the number of hours it would take.

They did a quality job in way less time they bid...do I care? No, as long as the job is done well, I don't care that they got it done in 6 hours. Nor would I have cared if it took them a week, as long as the quality is the same...I simply don't care.

Some friends I hunt pronghorn with was my buddy and his boss. His boss was one of the best guys I've met, I'd work for him in heartbeat. We talked about his management style, he said I flat don't care how long it takes my employees to do the job. If they can do it in 15 hours a week or 75 hours a week, as long as its done. If they get everything done and want to fish on Friday, go for it. His only caveat was just make sure your job is done, its all he cared about.

He had very low turnover in employees, a vast majority had worked there 15 or more years. His employees and business both did very well.

Its not rocket science...hire people you can trust, give them their tasks, and get out of the way and let them do it. Its ridiculous worrying about where, when or how they do it as long as the job is done well, it just doesn't matter.

It's tedious and time consuming babysitting employees, and miserable to have to punch a clock looking busy.

 

[Deleted member 18333]

Give them the work and leave them alone...if it takes them 4 hours a day and 20 hours a week, great. If they want to work 10 hours a day and takes them 50 hours, great.

As long as the work is done, who cares?

I would, to some degree. Not everyone has the same skill level and aptitude. Similar work may take one person longer than the other person doing the same work. I think knowing who can accomplish more in less time is a useful thing to know. For both the benefit of the company and the employee. Back when I was still engineering, I could bust out a cut design in a day. Of our current engineers, I don't think any of them could do that. I do know who would be the fastest. Knowing that gives me a better understanding of who to lean on when shit hits the fan and who to give space to. This is also helpful when determining who is ready to move the next level and during evaluation periods.

Not saying remote work is not a good thing but there are aspects to it that are not better than being in an office. Can these be adapted to or worked around? Some for sure.

I get the thought that Boomers are just stuck in their ways and need to adapt to the new generations way of working. But contrary to popular belief not everything boomers do is broken and not every idea the next generation comes up with is a great one. Remote working is a great thing but still leaves holes.

 

[BuzzH]

Yep, he has it figured out: make your billion bucks and then go around making nice speeches. Unfortunately a lot of the stuff he was talking about like quality, anti-fashion, and flexibility are no longer unique benchmarks of Patagonia and are not in practice like they were...my best friend's wife works for them in Ventura, CA, I hear all about it.

I paid $4.24 for 87 yesterday afternoon in Littleton, hit the $75 cap at the pump again without filling the tank...

Believe what you want...naysayer in every crowd.

 

[TOGIE]

Hard to argue MDs are lazy.

For the first time, physicians are less likely to operate their own practices

Employed physicians for the first time outnumber those with their own practices, a new report says.

www.marketwatch.com

clearly any MD who determines that the risk/reward of private practice no longer skews toward reward is lazy AF. any geologist or PE that doesn't want to take on the risk of starting their own oil company or consulting firm is clearly a have-sex-all-day-at-work lazy ass POS too.

i'm learning so much today

 

[Deleted member 18333]

BTW, just paid $4.48 for off highway diesel. Average for the month of March was $4.22 on 145,000 gallons.

 

[Deleted member 18333]

clearly any MD who determines that the risk/reward of private practice no longer skews toward reward is lazy AF. any geologist or PE that doesn't want to take on the risk of starting their own oil company or consulting firm is clearly a have-sex-all-day-at-work lazy ass POS too.

i'm learning so much today

This is accurate but from my experience most Geo's would have a hard time finding someone to participate with them.

 

[westbranch]

I finally bought a new bike and I can bike to work in about 20 mins. Price to fuel the bike may have gone up as I will end up drinking more IPAs due to exercising more.

 

[Treeshark]

huge part is hiring the right people from the get-go. If you do that, everything falls into place, they job will get done.

This x100. So true.

 

[shannerdrake]

You're old school...that model isn't going to work for the modern worker.

Adapt or die or have a bunch of culls punching in 8 hours trying to look busy...or hire people that are good at their job and quit worrying about when, where, and how they do it.

Give them the work and leave them alone...if it takes them 4 hours a day and 20 hours a week, great. If they want to work 10 hours a day and takes them 50 hours, great.

As long as the work is done, who cares?

I'm with Buzz on this one. I switched the staffing metrics at my center from an hour-based model to a work-based model. Through a large workforce staffing assessment, we built a model that essentially determines how much "product" each worker should be able to produce every pay period (2 weeks). From there we staffed accordingly, moved to virtual workforce, saved millions in building expenses (not to mention time off, worker's comp claims, etc), and now simply require each employee to complete his/her work within the pay period. In short, it has been incredible. No more policing adults or judging who is working hard and who is not. You either get your work done and are successful or do not and dealt with accordingly.

I road tripped from Indiana to Tennessee and back last weekend to chase turkeys. Paid $4.20 in Indianapolis, IN, $4.00 in Moorestown, TN, and $3.80 in Lexington, KY.

 

[PrairieHunter]

You're old school...that model isn't going to work for the modern worker.

Adapt or die or have a bunch of culls punching in 8 hours trying to look busy...or hire people that are good at their job and quit worrying about when, where, and how they do it.

Give them the work and leave them alone...if it takes them 4 hours a day and 20 hours a week, great. If they want to work 10 hours a day and takes them 50 hours, great.

As long as the work is done, who cares?

I haven't shared my opinion. If you notice I am speaking in general views, not going into personal views.

The issue from an employers stand point is can someone provide enough value working 4 hours to justify full time pay. Few people have the skills to bring that kind of value as they would need to be worth a couple hundred $ an hour.

That model will work great for people who are really skilled and employers who are willing to pay. But that's more of a challenge for people who don't bring that much value to a business but expect to be paid the same.

It will be interesting to see how society reacts.
Will we be willing to pay more for products we buy so the people involved can work less which will require hiring more people to achieve the same output.
Will people be willing to pay higher taxes so the government employees can work less hours and have less than full time responsibility.
Will people pay more for homes, construction, etc so those people can work 20-30 hours instead of 70+.
Will people pay more for food so the cooks, waiters, etc can work less hours, less weekends, etc...



A poster pointed out earlier that the employees have a lot of power right now. Similar story for people who are selling real-estate, and used cars. That is likely to change over time and it will be interesting to see how the new way of thinking goes when jobs become scarce, homes become more available, lumber prices come down, car lots are full, used car market crashes, etc...

The group that really gets screwed in all this are the tradesmen, manufacturing, etc which can't be done remotely. So those folks will still be working 40+ hour weeks while some office folks are working 20 hours from home. I can see how those guys would get frustrated watching that unfold as the office folks will come out way ahead on working remotely.

As far as who cares. In a private business it's their money to do what they want with. Nobody really cares. In a government office it's a bit different as that's taxpayer $ so a different situation. In that situation taxpayers may have opinions on how that $ is spent.


I think it's really interesting to watch how this unfolds. The holy grail is finding a job someone can do part time on their own schedule and make really good $. Like Uber/grubhub/shop/ etc but people making $200+ an hour. The business that figures that model out will make a fortune as its' clear the demand is there from people wanting flexibility. This is why only fans has done so well, but not everybody want's to be a sex worker.

 

[Dave N]

The group that really gets screwed in all this are the tradesmen, manufacturing, etc which can't be done remotely. So those folks will still be working 40+ hour weeks while some office folks are working 20 hours from home. I can see how those guys would get frustrated watching that unfold as the office folks will come out way ahead on working remotely.

Exactly where I am. I work at a Cat plant and haven't missed any work because I am "essential". No bonus, no hazard pay, no wage increase. Just work. MOST office folks haven't been around for the better part of 2 years. Now that things are better and they are supposed to come back they are saying no. They would quit if forced. WTF? I don't get a choice. Want a job? Do what the employer says. Period. There are plenty of others to take that spot. That's what I've been told.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

The group that really gets screwed in all this are the tradesmen, manufacturing, etc which can't be done remotely. So those folks will still be working 40+ hour weeks while some office folks are working 20 hours from home. I can see how those guys would get frustrated watching that unfold as the office folks will come out way ahead on working remotely.

Easy solution

If those employees really want flexibility they should just work for themselves, but they don't want that responsibility.

 

[Laszlo Cravensworth]

My buddy who works in biotech and makes about 5x what I do just sent me a video of his supervisor and coworkers shooting hoops in the office. I'll wager that the WFH employees aren't any more distracted than that...

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Exactly where I am. I work at a Cat plant and haven't missed any work because I am "essential". No bonus, no hazard pay, no wage increase. Just work. MOST office folks haven't been around for the better part of 2 years. Now that things are better and they are supposed to come back they are saying no. They would quit if forced. WTF? I don't get a choice. Want a job? Do what the employer says. Period. There are plenty of others to take that spot. That's what I've been told.

So your employer could fire all of them...
Just like you could have quit.
(Tongue firmly in cheek)

I'm not trying to single you out Dave, just the general sentiment, but here is the problem taking it back to gas. The shortage was caused by dramatic drop in demand and then demand coming back. It could be tempered by reducing demand.

If the folks, for whom it made sense, worked remote then gas would be cheaper and there would be less traffic. That benefits everyone. The problem IMHO is people looking over at other folks food bowls.

Some folks would rather hose themselves just to make sure someone else doesn't get a perceived benefit.

 

[TOGIE]

this is a fun game

Exactly where I am. I work at a Cat plant and haven't missed any work because I am "essential". No bonus, no hazard pay, no wage increase. Just work.

solution?

If those employees really want flexibility they should just work for themselves, but they don't want that responsibility.

or

Like the taxes you mentioned earlier. The employer is just giving them choices.

Choice 1. ̶C̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶i̶c̶e̶ get an office position

Choice 2. Go work somewhere else.

also not singling you out dave. just having fun with the irony of this conversation

 

[Dave N]

Yeah, no offense taken. Just a point of view.

I'm turning 61 next month. Don't WANT an office job nor do I want to start over somewhere else. I'm one of those stuck in the middle waiting for something to get better.

 

[BuzzH]

There are other benefits to teleworking as well not just fuel savings.

Way more people die in car wrecks than occupational hazards.

Less traffic less fatalities, lower insurance, less tires, less brake pads, less road rage...and the list goes on and on.

It makes no sense for people that can work remote from home to travel to an office every day.

 

[Cogreeny]

This is how my business runs in an easy to explain way. We get X amount of feet of pipe in a day to make wages, diesel etc. and a profit. If the guys don’t get X amount of feet in every day I start hunting the problem. If it takes one crew 15 hours to put in the same amount of pipe as it does for another one in 11 that matters big time and it either gets corrected or heads roll. I’m not gonna lie I fired 3 guys in one day off the same crew didn’t bother me a bit they were there to do as little as possible and still draw a check and trying to milk the overtime. Production matters is what I’m getting at for a lot of industries. They get bonuses every Christmas as well based on performance there’s a lot of incentive to come to work everyday and get as much done as fast as possible while still holding quality to the highest level. Company does well you do well if you’ve helped with the success.