Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Some corrections

Apparently there are salt trucks/plows in Vegas....sort of. Clark County has 3 snow plows and during the storm we borrowed several others from other cities in southern Nevada. We had 13 salt/plow trucks in use during the recent storm.

Also it was snowing here this morning. Not enough to accumulate. Almost not enough to see, but it was there.

The airport did not technically close although all incoming and out going flights were either cancelled or delayed.

And for all the news media reporting that we had the first snow in Las Vegas in 30 years, please do a bit of fact checking first.(I'm not in the media so I don't have to fact check things like "how many salt trucks we have?" or "Did the airport actually close?")

It snowed here in 2006-trace amounts
and it snowed here in 2003 with several inches of accumulation.

The 30 year statistic the media erroneously reports as the first snow in Las Vegas in 30 years is actually this was the largest accumulation of snow in Las Vegas in the month of December in over 30 years!

In other news, our company is composed of 4 divisions. Mining, Construction, General Impliment(Farming) and Material Handling. With the recent run up of commodities, our mining division has been making money hand over foot and are basically carrying the company right now. The construction division is losing money and the material handling division treading water.

One thing our company does, which most do not, I think, is to lay every thing out. We spent like 3 hours in a teleconference with ALL employees from the CEO down to the lowest employee. In that time the CEO, CFO and each division manager went through every dollar(in aggregat) the company generated. Profits, losses, expenses, ROA(Return on Assest), and budget numbers for every branch of every division for everyone to see. Boring? Yes, quite so. But not so boring if you are one of the branches making money and you know you will get a bonus or two!

Our branch here in Las Vegas though actually made money and was above target for profits for 2008. So not only did we get some nice bonuses(that rivaled many, not all, that I received at Fords) we were also allocated funds for raises and yes I got one. It was actually twice the amount that I thought I might get, but WAS the amount I was HOPING for. They even said that they would have doubled what I did get if not for the economy. Lesson learned...hard work pays off....the next UAW contract may not!!! After the latest round of news about the big 3 and with Ford stock dropping into the $1.50 range my boss asked me if I felt like a genius for leaving Fords when I did. I smiled and said "no", but that I felt good knowing that my prospects relied on me and my abilities, not the next contract I got!

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