Friday, April 4, 2025

A Business Story

 My German wife brought up this business story yesterday....it's been on my mind.

German machinist grumbling to a journalist. He had a normal day-schedule job....couple hundred folks in the company.  As the nuclear plants were shutting down in  Germany, and the Ukraine-Russia  war started.....with natural gas halted....power issues came up. 

So his company was given this cost projection.....that running everything in the plant on the  normal day schedule (electrical-wise)....would cost x-amount extra...mostly because daytime rates for business operations surged up.  So if they went to  using power after 9PM....they'd get a cheaper (better rate).

The company made a  decision....running a night shift with most employees.  They got used to it.  

As DST came around....more solar provided power to the grid.....so the  charges for grid hours changed, and required a change in the schedule.  The workers grumbled but accepted situation.

The understanding of politicians to this 'arrangement'?  I doubt that they understand how things had to be modified....to make the company competitive.   There's probably a thousand examples like that....where people had to give something to keep the operation going.

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