Weather Disruptions

[bicker]

Inspired by THIS thread.

We all are often-reminded (by our European friend, bavaria, typically) about how weather can affect airlines, but the reality is that weather affects many services within our society, and I often see threads expressing everything from concern to outrage about just how much weather "still" has such impact.

Here in New England, for example, many of our neighbors (in the central part of MA and in parts of NH) are still without power, after an ice storm on December 11. My wife's cousin (who is hosting the family Christmas Eve dinner, tonight, by the way) was without power for a week or so. Many of those affected used that word "still", as in "I can't believe that ice storms 'still' cause extended power outages in this country."

The thread that inspired this thread is about delivery services. Snow often causes disruption to delivery services, and as I pointed out in that thread, such services generally size their capacity to support the business they do the days before Christmas, typically their heaviest time of the year, so weather naturally pushes them beyond capacity.

I'm sure folks can come up with many other examples.

I'm especially interested in that word "still" -- implying that the passage of time, and the technological progress society has made over (say) the last thirty years or so, would effect perhaps a linear improvement on the provision of service.

I have little doubt that the passage of time (i.e., the technological progress society has made) has facilitated the capacity to better adjust to weather disruption. For example, we can readily bury our overhead wires in shielded conduit, thereby avoiding most power outages and disruptions to cable, telephone and Internet services, though doing so would be extremely costly. I believe, in most cases, there is a significant cost associated with application of counter-measures. Yet, at the same time, our consumer economy has become ever-increasingly cost-conscious. So we have developed the ability to have weather adversely impact us less and less, but at the same time have developed an aversion to actually paying the extra amount necessary to pay for the aforementioned counter-measures.

So my questions: Are you frustrated by the fact that our society is so cost-conscious that many services we use are "still" as adversely affected by weather as they've been for decades?

Discuss.

 

[#1hockeymom]

Inspired by THIS thread.

We all are often-reminded (by our European friend, bavaria, typically) about how weather can affect airlines, but the reality is that weather affects many services within our society, and I often see threads expressing everything from concern to outrage about just how much weather "still" has such impact.

Here in New England, for example, many of our neighbors (in the central part of MA and in parts of NH) are still without power, after an ice storm on December 11. My wife's cousin (who is hosting the family Christmas Eve dinner, tonight, by the way) was without power for a week or so. Many of those affected used that word "still", as in "I can't believe that ice storms 'still' cause extended power outages in this country."

The thread that inspired this thread is about delivery services. Snow often causes disruption to delivery services, and as I pointed out in that thread, such services generally size their capacity to support the business they do the days before Christmas, typically their heaviest time of the year, so weather naturally pushes them beyond capacity.

I'm sure folks can come up with many other examples.

I'm especially interested in that word "still" -- implying that the passage of time, and the technological progress society has made over (say) the last thirty years or so, would effect perhaps a linear improvement on the provision of service.

I have little doubt that the passage of time (i.e., the technological progress society has made) has facilitated the capacity to better adjust to weather disruption. For example, we can readily bury our overhead wires in shielded conduit, thereby avoiding most power outages and disruptions to cable, telephone and Internet services, though doing so would be extremely costly. I believe, in most cases, there is a significant cost associated with application of counter-measures. Yet, at the same time, our consumer economy has become ever-increasingly cost-conscious. So we have developed the ability to have weather adversely impact us less and less, but at the same time have developed an aversion to actually paying the extra amount necessary to pay for the aforementioned counter-measures.

So my questions: Are you frustrated by the fact that our society is so cost-conscious that many services we use are "still" as adversely affected by weather as they've been for decades?

Discuss.

No.

Weather happens and it will continue to happen.

 

[Carly_Roach]

So my questions: Are you frustrated by the fact that our society is so cost-conscious that many services we use are "still" as adversely affected by weather as they've been for decades?

I am frustrated by all the downsizing and cost-cutting leading to not enough people staffed to do a good job. We've lived for years with one person doing what 3 or 4 typically used to do that we've become accustomed to our own fatigue and depression as well as the bad service that comes from these companies.

But since there's nothing we can do about it until corporations get back to rock solid business values like reinstating the customer as their #1 priority instead of the stock-holder, it's not worth spending an inordinate amount of time being angry about. It is what it is. I either plan ahead by ordering way early or find a way to get it myself instead of having it delivered.

 

[Carly_Roach]

For example, we can readily bury our overhead wires in shielded conduit, thereby avoiding most power outages and disruptions to cable, telephone and Internet services, though doing so would be extremely costly. I believe, in most cases, there is a significant cost associated with application of counter-measures. Yet, at the same time, our consumer economy has become ever-increasingly cost-conscious. So we have developed the ability to have weather adversely impact us less and less, but at the same time have developed an aversion to actually paying the extra amount necessary to pay for the aforementioned counter-measures.

In effect, we have only ourselves to blame for these power outages and bad service affected by the weather. The phone company went to great expense in the 60's and 70's to bury cable and make their systems more dependable. Even today a land-line phone is RARELY (if ever - mine has NEVER been) out of order. The same is true for gas lines: you'll rarely be without gas but you may not have the electricity to run the furnace.

But we as a people, in our great wisdom, decided in the 70's or 80's that monopolys were bad, broke up the telephone companies and deregulated all utilities that used to be overseen by the federal and state governments.

30 to 40 years later what are we left with? The same monopolys but they're no longer regulated and haven't been for a long time. Service becomes what the company says they think it should be based on their projections of cost. The money that used to be spent having to submit to government SLA bench-marks is now spent on lobbyists trying to keep regulation at bay and keeping lawyers on retainer in the event that the company is sued because of bad service.

Hence, very little money is budgeted for tree-trimming (which power companies used to do frequently in the 1st half of the 20th century) so power outages last longer; very little money is spent on safety so planes are starting to become unsafe; and little to no money is spent on customer service as companies see this as a waste of stock-holder dividends.

The people who remember what good service was are/have been dying off. The people coming up these days have no recollection of what good service used to be like so they think 1- to 2- week power outages are normal. Those of us who are stuck in between (the 40 to 60 year olds) who remember what it used to be like don't want to take the time to vote or advocate to get things changed.

Nothing will change until we, as a people, decide to change it. And even that won't happen until enough people have been adversely impacted to actually want to take the time to get involved.

 

[bicker]

What are we each doing to choose the businesses that spend the extra money to "reinstate the customer as their #1 priority instead of the stock-holder"?

Are we buying stocks at a premium specifically in companies that put their customers before their stockholders? (No. The vast majority of investment decisions are based on which companies will do best for their stockholders.) Are we buying products and services at a premium specifically from companies that provide better service, or are we buying products and services wherever we can get the best price? (The latter.)

More broadly: Are we voting for legislators who are going to elevate consumer protections more so than elevate stockholder protections? (No. A significant number of even the Democrats we elect are pro-business.)

Given all this, is it reasonable to expect that things are going to be redirected in the consumers' favor any time soon? (No.)

So, what could be done to try to get more people in society to change their perspective to better foster this type of change in perspective to take place in our society, i.e., biasing things more so towards consumers and against investors? And would it actually be better for such a change to take place? Would placating consumers really, in the long-run, be better overall?