Bonspiel Creation

"canada post hates me"

Today I am almost as excited as a tot on christmas morning, for  today is the day that the Canadian government will hopefully legislate the Postal workers back to work. (no word yet, at 7:15 am pacific time.) I stupidly did not consider the consequences of the postal service shutting down on my mail-order business and now I'm mired in the middle of it.   My Etsy sales ground slowly down through the start of June when the workers started fomenting, and have come to a standstill but for a few intrepid souls who purchased little items last week.  (They are willing to wait until the mail starts moving again to receive their stuff--thank you so much guys). 

I guess I did kind of start imagining the impact that the inability to ship would have on my business  but it seemed so outlandish, so absurd that I abandoned the line of thinking.  The mail is, to me anyway, an essential service; so it was like imagining that suddenly I had no money, not even to buy milk, and no prospect of any coming in.  Which is also sort of coming to pass. Actually, no, I'm being overly dramatic, but I'm a couple of thousand dollars short and rent day is looming and I'm afraid!

I know it's not just all about me, but it's affecting me so profoundly that I don't care about the politics of it and what it means for unions, the public sector, the Conservative government's use of their powers, or the corporation of Canada post.  In fact if I had to take sides I think I would join the "cry me a river" side against the unions for the first time in my life.  Yes, I have read quite a lot about the issues that would be on the table  if there were any negotiations happening.  I bet if the postal service were de-unionized there would be no shortage of new job applicants willing to work under the current conditions, and for less money too.  The economic and social climate has changed in such a way as to make unions look increasingly anachronistic, in my view.

I heard on the radio the other day that a beekeeper had a hundred or so queen bees in the mail enroute to him to populate orphaned hives.  Unfortunately the queens are stuck in a mail sorting facility with nobody who could do anything about it willing or able to help, and they are all dead as of today.  And without queens all the orphaned bees will die as well.  This will cost the beekeeper thousands of dollars in lost honey revenue, and it makes me really sad to imagine those queens, each in her little vial, languishing in a box somewhere, and those poor motherless hives too.  THINK OF THE BEES, people!  And get back to work. 

I resorted to pleading on facebook for my friends to come support me at the market yesterday.  To those who did, Thank you so much!  I had a really good day with solid revenue and I am proportionately less anxious now.  The sun is shining, the seagulls are screaming and making their monkey noises, and parliament is convening.  I remain optimistic.

Also quite self absorbed, I know, but anxiety will do that to a person.  So now I want to know, how is the postal strike affecting you, if at all?  If you are a bee I particularly want to hear from you.

--ellen