Snow Day

It's snowing today in Central Michigan, and if the weather idiots are correct, it should continue to snow until dinnertime tomorrow, with up to 8 inches accumulating on the ground. On the television news they're calling it our first "big" storm of the season, and I suppose they're right. We've only had about 4 inches in the past three weeks -- we could get double that in the next 24 hours. It's a good thing we put out the ice and snow melter crystals this morning before the snow started...

If you're not familiar with this product (and up until now I'd only lived in warm-weather cities; I wasn't myself), the ice and snow melter we're using is a granular agent that keeps the ice and/or snow from sticking to sidewalks, driveways, and other concrete surfaces. It's touted as being more environmentally friendly than the rock salt traditionally used for this purpose, and a small bag of it is enough to cover our sidewalk and front walkway, usually with enough left over to touch up any spots we missed on the first pass. It's easy to use and not too expensive (about $4 a bag, which lasts for about a week so far) -- which is important, since keeping your sidewalk clear is required by a city ordinance...

Clearing the snow is one thing; keeping it clear is quite another. The traditional snow removal tools is a shovel, but shovelling snow is a bad idea if you're a middle-aged man with hypertension; a lot of heart attacks happen each year because men my age and general condition decide that they can still clear the driveway the way they did when they were teenagers. When we decided we were going to move to East Lansing the first thing I put on my shopping list was a snow blower. Little did I know that I'd have to wait almost three months before anyone here started selling them, and another two months before I'd get to use mine...

Assuming that I do, of course. This storm is still just warming up, and there's never any way to tell how much of it will stick and how much will just melt on contact. But the reason I'm blathering on about all of this is simple: snow melter, snow shovels and a snow blower are all things I went 44 years without ever having to purchase, and now I've bought all of them in just a few weeks. Moving to a cold-weather city, most people consider higher heating costs and more warm clothing, but fail to take into account costs like snow melter and gasoline for the snow blower. And I'm not even sure what other costs may present themselves before spring...

Now multiply that by every one of your employees and throw in the costs of winterizing your place of business, whatever it is, and you're starting to get an idea of what it might take to move your business into such a climate. Forget all of the wailing and gnashing you see about "hidden costs" in television commercials and business journals; in business their are ALWAYS going to be hidden costs. Sometimes you find them on your heating bill or the budget for an indoor break area, and sometimes they hit on your liability insurance bill (increased slip-and-fall premium), but they're always going to be there, swirling around outside your window like a fall of snow...