Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Re-retirement

[Rick Moseley (ramosel]

Thanks for sharing that Rick...  It's always good to know a "friends" story.

I too have "retired" a couple of times.  Although I come from an entirely different field, it amazes me how most corporations manage to hire/train/develop corporate officers from the same pond scum that make the same near sighted (bean counter) decisions.   None of them seem to be able to look at recent history (as you put it, the last 30+ years) and see they don't need to make deep cost cutting swaths through the engineering staff...   NO, we didn't lose 3 BILLION dollars last year, we made 27 billion.  We just didn't make 30 like we did the year before...  the sky is falling.   Most corporate officers today are running "budget" companies who merely dabble in the core business named on the sign out front.  

After I was gone the staff numbers dwindled,  The work went up.  Everyone was asked to do more with less, Stress went up, morale went down...  heard it a thousand times from people at a thousand different big companies.  One of the tasks my guys (and gals) could do on their own in less than two days was streamlined by the new VP (with no dept experience) across 5 groups into a 3 week process... but he was able to cut his fractional share of a pool car out of his budget!!!

I genuinely miss the people I worked with (though most of them are gone or retired or dead) and I sometimes miss the work.  I don't miss the corporate officers or the company policies one tiny bit. 

They'll spend more on Lobbyists to fight Title II this year than it would take to return the engineering staff full competency.  But, they'll be able to snuggle up to their spread-sheets at night and feel warm and cozy knowing they'll be able to still put their boots to the face of the American consumer.

the other Rick

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From: Rick Lindsay <richardolindsay [at] gmail.com>
To: Rick Moseley <ramosel [at] pacbell.net>
Cc: The FerrariList <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 8, 2015 5:27 AM
Subject: [Ferrari] Re-retirement

Hi Friends,

Those who know me well know that after 30+ years of oil exploration, I retired. That was two years ago. A year ago I was asked to return to the exploration business to mentor new geoscientists. Colleges teach geology, geophysics and petroleum engineering but they don't teach how to find oil! For the last 12 months, that has been my job, part-time: teaching younglings how to find oil.

Given the current Arab manipilation of oil prices, hiring is frozen and most oil companies are laying off mid-career scientists and engineers. Even more so  with the service companies who support the oil industry. I volunteered to resign to perhaps save one job for someone who really needs it. The company countered with an offer for me to go on-call, rather than being there every day. That worked for me.

So starting last week, I re-retired - only to be 'called in' for next week! The staff is reducing across the industry but the work load isn't! We saw this same thing happen in the early '70s and again in the mid '80s (caused by the same people, BTW)! Layoffs in the '80s put a huge notch in the demographics of today's exploration staff. We suffer from that today. Those who survived the '80s layoffs are retired or are retiring today. Left behind is a whole crop of new, bright scientists with no exploration experience! And the senior staff is retiring faster than the younglings are being trained. With layoffs happening again, even the mid-career experience is exiting! The industry is destined to be plagued by the same mistakes made earlier. And with today's  intermediate staff layoffs, and senior staff retirements, the hard working but clueless younglings are left in charge. The Arabs win again.

So where does this take us? In contrast with previous market manipulations, the difference today is with unconventional resources, the oil shale plays that promised to make the U.S. energy independent. That oil is HARD to find and at $50/bbl, its uneconomic to produce. The big companies  will go on hold, leaving the oil in the ground while the smaller companies go out of business. And small companies with more reasonable operating costs, or cost-to-find, as we call it, are the backbone of the oil shale business. With them gone, the oil stays in the shale and the Saudis once again dominate the market.

Will we survive? Sure. Will we pay even higher oil prices in the future? Almost certainly! And although the media is fixated on oil for fuel, almost the whole chemical industry is also petroleum based, especially with respect to plastics and synthetic rubber! Yea, they win and we're gonna' pay.

Of course, I get more time to play in the garage. Sadly, if my mid-career Columbian geophysicist looses her job and therefore her sponsor, she has to be out of the country within 24 hours! (More like 30 days in practice because the INS is so inefficient.) Its just a shame that she obeyed the law, came here legally, and obeyed all the rules. Otherwise, she could get amnesty, free health care, a driver's license and a free ride on the U.S. tax payers! As it is, she'll take her scientific education and experience back to Bogota.

Yea, they win again. And we loose again, while we blindly celebrate cheap fillups... for a few months.

-rick

Happy Connecting. Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy S® 5

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