Albert Hong

Gas stations make almost no money off of gas. The vast majority of their profits come from the snacks and drinks they sell from the convenience store; one cup of coffee makes more profit than a gallon of gas. About the only time that gas stations actually make money off gas is when gas prices drop or rise (more so when they drop): they do this by being quick to raise prices when the price of oil goes up while selling existing inventory that they bought previously for a lower cost, and then being slow to lower them when the price of oil goes down, collecting a windfall for a short period until competition pushes the price down back to near-zero profit. So for gas stations, they could care less about what the price itself is and whether or not consumers think it is too expensive or cheap. Instead, they’re looking for the things that make the price move up and down, swing back and forth, the volatility that we all so hate.

So next time you go to a gas station feeling bad for the station owner when prices go up, don’t let them fool you, as counter-intuitive as it might seem - that’s when they’re the happiest.

In ancient Rome, when an arch was constructed and the scaffolding was
removed, it was required that the engineer stand under the arch as the
scaffolding was removed to attest to its sound construction. If the
arch was unfit, the architect was the first to know. We need more of this in every industry. Especially the one I work in.

In 1941, Jorge Luis Borges imagined in his book “The Library of Babel” that the world would reach a point in which the entire world’s knowledge would be stored in one collection, but barely a word would be understood.
I think it’s actually happening. Not that we literally won’t be able to understand if we tried, but that there is such an overwhelming tsunami of information sources that we need to keep track of and gulp down that we won’t have the patience and luxury of time to digest what we intake. It’s the equivalent of having a jet turbine blasting in your face with all the oxygen in the world and you suffocating to death because the force of which the air hits you prevents you from breathing.

Yes, I exaggerate for the time being. I’m complaining about having too many blogs and journals to read at work to keep up with the latest information. But I feel it more and more every day, when I feel like I read the most insightful and well-thought pieces and yet can’t remember it 10 seconds later when trying to explain to a friend or colleague, as I move onto the next article on the list. It’s a problem, but given, it’s a problem with an easy fix.
Triage.