My machinery sales company, Graff-Pinkert, is looking for at least one more person to work in our factory. I let two people go during the pandemic because of lack of business, and we just lost a skilled screw machine rebuilder who had worked for us as a gig employee four days a week. The pace of business today is hectic, with more action than we can readily handle, so I am looking for one or two people to join us. How do you find good people who fit into your organization? Networking is my first choice. Talk to your people…
Author: Lloyd Graff
These are a few questions on my mind. I think you get smarter by asking questions, not showing off how much you know. *** 1) Does CBD oil work for you? I have experimented with it after friends told me it worked wonders for them. Here’s what I have found. It helps with the arthritic pain in my thumb and index finger of my left hand. It isn’t miraculous, but it is useful. My sore knees and shoulder don’t seem to improve from it. How do you use it? Do you have a brand that is superior, or is it…
Noah challenged me yesterday as he often does. He said to me, “Dad, what three things have you learned in the last week?” The question forced me to assess what thoughts have had an impact on me, something I seldom do unless I am writing a daily diary. This week I’ve learned about resilience. *** I have been corresponding with a casual friend who used to live in my neighborhood. She and her husband, a doctor, moved to Buffalo for a medical position more than a decade ago. He was struck down by a near fatal heart attack a month…
If you’re looking for poverty and violent crime, Bessemer, in the great state of Alabama, is your town. It was also Amazon’s pick for a huge distribution facility with 6,000 workers, which opened exactly one year ago. Today the results might be in for a landmark union organizing effort and vote at the spanking new facility, built in the former coal mining, limestone, and steel-making town of 27,000, just outside of Birmingham. Is the Tide coming back for unionism in America, with President Biden rooting for the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Workers Union and Bernie Sanders making an appearance?…
A question that has troubled me for many years is if I fit into the supply chain of destruction. I struggled with this following the Purdue Pharma controversy over its magnificent painkiller for cancer patients and surgery survivors, OxyContin. I took this wonder drug in its time-released form after my knee replacement. It worked beautifully for controlling my hurt, although it had a side effect of constipation. I understood that it was not a drug I wanted to take for more than three days unless I was in total misery because of fear of becoming dependent. I stopped taking it…
The Men’s NCAA basketball tournament begins this week, an extravaganza of hoopla, gambling, and basketball. There are 68 teams, but only a few have a real chance of winning it. The eventual winner will likely come from one of the four No. 1 seeded teams in their regions. I don’t bet on sports. Machine tools are my game, but I love basketball and I find the four highest ranked teams and their coaches especially provocative this year. The No. 1 seed overall in the tournament is Gonzaga. If you do not follow college basketball, you probably have never even heard…
Amazon buys Central Steel and Wire. That’s an odd couple. Not really. What Jeff Bezos wants is the 70 acres of land on the southwest side of Chicago near the old stock yards. No bundles of half inch 12L14 bars in with the bananas for the moment. The Central Steel and Wire Company and its real estate in Chicago was sold to Ryerson Steel in 2018. The firm was an odd duck because it had no debt. It was 56% owned by the James Lowenstine Trust, which was dedicated to using 1,200 acres of natural beauty in Northern Wisconsin as…
Are schools that much different than factories? At this moment in America, virtually every factory is open and many are producing full out. Production is rising nicely. Confidence levels are high. The parking lots are full. Some steel may be a short delay and truckers seem flummoxed, but on the whole, business is jumping and the stock market is bouncing up and down off record highs. Yet in many places, kids are still on Zoom if they own computers, and teachers unions and administrators are growling at each other. Parents are reaching their boiling point as they see their kids’…
Yesterday, I started my workday by returning a phone call to customer in Italy as soon as I finished my home workout. I had read their email to try to distract myself while doing wall squats. Later I spoke with people in Czech Republic, Germany, California, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and New York, and emailed others in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Albania, and probably other places. Most of the people were making parts or peddling iron like myself. Customers often ask me how Graff-Pinkert’s used machinery business is doing, and they ask me how I think the manufacturing economy is doing. After…
I spent several hours working at the Graff-Pinkert office today for the first time since last April. I am beginning the process of coming out of my fear induced hibernation, three weeks after my first COVID-19 vaccine shot. The statistics say I have 80% immunity after one Moderna vaccine hit. I sort of trust the number, but not enough to do without the mask, which is my constant annoyance when I leave my home. I hate the COVID necessitated hibernation. At my age, with a heart attack and heart surgery in my past, I am still COVID’s emotional captive. I…