.......that's my story. i swear to God, and I'm stickin' to it! I'm not talking about native Americans. No sir.....these are Calcutta Comanches I am battling. No rifles and tomahawks and bows and arrows here. We are using computers and high powered networks. Actually, what I am doing is simply pissing and moaning about sending work overseas and some of the pitfalls that come with it. Yeah, I know the price of oil is high, but so is the price of refining it. My job is in the middle of the refining part - helping to design and build new refineries. I am not convinced that we are doing it in the most cost effecient way sometimes. So much is made of cost savings to so many companies, due to shipping work to India and places abroad. That might look good on paper somehow, but I wonder sometimes. Seems I recall that Enron stock looked pretty good for a long time too.

To put things straight here, I work daily with counterparts in New Dehli. Some of the nicest, and smartest folks I have ever known. that's not the problem. I have spent three days meticulously loading a database with plant related information. Today for the third morning in a row, I have sat down to find my work hosed by overnight file transfers from guess where? Likely a network glitch. Not my job, but it sure is frustrating doing the same job over day after day. I don't know how much those guys get paid......I do know that I and the techno mercenaries that I work with do not come cheap though. Somehow, that has to factor into the price of what gas ultimately costs at the pump. Not to worry though.....I did what any good cowboy would do - I called in the cavalry........and besides, it will pay the same to do it the fourth time as it did the first time to do it.........and if I have to do it again, it will be at time and a half.

I think I see them changing the numbers on the pumps across the street again........