1 Week, 7 Stories #15
Missing service, missing workers, and missing tax deadlines
Every edition will feature 7 stories, from the past week. I’ll draw on my background in media, journalism, agriculture, biotech, and renewable energy to come up with an interesting selection and do my best to offer some context.
Sometimes built around a theme, sometimes random, but with a Canadian twist.
When I was in my local grocery story last weekend, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to get some Montreal-style smoked meat. I stood at the deli counter and waited. There were 5 staff back there and no other customers, but I was kept waiting. I got someone’s attention and she paged "deli counter for customer service". By now there was one other customer, so we waited together and chatted a bit about the lack of service. And then we both left because no new staff showed up and the 5 staff who were there could or would not serve customers for some reason. As the Saltwire news network in Atlantic Canada noted this week, “Give people good service or they’re gone.” Which I was.
Statistics from Stastista showed that a lack of effectiveness, speed, and accuracy were the most common causes of customer frustration and led Fortune to conclude that customer service was where trust breaks for a brand. When I started doing some online hunting for information to inform this week’s story, I was amazed how little came up related to one-to-one or in-person service. Search results seem to indicate that the goal is not to provide good service but to find the best software, chat bots, point-of-sale displays, and shortcuts to do it cheaply. One article even headlined “10 magical ways” to improve retail service and in bold letters let us know that a positive customer experience makes them more likely to return. That should not be one of the retail revelations for 2024! The Institute of Customer Service in the UK found that despite rising costs, a third of UK customers are willing to pay more in return for good service and went on to say that customer satisfaction is at its lowest since 2015. In the US, an NPR story last year said that Americans are fed up with customer service. I’m with them.
In the United Kingdom, the BBC says that more people in their early 20s are missing work due to ill health compared to those in their 40s. The report the story is based on, says that the underlying issue is mental health because young people “struggle in the adult world”. The situation in Canada seems to be a bit better, but a Globe & Mail story says that public sector workers took a record number of sick days compared to private sector workers in 2023. The City of Vancouver is experiencing its own absenteeism challenges that could be the tip of a growing national problem. Rising rates of municipal workers missing work due to stress. In particular, front-line workers. Emergency service workers, parks staff, and employees in libraries are having to deal with people who are homeless or have mental health issues. Apart from the stress it is causing the staff, it is having an impact on productivity. And corporate wellness programs are not helping. Yoga at lunch and mindfulness don’t get at the root cause – too much stress simply trying to get the job done.
I recently wrote about CWD, often referred to as the ‘zombie deer disease’. Guess we just love our zombie references because today ‘zombie fires’ are in the news. We don’t have a lot of snow out there and it is minus 17 right now so how is it that forest fires are making headlines? Because under the cover of the snow and aided by dry and cool conditions, the organic soil matter harbours zombie or overwintering fires. CBC reports that there are “still 92 active fires in British Columbia and another 54 in Alberta”. Without saturating rains, these fires can continue to creep along underground and then re-emerge past fireguards created before winter set in. In this interview from NPR, Lori Daniels, a forestry expert at the University of British Columbia, explains the situation, and the goal of the University’s new Centre for Wildfire Coexistence.
Last August in a sudden and wholly unexpected move, the Government of Alberta announced a moratorium on approvals for renewable energy projects. It said it was to create “certainty for renewable projects” but it created anything but certainty at the time. The moratorium was scheduled to be lifted at the end of February, so this week the government's finger came off the pause button with a “Renewed path forward for renewable energy”, but I am not sure we have full certainty quite yet. Protecting “pristine landscapes” is open to subjective interpretation, and “meaningful engagement” is in the minds of those being engaged. You can see the letter to the Alberta Utilities Commission outlining the new direction here.
The rules will hold renewable energy developers responsible for reclamation costs which is a clear step forward. However Albertans know that when it comes to the oil and gas sector similar rules are not being followed or enforced as abandoned wells take their toll on the very agricultural land and pristine landscapes Premier Smith and Minister Neudorf seek to protect. In the press conference Minister Neudorf said he wanted to ensure that “renewable energy projects do not sterilize agricultural land”. Having lived with oil and gas wells on my agricultural land I can assure you that what was once productive land was sterilized forever – with government consent. The EU has instituted regulations around renewable energy land use and Alberta needed to take some action. It remains an ironic situation though that the hydrocarbon sector continues to be seen through an entirely different lens than renewables. The Minister admits that there are still some details to be worked out, but right now the industry is effectively still on hold awaiting those devilish details.
Which opens the door for a related story following a CBC Calgary radio interview with Paul McLauchlin president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta. A survey of RMA members found that as of December 31, 2023, at least $251.8 in municipal property taxes were unpaid by oil and gas companies. This week's RMA media release does not sugarcoat the problem:
“While all other property owners in the province face strict penalties for non-payment of property taxes, oil and gas companies continue to exploit legislative and policy loopholes and hide behind an industry regulator that has, for many years, refused to hold some companies accountable for poor business decisions, high liability risks, and a lack of concern for the public interest”.
The industry as a whole continues to make a profit and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said in the past that the province will “go to the wall” for the industry and more recently that Alberta should “double down on oil and gas production”. So what are we really going to the wall for? Alberta municipalities must undertake expensive legal proceedings to recover property taxes that are so far in arrears that some municipalities could consider bankruptcy. The RMA calculates that 200 oil and gas companies would also go bankrupt if they were forced to pay their municipal taxes today. (Not to mention creating a new tranche of orphan wells to deal with). While resource extraction is a key economic driver for Alberta, the sector should not be getting tax holidays while the province watches municipalities pick up the slack.
Apple is getting out of the autonomous electric car business. TechCrunch says that hundreds of employees working on the project will lose their jobs and that all work has stopped. The initial announcement was made internally earlier this week but ending a 10-year effort seen as part of Apple’s growth strategy is not something you can keep quiet. Project Titan as it was called, was never officially announced, and the company may never officially announce that it has been unplugged (the BBC couldn’t resist the headline). Investors seem to have welcomed the news because the stock was up at the close in New York, but the Wall Street Journal says those investors are still waiting to hear the company’s AI strategy. Elon Musk was certainly pleased to see Apple pull away from the car business. He saluted the news and lit a cigarette - figuratively on X of course:
For years I have coveted a cherry red Gibson 335 guitar, just like the one Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues uses. My playing would not do the instrument justice and my pocketbook does not help, but I can dream. I do however still follow the world of Gibson guitars, so a BBC World Service interview this week got me poking about. The famous Gibson brand opened its first store outside the United States on the weekend! (the BBC interview is nowhere to be found online btw)
Jimmy Page, Brian May, Tony Iommi, and James Bay were on hand for the launch and no surprise that there was a new line of guitars announced in conjunction with the new store. Orville Gibson started making guitars in 1894 and the company has had its ups and downs, including a major corporate re-building in 2018. Throughout those 130 years though, the company built iconic models for musicians whether they were stars or just had stars in their eyes. For my part, I’ll leave that cherry red Gibson and the London store on my bucket list because … well, just because.
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