Coronavirus and companies that act responsibly

[XLRATING]

I’ve bought various detailing products from a lot of different companies. During this time, all of them keep sending me sales emails and announcements they are open for business. However, I want to give a shout out to Adam’s Polishes. Here is an excerpt of the email they sent:

We’ve shifted some of our manufacturing capacity to help provide essential products to our customers & employees. As of last week, we’re including free 12oz Hand Soap with all orders over $50 on Adam’s Polishes through March 31[SUP]st[/SUP], 2020. Plus, we’re giving away free bottles for a limited time, you’ll just need to cover shipping. We are also working as quickly as we can with various governing bodies to offer Home Surface Cleaning products & Hand Sanitizer. We intend to give some away starting with emergency services. Stay tuned in the coming week for more information. ​ Any employee who has the slightest sniffle or feels they have been exposed to COVID-19 in any way has been requested to stay home. Additionally, we’ve extended sick leave for employees should they need it. Our warehouse is being sanitized daily. In addition, we’ve provided our team with best practices on hygiene and supplied plenty of Hand Sanitizer, Soap & cleaning products to maintain their health and workspace. Please note, our shipping facility is closed on Wednesdays and Saturdays to be sanitized. We’ve provided each of our team members with free Interior Detailer with Microban® to use in our warehouse and their homes/vehicles. For more information on Microban®, click here. All employees who are able to work from home have been instructed to do so. We’ve embraced “social distancing” & halted all travel. <tbody> </tbody> <tbody> </tbody> <tbody> </tbody> <tbody> </tbody> <tbody> </tbody> <tbody> </tbody>

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I’m very impressed with how responsibly Adam’s Polishes is responding to this — along with any other companies whose email list I’m not on. Much better than my work where no one is practicing social distancing, and looked at me like I was crazy when I asked them to stay clear of me because I have family that WILL die if infected.

Hope all of you are taking this seriously and following CDC recommendations (even though I have a teenager who is going to implode from not visiting friends and stores, but at least is listening to our requests). We’re all in this together, and let’s all encourage and support businesses that are doing their part. And let’s all keep making jokes on here!

 

[Gord]

A global pandemic does not give free rights to organizations to send spam masked as sincerity!

Hi,
Well let me see how I could write this without being too offensive. <sigh>

I get your point, perhaps from your perspective you feel it's a good thing and that's fine. Personally, I've received an absolute flurry of notes like this from all sorts of 'aspects of life' and I honest to god feel that they're all just taking advantage of 'consumer' and seizing an opportunity to butter us up and bypass anti-spam laws. It's upsetting.

I really have no interest as to how they are operating internally - this should be a given. I really have no interest in their so-called 'free' [check their site - just pay shipping and handling] soap. I already have soap and if I run out, I'll use gasoline. Take that Mister virus!

The worst up here seems to be the banks and ISPs....'oh we will so help you in this difficult time'....well, no...no, you bastadges, you'll help yourselves first, just as you always did and always will. And I didn't subscribe to boo from any of these places so I'm livid about it and have had to use the gmail 'report spam' so often in the past couple of weeks, it's just infuriating. I'm actually considering taking them all to the government anti-spam division and getting them properly fined, but my dislike for government is right up there with banks and lawyers.

Government...The province of Quebec is currently doing well and this provincial government has shuttered all nonessential services, and anyone not abiding to the distancing rules etc...fines. The balance of Canada is catching up albeit not fast enough.

For the record, I actually live well out of 'the big city' and on the best of days only encounter one, maybe two people. I'll wander to my little village maybe every week or two for supplies (always did), and thus far everyone I've come across is doing just fine.

Oh, and I'm getting lots done on the XLR as it's fairly apparent this isn't going to end in a couple of weeks or months, so I've 'gone in' deeper than I initially intended, figuring maybe I'll get a trip around the block sometime in the autumn.

The youngsters...well, I sympathize with that problem but only so far. There have been much harder times in world history so perhaps consider to offer any wound-up youth a good book on just exactly what humans had to endure historically? Or maybe a television channel if they're not of the reading sort.

Just my (quasi worthless) two cents - no disrespect meant to anyone. Of course be careful too - maybe do buy some wax and go polish your cars...alone.

Gord </sigh>

 

[XLRATING]

I’m not offended (at least) Gord. I haven’t gotten a lot of emails but have read plenty of stories about what companies are doing. I distrust most companies “philanthropic” motives, because there’s usually a financial self-interest underlying it. If you’re donating supplies it might end this sooner which helps your bottom line.

This particular email just read a little different than most, to me. I also appreciated that they were making some supplies available to the public without price gouging. There are some things I really need just one of, but they’re either as unobtainable as XLR headlights or have been collected up & donated somewhere out of reach to me (& I’m not talking about things medical professionals need like face masks).

I’d love to live where you do, in fact grew up somewhere like that. There are less than half a dozen cases where I grew up, probably a lot of toilet paper available too. There are multiple dozens of cases where I live now, so there is no toilet paper, meats etc. here - all sold out as everyone stocks up to stay home.

My parents lived through the Great Depression and our household was conducted as if another one was around the corner, so I’m plenty familiar with worse times. I can remember my mom in the 80’s describing polio as being considered the equivalent of AIDS, everyone was afraid they’d get it and die, guess now that would be coronavirus. I’ve passed those things along to my kid, who is actually handling being home bound better than my attempted comedic description of it. Worst part is he’s going to lose the last 1/3 of the school year of organized education. I can do a lot but I’m not in the position to fully make up for that.

Anyway, I’m something of optimist, I guess, that people and companies will legitimately step it up as we go on.