OIL - For what it's worth... just a RUMOR not FACT

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Talked to my mom in Germany today. She has a next door neighboor who is/was a HUGE DWGI. He works for the oil industry and told her not to worry about y2k. There won't be any problems. He is up there in the food chain and would know.

Anyway, yesterday she was approached by him about the things he should buy to prepp. When she asked him why he was suddenly prepping he said that he was not allowed to talk about it BUT suddenly thought things do not look as good as he thought. Apparently they have been having mega problems at work. Also, he has to be at work starting the 30th and is now worried about his family.

Keep in mind. I do NOT know what has got him so spooked. It could be as simple as him just changing his mind. However, he is EXTREMLY stubborn and hardly ever's waver's after making a decision. Something got him suddenly frightened.


.

This is just an observation and can not be taken as fact regarding the compliancy of the oil industry. It's for the "watch them what they do, rather what they say department".

-- STFrancis (STFrancis@heaven.com), November 18, 1999

Answers

STFrancis,

Hello. I read links earlier that some of the Northseas oil companies were stockpiling supplies. I believe the news article was printed back in Sept. I'll look around and see if I can find it again. If so, I'll post the URL.

-- Deb M. (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), November 18, 1999.


Old, old story. If he's high up the chain, he won't know the details. If he knew the details, he wouldn't have the big picture. No one REALLY knows. It sounds like he's just realised that. Either that, or he's done something really stupid like skip a few links in the chain and talk to the people who actually do the work. :)

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 18, 1999.

Colin,

Maybe an old story to you. Maybe you personally talked to him..?? But a new story for me. I know the guy. If he is scared then something is up.

-- STFrancis (STFrancis@heaven.com), November 18, 1999.


Colin,

STFrancis is a long time poster here. If he says this is so, then it is.

Period.

Thanks for another puzzle piece, STFrancis!

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 18, 1999.


Old story I told here about a year ago. A friend who used to work at IBM and is a VP at an analytical instrument company said that he GI'd when a divisional head (whatever that means at IBM) sat his ass down and basically gave him the beans/rice/gold speech. FWIW

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), November 18, 1999.


Oops, apologies, StFrancis, I didn't mean to imply that this was anything other than purest truth. What I meant was that I have been EXPECTING this for a while now, based on seeing the food chain at a couple of levels.

One of my favourite management quotes is "Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions." What they really mean is "Just don't bring me problems." This denial strategy is carried all the way down the "food chain" right to the bottom, and it's very, very hard for a lowly engineer to make themselves heard when something IS going badly wrong. I've found that quite often, problems are only solved when a high level manager gets delivery pressure put on them (e.g. contractual, Y2K) and skips a layer or two to get the real story about why the product has been "90% complete" for the past six months. It's then that the shouting and finger pointing starts, and only then that upper management start actually considering what might happen if they CAN'T deliver on time.

There has been a strange assumption in some quarters that Y2K would be different, that THIS TIME we would get it right. Yawn. Heard it all before. :)

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 18, 1999.


Relax...the Germans could go back to the Hydrogenation process to manufacture Oil.

Seriously, he probably is spooked...Something wicked this way comes!



-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), November 18, 1999.


Colin,

No offense taken. I know there are a ton of troll's around here. One always has to weigh carefully what one reads. That's why I put the disclaimer on the buttom.

-- STFrancis (STFrancis@heaven.com), November 18, 1999.


STF;

Maybe your mother could ask him if he is aware of Germany's dependnecy on Russia's Gazprom for 30-40% of German natural gas?

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), November 18, 1999.


Well, MY mom lives in upstate NY. A few days ago her good friends, a couple who work for the fire dep't, told her this: NYSEG, the local utility, is still waiting on a part replacement (I think an embedded device, but this is my Mom talking, okay?) from a vendor and is now warning the fire dep't to prepare for two weeks without power. My family is beginning to realize I may not be nuts.

-- StanTheMan (heidrich@presys.com), November 18, 1999.


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