LUBE JOB
Having survived my fiftieth birthday yesterday, I can now return to my prior state of mind which this week has been primarily fuming. I have been in business since 1981. Out of High School I worked for a small, local excavation company. Once I had learned enough, I ventured out on my own and it has been nose to the grindstone ever since. The first decade was fun, profitable and back-breaking. By 1988 I had six-figure savings, sterling credit, a thriving business with ten employees, a fleet of Caterpillar equipment mostly paid for. Life was good.
Then came the severe recession of the late eighties and early nineties. Most builders I knew went bankrupt, banks were closing, work became scarce and not profitable. By 1992 I was down to three employees and about a hundred grand in debt. I hung on, worked through it and paid off the debt. It took ten years to do that, to avoid bankruptcy, which I think is a scam. While I was still paying off debt, I saw builders who had filed and stiffed me for thousands, driving new cars and moving into new homes. Bankruptcy is for lightweights and I have little tolerance for it. In dire cases where illness or such has caused financial hardship, o.k., but if it's nothing more than your own mistakes...I have a problem with that.
When you own a small business, you take it personally. It's your baby, your life, alternately a source of pride or despair, but for better or worse, it becomes important to you. You weather out the hard times, dodge the inevitable bullets, take the good with the bad. You answer to your own mistakes, there is no one else to blame. Likewise, you enjoy the benefits of anything you do right, but in the end, there is an intangible sense of "self" all wrapped up in it. Consider all this and you will understand why I am incensed at the very real possibility that something entirely out of my control, someone else's greed, my ultimately be my undoing.
That "someone else" is Big Oil, busy celebrating their record profits every quarter. For the last two or three years, fuel prices have been unstable. Well, not really unstable, just rising. Last year when diesel fuel went over $2.00 per gallon, people in my trade were aghast. We couldn't believe it and wondered how we would hang on. Unlike other sectors, in construction it is not as easy to pass on your costs. We are bound by what the competition will do it for and as long as there is someone behind you, a little more desperate, who will do it for less, then your position at the bargaining table is weak, to say the least. Nonetheless, most of us did hang on, working harder for less money and hoping things would shake out in the end. Well, things are shaking out alright. The last ten days has seen an increase of over $ .30 per gallon in diesel fuel. In the last week alone I watched it go from $2.97, to $3.07, to $3.19, and then yesterday to $3.29. I hear higher prices at different locations, these are from my supplier. Bear in mind that diesel and #2(home heating oil) are less-refined than gasoline and have traditionally been cheaper. This is pure greed at work. Some call it capitalism, charging what the market will bear, etc. I call it rape and plunder.
The silence from media and the people who are getting hurt the most is deafening. Grocery costs are skyrocketing. Heating season is here and there will be misery in every quadrant, yet still not a peep from anyone. I will hang on as long as I can, but it won't be much longer. Tomorrow, the first five hours of my income will be to pay my fuel costs for the day. The other seven hours will be to cover all my other expenses and, ostensibly, to provide for my family. It will not work. I can get away with it for a little while, but it will not work. Apparently, we are all going to sit idly by while the economy implodes for nearly everyone except the major oil companies. In the meantime, look around your house. If you see one thing that didn't get moved by truck at some point, let me know, I'd love to know what it is.
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