Looks Like The Laws of Supply and Demand Are Working

DF,



What do you do for a living?





Tom

I work for a company that builds and sells Gas Flow Controllers. I work in a cleanroom as a QC Tech and perform the final QC testing of the controllers. We sell to mostly to the Semiconductor Industries.



When business was good, we had three shifts working 12 hrs a day, 7 days a week. Now we are down to two shifts working 8 hrs a day, 4 days a week.



The company website is below

Glad to see some QA/QC personel here.



Fortunatly, with the company I work for, moving operations to a foreign country is next to impossible.



I am a QA Foreman.





Tom

When I took on this job a few years ago, I had to learn the whole process, from building, tuning, calibration, to the final testing. We use about 10 different gasses depending on what the customer ordered. Mostly N2, Argon, SF6 and Hel. About once a month, a sensor in the cleanroom goes off and we have to book it out of the cleanroom out into the parking lot with our "bunny suits" still on.



Prior to this job, I used to be a field electrical tech and program'd airport conveyor baggage systems from coast to coast and a few International jobs such as Canada, England, and 'down under' in the land of OZ. Did that for about 14 years. The traveling and living out of hotels got real old.

Hey my favorite gas station dropped their price 3 whole cents yesterday. They had run the price up for the 4th and then held steady for a week and then bumped it up 3 cents before this last price drop. I think there is also some gas station padding going on. I keep a watch on the unleaded futures and you usually can add the gas tax in and get within 10-20 cents of what the stations are charging. The spread has been 30+ cents during the "summer driving season".

The traveling and living out of hotels got real old.

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I did travel for 9 years. Spent 3 months in Germany working at a BASF refinery. In 2001, the year I was in Germany, I was away from home for over 260 days.



Besides that, I was working between Maine to Florida, and as far west as Kansas.



Right now, I am learning GD&T.





Tom

What is GD&T?



Anyway, on this thread........I hope that fuel prices do come down some with everyone cutting back. I don't have to drive far at all, but these high prices are really messing up just about everything.

Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing.



Off to bed I go.





Tom

hey, you guy's should get a room tonight :lol:

kewl.......I used to work with CAD drawings while in the conveyor business.....guess I'm outta here too....got's to get up at 3am :wacko:

I want six weeks of vacation like the Germans have.



Working sucks.

So oil goes up $1 and gas goes up $.10 a gallon. Oil drops $15 and nothing happens to the price of gas (cheapest in my town is $3.92 for regular)...:angry:

Tom T,



Kollyfornya uses more gas than China because right now most Chinese don't drive. Very few have enough money to even think about buying a car. But as that changes, and they do start driving, THEN they will use more than us... LOTS more!

"It finally appears that the market is responding to the economic laws of supply and demand."



I think that is an assumption. The article says nothing about supply and demand, it attributes the fall in prices to economic weakness in the US.

Even if it drops to 3 dollars a gallon, which would make us all very happy, it is considerably inflated to even a year ago...



Oh well,,,, it is what it is. I MUST drive to work and have weird working hours. Cannot car pool nor take public transportation. Pay the price and drive on.



I have lowered my speed and use the cruise control and have gained 3/1oth of a mile per gallon though...

Here's how to have everyone conserve -



4 day work week.

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Not really sure how this conserves (fuel). The extra roundtrip won't make much difference as now people will have a three day weekend. At least in my case, I use as much if not more, gas on the weekends than/as I do during the work week. If everyone that will now work a four day week will be staying home and not driving, I see the potential benefit. I just don't think that's going to happen. Makes me think that will encourage people to do more since now they have a three day weekend and there will be a desire to do things and not be bored at home.



Personally, I don't think this has anything to do with s/d. This is just a lull, as there has been for the past few months prior to another gouge. I've been finding 3.99 for the past week or two but not at stations adjacent to heavy traffic streets.



I still don't really see how four, 10hr a-day weeks will conserve fuel. You're still working 40hrs a week. That one extra trip MAY make a difference for folks that are extremely careful with there spending and count every penny, but for many/most of us it won't make much difference should we fall into the four day week.

While the 4 day work week would save a person on gas, you CANNOT give away the 40 hour work-week our fathers and grandfathers fought for. Watch what you ask for..

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Yet your fathers, grandfathers, and other "union brothers" keep "fighting" for more money for doing less work. Here in IL, your AFSME "union brothers" have mananged to finalge a 37.5 hour work week for civil service workers in state gov't and universities.



More money for less work? Whatever happened to "a full day's work for a full day's pay"?:blink:

"It finally appears that the market is responding to the economic laws of supply and demand."



I think that is an assumption. The article says nothing about supply and demand, it attributes the fall in prices to economic weakness in the US.

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Read the whole article. It actually does mention the rise in supply.

Oil prices fell more than $10 over the previous two days on growing concerns that inflation and other economic concerns could reduce demand for crude. A surprisingly large gain in oil and refined fuel inventories in the U.S. prolonged the sell-off, because it suggested more supplies were heading into storage rather than consumers' fuel tanks.

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I used to work with CAD drawings while in the conveyor business

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I am an Electrical Engineer/Controls Engineer in the Conveyor business (dealing mostly in AutoCAD and Inventor.... woot! InvPro2009 installation starts WED!!! It's about friggin time).



So, was it one of the big guys you worked for or like me, a smaller place with a well known name?

So, was it one of the big guys you worked for

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The first conveyor company I worked for was called BAE Automated Systems.....their two largest installations were United Chicago and the New Denver International. (DIA) The Denver system was amazing with 6K telecars running on a monorail track.



The second company was G & T Conveyor based out of Taveres, FL, but we had an office in Dallas which I worked out of.



With PLC Programming, I also tested and modified MCP Panels and troubleshot the electrical controls out in the field.



Sorry about the highjacking of this thread....