fill her up! (a flashback)

Author: sean M Published: March 29, 2008 0 comments edit

one good thing came of the archives being destroyed…

…i can rehash old points and it’s okay, i figure.

i almost got in a fight at work about this the other day. and i don’t mean a debate – or even a heated argument. i mean a bar-style brawl. this guy was THAT passionate about his point. took that kind of tone with me. it almost got ugly.

…and the next day i was surprised how shitty his argument was.

one of my co-workers was bitching about gas prices, and i said my usual – that the oil companies are just screwing us, plain and simple, and they’re doing it for only one reason – they can.

and that’s when another co-worker went off on me…

“you need to shut-up, sean. you are COMPLETELY ignorant to what you’re talking about, and you need to keep quiet until you have your facts straight. i used to be a geologist, so i know a thing about the oil and gas industry – i am also extremely passionate about the environment. if you ever want to have a serious, intellectual discussion about this let me know – or we can take this outside right now…”

he said in such a tone you would think i said ” the oil companies…and bob, your dick is small”. he took it THAT personally. my response to him, in the same aggressive tone and cander:

dude, when you acquire TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT of my intelligence, you can insult it, but until you reach that line shut the fuck up. geology has NO place in the discussion ’cause once oil leaves the ground, your “profession’s” part in this is done…i don’t know who the FUCK you think you are, but if you ever take that tone with me again OR attempt to insult my intelligence, we WILL take this outside, but only one of us is walking back in the building…

the next day i was the first person in on my sales team…he was the second. we had our discussion, and much to my dismay nobody witnessed it. i wish they had, because after his “performance” the day before it would have been nice for someone to see that EIGHTH GRADE DEBATE TEAMS have more lucid arguments then this guy, who if four times the age of your average eighth grader.

basically, his “geology” background caused him to argue about the research and development end of things, and how that has to be paid for, and how they drill plenty of holes that come up empty and have to start over, and how supply and demand comes into play, etc, etc…

…and here’s the problem i pointed out to him.

r&d (research and development) would show on a p&l (profit and loss) as a loss, to help balance out how much mark-up was being done…but once again, last quarter, exxon / mobil posted the HIGHEST profit (both margin percentage and dollar amount) of any incorporated entity in GLOBAL HISTORY.

let me say that again…

…as long as corporate profits have been recorded and tracked, they broke the record last quarter. who’s record did they break from the previous quarter? their own. who’s held it the last NINE quarters? them again…that’s almost two years, or, coincidentally, the time when gas almost doubled over night and stayed there.

but of course it happened ’cause of those bitter middle-easterners, right? um…no.

while they do take our military presence personally, business is business. they aren’t profiting off it – american greedy-ass corporations are.

and for that supply and demand bullshit?

yes, we americans demand a LOT of gas. very true. but for the last several months gasoline surpluses (i.e. barrels of the refines stuff just sitting around unused) are at the highest they’ve been since BUSH was in office.

the first one, that is.

so, that kinda puts an end to both those arguments. and my ignorant ass only had to read one piece of paper…entitled the wallstreet journal.