And Now, a Word From Our Sponsor

The tool Steve and I are using to create this blog is owned by Google, you know them…yea, that Google. One of the features it allows me to do is put commercial ads along side the posts, as a means of earning a little something. Of course I'm not doing that, and won't. But if you'd allow me just this once, I would like to put in a word for a commercial enterprise that has risen so far above and beyond reason to accommodate me in this -- what shall we call it? -- this adventure?... that they deserve some favorable mention.

That entity is UPS. Yea, good old Big Brown.

The company I work for, iShip, is a little, but important, subsidiary of UPS. We create, manage, and host the retail shipping software used in all the UPS Stores, and also in a lot of other customer locations; like Nordstrom for instance. The people here are like a little family.

I guess there are around 50 of us, but from time to time we are visited by high level people from UPS and they make us feel like we are the real reason UPS is successful. Good people do that.

I write the online Help for our products, and dabble in training documentation, Flash demos, and such. My contribution is not on the critical path of our products functionality, but the people here make me feel very important. People ask me: "Dick, why aren't you retired?". "What, and let UPS fail? I couldn't do that!" Is my answer :-)

Like many very large companies, UPS self insures. That means that the health insurance we enroll in here at iShip, and the ultimate payer for Bettie's treatment, will be UPS. To me, of course, this is huge, huge, huge. Probably no big deal in the grand scheme of things for UPS but nevertheless, I'm grateful beyond words to have it.

But it isn't the insurance and the monetary considerations that make UPS and iShip great, it's the people...the heart.

UPS was founded right here where I live, in the Puget Sound area, actually in downtown Seattle. (The headquarters is now in Atlanta...or is it the iShip building in Factoria?) The founder, Jim Casey, was obsessed with two things: reliable on-time package delivery, and corporate integrity. The integrity part is what shows up in times like this.

Here are some of ways this UPS spirit has affected me:

• Tuesday morning, on my way from the hospital in Auburn to the hospital in Burien I get a cell call from my good iShip buddy Sid Heinz. (Sid is the one that "brought" me from a previous company where we both worked.) This is very early in the episode and Bettie's life, let alone quality of life, is still very much in question. "Forget everything here" Sid told me "Concentrate on Bettie, we've got it all covered here. We're praying for you".
  
  Ever try driving with tears in your eyes? Don't try it.
  
  
• Tuesday afternoon, just after Bettie's procedure with Dr Wiess, I'm at her bedside and I get a call on my cell phone from Tim Davis. Tim runs two of UPS's subsidiaries from his homebase in San Diego. iShip is one of them. He's got two companies to run, but he's calling to encourage me...he didn't have to do that.
  
  It undoes me now, just to remember it.
  
  
• Wednesday I'm making my first contact back to iShip and Cheryl Gray, our HR gal appears to have dropped everything to look into insurance issues for me. Very helpful. Then the next day I get this e-mail from her, subject: "Just checking in".
  
  It was a lot more than that...lots of insurance info, etc.., But that subject line just made me feel...supported.
  
  
• Just last night I get this (an excerpt from a longer message) from Shaindell Goldhaber, my immediate supervisor: "Please let me know if there’s anything you need, either personally or work related. Your work family will do everything it can to support you during this stressful time. I understand your need/desire to work, so I won’t chastise you for coming in. Just be sure you give yourself all the time you need to support Bettie and to take care of yourself as well."
  
  What a sweetheart I work for.

I could go on with other support I've gotten from my work family, but you get the idea that these are special people indeed.

So, if you are one of the countless people who have said "Just let me know if there is anything I can do", my answer is "Ship something using UPS!"

What can Brown do for you? More than you'll probably ever know.