It continues to amaze me that "The Big Three" North American automakers (Ford, Chrysler, GM) continue to exist. I come from a family that has members that are fiercely loyal to at least two of the big three. My Dad, despite being Asian like me, has staunchly refused to buy an "import" car, despite all credible car reviewers and independent industry watchers who have unanimously concluded that as a whole, Asian and European car makers simply make better cars from a design, reliability and value retention perspective. Yet my Dad will only buy GM, for reasons he has not divulged to me, and my uncle has always bought Ford. I don't know why. Perhaps they have fallen for the old perception in the 50s, 60s and 70s, and to an extent, 80s, where anything Asian, particularly Japanese, was considered junk. Now, I am not here to argue the plausibility of that position, only to state that it is a safe assumption, based on sales and discriminate professional car reviewers, that import cars arek by and large, much more desirable these days and are considered better built.
So I shake my head at the latest meanderings of the big three CEOs who have decided to head over to Washington this week to meet with congress and beg for financial intervention from the U.S. government. Of course, they didn't help their case by all flying in in their individual private jets. Perhaps we all know where the real problem lies now.
Personally, I don't think that the U.S. government should give these car makers a cent. Then again, I am now wondering whether the financial bailout should have happened. There is something that is not right with me about rewarding bad decisions. And let's face it, with these car companies, there are a lot of bad decisions being made. I mean, I live close to Oshawa, Ontario, which has a huge GM plant. I am, for reasons I will not discuss here, aware of what goes on there, and frankly, GM is symptomatic of a company that has not moved into the 21st century. Then again, so is Ford and Chrysler. I mean, when the Asians and Europeans are making hybrids, and generally smaller and more fuel efficient cars, the big three release V8 engine-based cars and offer us the Magnum and Charger. With recently high gas prices (they have fallen very recently but that's beside the point), did these big three have any foresight in what they were engineering?
The big point of concern in letting GM, Chrysler, and Ford die off is that it will have a personal impact. Millions of jobs will be lost. But is that any different than any other industry? I work in the IT industry and the current push is for the old "doing more with less". And yes, it ultimately means less people, though most companies won't have the balls to actually admit that. Jobs are being offshored for cost savings, and locally, layoffs are happening left, right and center, and roles are being either consolidated, or eliminated altogether. This is all in the spirit of remaining competitive in the global economy. I've seen coworkers who have been let go and have not found a job that pays them what they made at our company. Thing is, in IT, things can be done cheaper all the time. And as the workforce ages, there is a certain amount of young blood that is needed to be injected. This year along, I have seen some pretty senior people get let go. Their replacements (if there was one) was a younger person. That is the way things are going now.
Workers in the big three are generally being overpaid. Part of that is due to being in a unionized environment (something I don't believe the Japanese car makers are involved in - at least not in Canada). I mean, I know for a fact that at GM, there are people who have been there for 30 years, whose sole job is to put one little part in another part on an assembly line. And they make $105,000 Cdn. doing it. Did they think that they would be getting this easy money forever? Thankfully reality is catching up to these companies. But it's not just that - these CEOs are making $20-30 million a year (I think the GM one is, anyway). So they complain about being almost being bankrupt and having to potentially lay off people (at the bottom of the company hierarchy), yet these fat cats who have made dumb-ass decisions continue to draw disgustingly high and wholly undeserved salaries on the backs of their overpaid underlings. And you wonder why these companies are in trouble.
I say let GM, Chrysler and Ford die. Yes, people will lose jobs and the whole economy will go into the crapper a lot worse than it is now, but these companies will not stay dead, but will resurface and be rebranded to something better and more efficient. That is simply how the world of business works these days. There is no such thing as corporate status quo anymore. Companies continue to constantly change and evolve and if they don't (like the big three), then well...you see what happens...
Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Friday, October 5, 2007
I'm Getting Old
So yesterday I left work rather quickly, since my wife needed the car for the evening for a meeting which was one of those mandatory workshop type of things. I also needed to carry a rather large box (actually it was very large - it was empty, but I needed it to ship a 160-pound server) back to the car. Since last month, I started parking underground at a condo complex about a 5 minute walk from work. I decided to park there as it was on the way home, rather than the other spot at which I used to park, which was 10 minutes the other way. So here I am lugging this big huge box down the stairs of the parking garage and I get to my parking level and walk to my car.
My car was not there.
My first reaction was panic. I only parked here for a month! They promised 24-hour-security, and keycard controlled access to each level, and more! For what I'm paying to park there each month, I expected the "more" portion. Needless to say, I was quite irritated. Just to make sure that I didn't park at the wrong level, I took the stroll down to the level below me via the stairwell, and checked (somehow my keycard worked for that level as well). All the while, walking around with my rather large box (something in which you can probably fit Yo-Yo Ma's cello or whatever it is that he plays). People who parked their cars started looking at me funny, especially the fact that I may have looked rather suspicious, walking around a parking garage in a confused state, carrying a big empty box around, all the while looking left and looking right and turning around and walking some more. I also had on my green army jacket and black ball cap, so I'm sure I didn't look like a traveling businessman who was lost.
When I was convinced that I had not mistakenly parked my car (I mean, come on now, I am not senile here), I went back to the main level and called the person who manages parking for that condo. Unfortunately, my cell phone, of all the times for it to be running extremely low on batteries, had to choose that afternoon to deplete itself of power. I advised the manager lady that I was low on battery and she put me on hold *sigh* and said she she'll call me back, once she checks with security. A few moments later after checking the garage again, lugging this big server box all the while, she calls me back and leaves a VM (which drains the battery even more, since I now have to go through the rigamarole of doing several key sequence presses) and indicates that she had a chat with security and they did not call a tow truck to tow my car.
I was exasperated. I responded to her, "well then, it's obviously stolen then. So much for your 24 hour security!" I probably should not have added that last part, as I am sure it wasn't terribly helpful information, but you know - you get frustrated and say stupid things. She suggested that I call the police, and I did, but not before calling my wife to inform her that our beloved Nissan Sentra has fallen into the hands of people with questionable personal integrity and ethics. My wife said that she will call her co-ordinator to advise her of the situation.
The cops showed up and I gave them the whole story. They thought it was strange that a private parking spot was somehow compromised and no one knew about it, especially given that the private parking floor has keyed controls to get in. They said they will talk to the security desk to see if they can get some camera views to see who may have taken the car, but in the meantime, they wanted to confirm that I didn't park on the wrong floor. I was flustered, and told them that I checked the floor below me and no I did not park on the wrong floor. They asked if I checked the floor above me and I told them I didn't need to since it looks totally different than my floor and there was no way I'd mistakenly park there. If nothing else, IF I was foolish and senile enough to park somewhere else, it would have been on the floor below me, which was an exact replica of my floor.
They also asked me why I was carrying an empty box around with me, the size of half a refrigerator. I told him that I needed it to ship out something though I mistakenly did not tell him what it was (I wonder whether he thought I was an arms dealer, given my otherwise military jacket). I can tell he regarded my story as fishy, even though it was the truth. I'm willing to bet at that point, he wondered whether I actually had a missing car.
You know cops - being cops, they wanted to be thorough, so they said, "jump in the cruiser and let's check the floors". So I did, after putting the box snugly into his cruiser's trunk, and inhaled the smells from the backseat of what I was sure to have been from many suspects who were inebriated or otherwise. The first floor that they visited was floor number two, directly above my parking floor. "Where do your normally park, sir?" he asked. I indicated by my hand gesture that it was "over there", at which point he drove in that direction towards a little black dot in the distance.
At that point, I started to curse in my mind, since I knew what was coming next. I had some serious backtracking and apologizing to do, and I knew that I would need to implement them within a few seconds. However, the officer beat me to the punch. "Sir, is that your car?" he said, knowing full well it was, since it was the only damn car in that area at that time of day. "Uh, yeah..." I said, and proceeded to start regurgitating apology after apology.
"I'm really sorry, officer...but I thought..."
"I am not sure what happened here"
"I'm so sorry for the inconvenience..."
"I feel like an idiot here..."
"Haha...I must be getting old"
I suspect that, based on his facial demeanour, he neither found any solace or humour in my attempts to apologize for wasting his time. However, as a true professional, charged to serve and protect, he kept his mouth shut, and dropped me off at my car, with only a statement of "you'll want to check the other floors next time." I wasn't about to argue, so I nodded in agreement and once again apologized. He then drove back towards the ramp, heading back to the security desk to pick up his partner, for what I am sure, will be an expletive-laced conversation on the way back to the station or their next destination.
My car was not there.
My first reaction was panic. I only parked here for a month! They promised 24-hour-security, and keycard controlled access to each level, and more! For what I'm paying to park there each month, I expected the "more" portion. Needless to say, I was quite irritated. Just to make sure that I didn't park at the wrong level, I took the stroll down to the level below me via the stairwell, and checked (somehow my keycard worked for that level as well). All the while, walking around with my rather large box (something in which you can probably fit Yo-Yo Ma's cello or whatever it is that he plays). People who parked their cars started looking at me funny, especially the fact that I may have looked rather suspicious, walking around a parking garage in a confused state, carrying a big empty box around, all the while looking left and looking right and turning around and walking some more. I also had on my green army jacket and black ball cap, so I'm sure I didn't look like a traveling businessman who was lost.
When I was convinced that I had not mistakenly parked my car (I mean, come on now, I am not senile here), I went back to the main level and called the person who manages parking for that condo. Unfortunately, my cell phone, of all the times for it to be running extremely low on batteries, had to choose that afternoon to deplete itself of power. I advised the manager lady that I was low on battery and she put me on hold *sigh* and said she she'll call me back, once she checks with security. A few moments later after checking the garage again, lugging this big server box all the while, she calls me back and leaves a VM (which drains the battery even more, since I now have to go through the rigamarole of doing several key sequence presses) and indicates that she had a chat with security and they did not call a tow truck to tow my car.
I was exasperated. I responded to her, "well then, it's obviously stolen then. So much for your 24 hour security!" I probably should not have added that last part, as I am sure it wasn't terribly helpful information, but you know - you get frustrated and say stupid things. She suggested that I call the police, and I did, but not before calling my wife to inform her that our beloved Nissan Sentra has fallen into the hands of people with questionable personal integrity and ethics. My wife said that she will call her co-ordinator to advise her of the situation.
The cops showed up and I gave them the whole story. They thought it was strange that a private parking spot was somehow compromised and no one knew about it, especially given that the private parking floor has keyed controls to get in. They said they will talk to the security desk to see if they can get some camera views to see who may have taken the car, but in the meantime, they wanted to confirm that I didn't park on the wrong floor. I was flustered, and told them that I checked the floor below me and no I did not park on the wrong floor. They asked if I checked the floor above me and I told them I didn't need to since it looks totally different than my floor and there was no way I'd mistakenly park there. If nothing else, IF I was foolish and senile enough to park somewhere else, it would have been on the floor below me, which was an exact replica of my floor.
They also asked me why I was carrying an empty box around with me, the size of half a refrigerator. I told him that I needed it to ship out something though I mistakenly did not tell him what it was (I wonder whether he thought I was an arms dealer, given my otherwise military jacket). I can tell he regarded my story as fishy, even though it was the truth. I'm willing to bet at that point, he wondered whether I actually had a missing car.
You know cops - being cops, they wanted to be thorough, so they said, "jump in the cruiser and let's check the floors". So I did, after putting the box snugly into his cruiser's trunk, and inhaled the smells from the backseat of what I was sure to have been from many suspects who were inebriated or otherwise. The first floor that they visited was floor number two, directly above my parking floor. "Where do your normally park, sir?" he asked. I indicated by my hand gesture that it was "over there", at which point he drove in that direction towards a little black dot in the distance.
At that point, I started to curse in my mind, since I knew what was coming next. I had some serious backtracking and apologizing to do, and I knew that I would need to implement them within a few seconds. However, the officer beat me to the punch. "Sir, is that your car?" he said, knowing full well it was, since it was the only damn car in that area at that time of day. "Uh, yeah..." I said, and proceeded to start regurgitating apology after apology.
"I'm really sorry, officer...but I thought..."
"I am not sure what happened here"
"I'm so sorry for the inconvenience..."
"I feel like an idiot here..."
"Haha...I must be getting old"
I suspect that, based on his facial demeanour, he neither found any solace or humour in my attempts to apologize for wasting his time. However, as a true professional, charged to serve and protect, he kept his mouth shut, and dropped me off at my car, with only a statement of "you'll want to check the other floors next time." I wasn't about to argue, so I nodded in agreement and once again apologized. He then drove back towards the ramp, heading back to the security desk to pick up his partner, for what I am sure, will be an expletive-laced conversation on the way back to the station or their next destination.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
I Will Not Turn Down my A/C and I Will Not Take Public Transit
Even with a cursory glance through your local newspaper, newstand magazine or through various television news programs, you will no doubt get the sense that environmental concerns are on the forefront of what is being reported in what you read and what you see. As I listen to ample amounts of talk radio, I can tell you first-hand that the airwaves are also innundated with discussions on how to contribute towards a more greener lifestyle. While I am not a tree-hugger, rabid David Suzuki type, I am also not a deliberate waster as well. I recycle everything (strange for a right wing conservative, I know...) and fully support my green bin program. I think those are excellent ideas. However, there are two changes that the provincial and municipal governments constantly pressure its citizens to make, that I have decided I will neither support nor participate.
The first is turning my air conditioner down in the summertime. OK, so we had the blackout in 2003, but managing the power grid and anticipating consumption is no my problem, I'm sorry. I pay enough fees in my hydro bill that the utility companies should be able to figure it out, and if they don't - well, it's their problem. I'm ticked off enough that the Ontario provincial government nonchlantly incoporates debt payment for the former Ontario Hydro as part of their bill to myself all all other hydro consumers.
In the past few years, I've heard and read a lot of material about turning down you A/C so it's at least 26 degrees celsius. Does anyone know how hot that actually is inside a residence? If you're going to turn it down to 26, you may as well just turn it off. And with homes generally having the thermostat on the main floor, 26 degrees downstairs generally means about 35 degrees upstairs (at least that's what it is in my house - the upstairs is sweltering). No thanks.
So the liberal provincial government decides last year to offer incentives to those who decided to turn off their A/C units, thereby lowering their hydro bill. One thing I said to my wife was that it was such a stupid suggestion, since if people did that, guess what would happen? The utility and hydro companies would have lower revenues and as a result, they will hike your rates later. Guess what happened earlier this year? Yup - the hydro companies announced rate increases. I tell you, if you're one of those suckers who believe what the hydro companies tell you - well, what can I say. They're companies too and need to make money. Do you really think they care about the environment? Or profits? They shouldn't go after the small potatoes residential family who wants to save money and is willing to let their kids sweat out an entire summer - they should go after the companies in office towers who leave all their lights on summer night after summer night. Until they actually go after the real usurpers of summer electricity, you can be darn sure I'll happily have my thermostat at 21 or 22 degrees all summer.
Now, the second item is more of a Toronto thing, but anywhere there is public transit, this will apply. Liberal governments and environmentalists want you to leave your car at home and take public transit. Yeah right. I will go on record right now and say that I will take public transit again when I am able to grow a full beard. Not possible. Will never happen.
Years ago, I worked downtown and took public transit, from our condo in North Scarborough (northern part of the city). Despite "express" buses, it still took me a considerable amount of time (1.5 hours) one way to get downtown. And it wasn't a pleasant ride - the buses were often snarled in traffic, I had to make several transfers (oftentimes waiting for a while as other packed buses rolled by, unable to accomodate me as well - as if I really wanted to be another sardine on that tightly packed bus). When there was an accident (car or pedestrian), I was forced to wait on the bus. If I was sick at work and had to go home, I had to endure a less-frequent non-rush-hour schedule and it took me forever to get home. I barfed on a bus twice and on the subway once. The air quality on buses and subways are very poor and in the summertime, you have to deal with nasty body odours. You can't read as the jerky bus driver stops and goes constantly. You can't sit quietly and think, as loudmouthed teenagers are all over the place, talking about their boyfriends or their latest crush on some member of a boy band.
Of course, with the increasing cost of gas, renewed calls to leave the cars at home abound once again. The gas price can be at two bucks a litre - I'm still driving to work. I can enjoy my talk radio, music, news or just sit quietly. If a road is closed or slowed due to an accident, I can take another road instead. If I have to go pee, I can just quickly stop off somewhere. Same if I need to grab a quick bite to eat or drink, or if I want to stop off on the way to or from work, to pick up something in a store. I can cart around my eBay wares so that people can pick it up from me wherever I am. I have access to the car in the event of a family emergency or illness (it has happened several times and I am glad to have that option). I don't need to put with the constant barrage of subway delays due to construction or suicides ("there is an injury at track level"). I don't need to deal with the foul, smells-like-dirty-socks mixed with diarrhea air quality on the subway system. I don't have to listen to some of the foul mouthed and inconsiderate riders on the bus and subway system, and I don't have to, once again, see (and smell) the yearly incidence of someone who happened to take a crap in his pants while on the subway, deliberate or not. In short, it is a much better ride for me to drive myself to and from work. My car is a low-emission producing car, so it's not like I'm bragging about deliberately polluting the environment with an SUV (and even those stats are suspect - volcanic eruptions over a thousand or so years have caused far more damage to the environment - negligible overall - than thousands of cars ever will).
The first is turning my air conditioner down in the summertime. OK, so we had the blackout in 2003, but managing the power grid and anticipating consumption is no my problem, I'm sorry. I pay enough fees in my hydro bill that the utility companies should be able to figure it out, and if they don't - well, it's their problem. I'm ticked off enough that the Ontario provincial government nonchlantly incoporates debt payment for the former Ontario Hydro as part of their bill to myself all all other hydro consumers.
In the past few years, I've heard and read a lot of material about turning down you A/C so it's at least 26 degrees celsius. Does anyone know how hot that actually is inside a residence? If you're going to turn it down to 26, you may as well just turn it off. And with homes generally having the thermostat on the main floor, 26 degrees downstairs generally means about 35 degrees upstairs (at least that's what it is in my house - the upstairs is sweltering). No thanks.
So the liberal provincial government decides last year to offer incentives to those who decided to turn off their A/C units, thereby lowering their hydro bill. One thing I said to my wife was that it was such a stupid suggestion, since if people did that, guess what would happen? The utility and hydro companies would have lower revenues and as a result, they will hike your rates later. Guess what happened earlier this year? Yup - the hydro companies announced rate increases. I tell you, if you're one of those suckers who believe what the hydro companies tell you - well, what can I say. They're companies too and need to make money. Do you really think they care about the environment? Or profits? They shouldn't go after the small potatoes residential family who wants to save money and is willing to let their kids sweat out an entire summer - they should go after the companies in office towers who leave all their lights on summer night after summer night. Until they actually go after the real usurpers of summer electricity, you can be darn sure I'll happily have my thermostat at 21 or 22 degrees all summer.
Now, the second item is more of a Toronto thing, but anywhere there is public transit, this will apply. Liberal governments and environmentalists want you to leave your car at home and take public transit. Yeah right. I will go on record right now and say that I will take public transit again when I am able to grow a full beard. Not possible. Will never happen.
Years ago, I worked downtown and took public transit, from our condo in North Scarborough (northern part of the city). Despite "express" buses, it still took me a considerable amount of time (1.5 hours) one way to get downtown. And it wasn't a pleasant ride - the buses were often snarled in traffic, I had to make several transfers (oftentimes waiting for a while as other packed buses rolled by, unable to accomodate me as well - as if I really wanted to be another sardine on that tightly packed bus). When there was an accident (car or pedestrian), I was forced to wait on the bus. If I was sick at work and had to go home, I had to endure a less-frequent non-rush-hour schedule and it took me forever to get home. I barfed on a bus twice and on the subway once. The air quality on buses and subways are very poor and in the summertime, you have to deal with nasty body odours. You can't read as the jerky bus driver stops and goes constantly. You can't sit quietly and think, as loudmouthed teenagers are all over the place, talking about their boyfriends or their latest crush on some member of a boy band.
Of course, with the increasing cost of gas, renewed calls to leave the cars at home abound once again. The gas price can be at two bucks a litre - I'm still driving to work. I can enjoy my talk radio, music, news or just sit quietly. If a road is closed or slowed due to an accident, I can take another road instead. If I have to go pee, I can just quickly stop off somewhere. Same if I need to grab a quick bite to eat or drink, or if I want to stop off on the way to or from work, to pick up something in a store. I can cart around my eBay wares so that people can pick it up from me wherever I am. I have access to the car in the event of a family emergency or illness (it has happened several times and I am glad to have that option). I don't need to put with the constant barrage of subway delays due to construction or suicides ("there is an injury at track level"). I don't need to deal with the foul, smells-like-dirty-socks mixed with diarrhea air quality on the subway system. I don't have to listen to some of the foul mouthed and inconsiderate riders on the bus and subway system, and I don't have to, once again, see (and smell) the yearly incidence of someone who happened to take a crap in his pants while on the subway, deliberate or not. In short, it is a much better ride for me to drive myself to and from work. My car is a low-emission producing car, so it's not like I'm bragging about deliberately polluting the environment with an SUV (and even those stats are suspect - volcanic eruptions over a thousand or so years have caused far more damage to the environment - negligible overall - than thousands of cars ever will).
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