Well, I had to go read that petition again. Quite frankly, I believe it is rather tame considering how I might have written it, which is probably a good thing. It spells out the inequities of the situation, describes the details of how those inequities affect everyone involved, and suggests a remedy to alleviate this inequity.
I read no threat into the words there. I read no level at all of anything someone could consider as harsh or abusive in any way.
The petition is succinct and to the point. Exactly what any correspondence to a CEO of a large corporation should be if you expect them to read it.
I see no fault in telling someone exactly what the facts are, and this petition does exactly that. So I fully support it, as is, without reservations.
I am hopeful that FedEx will be coming to our rescue. I am further hopeful that the merger of DHL and Airborne Express may have given that company a turn for the better as well. I have talked to several people low on the totem pole at UPS and they all say that UPS is after big business and abandoning the small business market as best it can. So I seriously doubt we will get anywhere at all with them. But FedEx and Airborne Express are hungry for any business they can get from UPS. So this may very well work to our advantage. We shall see.....
Quite frankly, the situation we are in now is not tenable nor desirable as a business plan for us to cling to. Burrowing our heads into the sand hoping that the shipping companies will allow us to ship simply by overlooking what we are doing, is a suicidal way of doing business. Once they stop overlooking us, we are tossed like fish on the shore. Us allowing them to pick and choose who they will allow to ship based on arbitrarily ignoring their own rules selectively is short sighted and unhealthy for the long term survival of this entire business. Who knows when suddenly a change in the guard at your local office then effectively puts you out of business. Think it can't happen to YOU?
I've been down the road shipping via Airborne Express and marking my packages in an obscuring fashion that was not a lie, yet did not fully describe the contents of the boxes. And every day I shipped out, I was on pins and needles dreading a phone call saying they have discovered "contraban" in my boxes and the game is over with. When people would ask me how I get my animals cross country to my customers, I would tell them via Airborne Express, and many would say "Huh? I thought they didn't ship snakes," and I would have to tell them about my white lies to get my animals to their destinations. How does this sort of thing make us look to the public at large? Lying just so we can stay in business. It doesn't matter that we HAVE to lie, it paints us all with a rather unflattering image.
When I got my account with UPS, I told them up front what I was shipping. I told them I ship live harmless snakes. Unless they were willing to accept that, I did not need an account with them. I could live with my pins and needles. I had a sales rep come to my place TWICE to inspect and take photos of not only the snakes, but my shipping materials and methods. He said it would not be a problem. He said it would be cleared up the line as far as necessary. So from late April, 2003 until late January, 2004, I had a tremendous weight taken off of my shoulders. I was doing this ALL above board and out in the open. I did not have to worry about my boxes being opened, nor worry about my indiscretion being discovered. NO MORE PINS AND NEEDLES.
Or so I thought.
Apparently, this was NOT cleared all the way up through UPS corporate. So something got back to corporate and they sent word to my local office to no longer accept my packages. This was an excrutiating blow, let me tell you. And you know what? It can happen to any of you at any time. So anyone thinking otherwise is just fooling themselves. And not just with UPS. If you are shipping snakes or anything they do not specifically allow and have not granted you an exception, then every day you are on the verge of being put out of business. Immediately. Temporarily if you can find some other way to sell your animals. Permanently if not.
Anyway, I have a case of opaque deli cups and lids out on the porch, since I was figuring I was going to have to go back to shipping via Airborne Express and this would help to keep the contents from being easily seen if the boxes were opened. But certainly I felt the tension returning already that I faced with every shipment going out of here.
But you know what? I just decided I am NOT going to do it that way again. I am tired of acting like some sort of criminal or embarrassment to society that has to sneak around just to sell my animals. I am not willing to accept being treated like a second class citizen simply because I happen to love what I do, and people are willing to buy my animals IF I can get those animals to them. NOTHING I want to ship is any more dangerous than the thousands of common commodities that those shippers handle on a daily basis. In a lot of cases, they are much less so.
A driver may be afraid of snakes? So what? You will find someone afraid of just about nearly anything you can think of. I know people afraid of crossing over bridges, but that doesn't stop the government from building them. I know people afraid of heights, but that doesn't stop companies from building skyscrapers in which to headquarter their businesses. And I know people who are afraid of flying, but that doesn't prevent the airlines from offering flights to those people who want them. I know some UPS drivers afraid of dogs, but it is their JOB to deliver packages to homes, even if there is a dog in the yard. So to tell me that a shipper cannot accept snakes that are in a triple sealed container because someone, somewhere may be afraid of snakes is NO EXCUSE.
Hopefully FedEx will be our salvation. Because if it turns out that they are not, we, as a group, really have no other choice but to settle this matter one way or the other. If we all have to just not have door-to-door service available to us as an option, because of valid jusifiable legally defensible reasons by the shipping companies, then so be it. But if these decisions that have been long standing for these companies are merely based on some prejudicial arbitrary decision made somewhere in their corporate offices, then this needs to be brought to their attention, fully evaluated with a reasonable open minded discussion, and recognized for the unfair practices they have created and condoned.
Certainly many people are happy with the status quo, if they have their shipping situation presently working for them. And I am also certain they will fight anything they perceive as a threat to that illusion of security. I truly, truly hope that this problem can be resolved without any pain to anyone, and I will try extremely hard to make it work that way.
But if broken eggs are inevitable, my apologies, in advance.
