Despite the loss of income, added stress and likely lasting damage to my business, I support the industrial action 100% (Picture: Vicky Borman)
‘Get your orders in now,’ I typed in an email to my customers last month. ‘Stock up!’
This was no pre-Christmas sales pitch, however. My webshop sells CBD oil, and for some people it’s a medicinal lifeline.
I’d already experienced disruption in the Royal Mail strikes at the end of the summer and – with more action planned – I knew what was coming.
I wasn’t wrong. Absolute chaos is the only way I can describe the last few weeks.
The strikes have cost me about £2,000 this month. I’ve had desperate customers crying down the phone because they’ve not received their items in the post. At times, I’ve resorted to making 100-mile trips, driving from my home in Saint Neots all the way down to St Albans to hand-deliver orders myself.
But despite the loss of income, added stress and likely lasting damage to my business, I support the industrial action 100%.
Why?
Because these workers aren’t paid enough and I honestly think striking is the only way our out-of-touch leaders are going to listen.
These workers aren’t paid enough (Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images)
I set up CBD Angel five years ago after looking for an alternative to antidepressants. I found it in cannabidiol, an active ingredient in cannabis.
While it doesn’t get you high, lots of people say it helps with everything from insomnia to anxiety to pain relief, and studies have shown it can reduce epileptic seizures.
I’ve got about 2,500 customers and process around 25 orders a day, sending them first class, recorded delivery. I try to offer a personalised service, and often spend ages chatting with clients. Sometimes I feel like a cross between an unqualified doctor, an agony aunt and a social worker.
I’ve learned that, for many, CBD really is their alternative medicine, so when it doesn’t turn up, it’s far more serious than any missing Christmas present. And for me, it hits harder in my heart than in my wallet.
I got a taste of the coming turmoil from the Royal Mail strikes in August, and this time around I felt a bit like a sitting duck – I knew what was going to happen, and there was little I could do about it.
But I had to try.
I emailed clients who I knew relied on me – the parents of children with epilepsy and autism, the people who absolutely cannot sleep at night without their CBD oil.
Yet even though plenty of them got their orders in a full week in advance, they were still waiting 10 days later.
It’s absolutely right that the unions make a stand (Picture: Vicky Borman)
And then the phone calls and messages began – emails landing in my inbox, DMs on my Instagram account from people who were upset or panicking. You couldn’t fail to be moved, and I won’t lie, it’s been heart-breaking at times.
My balance sheets are feeling the strain, too. Sales are down £1,500 compared to this time last year, with regular customers citing the strikes, and I’ve lost another £600 issuing refunds for missing or delayed orders, or sending them again.
‘This must be costing you a fortune,’ one return customer remarked after her order failed to show.
‘It is,’ I said. ‘But what can I do?’
I’m not alone. Fellow business owners are in terrible situations, thousands of pounds down.
But my hardship is nothing compared to that of the people who really run this country – people like nurses, posties and railway workers.
I count myself lucky – I’ve got a second property that I run as an Airbnb. My husband Jamie earns a decent living as a plasterer.
We’ve lived comfortably for years, but the cost-of-living crisis has made us sit up and think. It’s creeping into the lives of the middle classes. The nation as a whole has woken up to what’s going on.
If it’s affecting us, what’s the impact on these striking workers? It’s got so bad for some that they’re relying on food banks. I wouldn’t be able to feed my family on what they’re earning.
Meanwhile in Number 10 we’ve got a multimillionaire Prime Minister who seems like he doesn’t even try to understand. He’s lost contact. Perhaps this year, if his Christmas cards don’t arrive on time, he might take notice.
It’s absolutely right that the unions make a stand, because if nothing changes the potential knock-on effects will be horrific. The country is already on its knees. We’re going to see people losing their homes, turned out onto the street.
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If the whole country is brought to a standstill, at some point someone’s going to have to do something. Someone is going to have to listen.
We’ve had the suits sitting around the table, with their pens and their little bits of paper, trying to find a solution.
It’s time everybody recognised the value of these workers.
I can afford for them not to strike, they can’t.
As told to Robin Eveleigh
Find out more about CBD Angel on their website here or their Instagram here.
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I’ve lost £600 issuing refunds for missing or delayed orders, or sending them again.
