THE CARROLL COX SHOW

NEWS AND COMMENTARY

 
 

 

From: Meredith Shields
Sent: Sun 7/20/2008 9:04 PM
To: Scotlund Haisley
Subject: Tennessee Debrief


Scotlund,

I want to begin this email with the two words you used in my performance evaluation - loyalty and respect.  As an employee, I am extremely loyal.  And I always respect my superiors to the extent that they deserve it.  You have shown that you do.  Therefore, I respectfully request the opportunity to share my opinions with you.  And I wish to do that in this manner instead of at the debriefing coming up because I don't wish to say anything that might insinuate disrespect in front of others.

The decision that was made to have the Tennessee puppy mill animals back in Gaithersburg by 11:00 am Monday, without consulting with the people on the ground, and the people involved in the medical exams, the paperwork and the transport, was extremely poor planning.  In hindsight, I know that the time was set to coincide with the Board of Directors meeting and the full staff meeting.  However, from the perspective of someone on the ground, I watched myself, my teammates and my volunteers work themselves into the ground, until midnight or later, to get the exams done, for a deadline that to us at the time seemed arbitrary and without reason.  Not only that, but the risks involved in rushing the medical documentation could have and may have (we may not know until down the road) jeopardized the entire legal case and negated all the effort we put into the entire operation.  In addition, there were HSUS vehicles on the road carrying animals (evidence) from the case, being driven by people who had been awake and working for over 25 hours.  Luckily, our only incident was a flat tire.  But if an accident had occurred and by any chance an individual had been injured or killed, that information would have come out, and HSUS would be facing a lawsuit in the millions.  Not to mention that if any of the animals we were carrying were injured or killed, that would also have jeopardized the case.

I can only try to communicate to you the feeling of the group the night we found out (by email) that we were supposed to have everything completed and the animals in Maryland by Monday morning.  There was a consensus among several of us that we were going to refuse, because of several reasons, many of which I just stated above.  But primarily for the safety of the team.  We finally accomplished it because that's what we do.  And out of loyalty and respect and an innate desire to do what is requested of us.  All the time knowing that it was unsafe.

I shared the following story with Kelly and she urged me to share it with others but I haven't.  As I sat that Saturday night in Tennessee with the impending errors of this operation going through my mind, I thought of the movie Armageddon.  Don't know if you've seen it but basically Bruce Willis has an oil drilling team that is pulled off the street by NASA to fly up on the shuttle to an asteroid to blow it up and save Earth (not as corny as it sounds!).  The night before the launch, Bruce tells the director of NASA that he wants his men to have the night off and is told that's impossible, it's a huge security risk.  "What if they talk?"  and Bruce answers, "What if they get up there and forget what they're fighting for?"  That's the way I felt that Saturday night.  After the rush of pulling off an almost impossible operation, we were being presented with an unnecessary and dangerous task and I walked through those kennels that night and looked at the dogs and asked myself what did I do it for, and I didn't have an answer because I was so exhausted.  And all I could think of was that I never wanted to feel that way again, not being able to remember what I was fighting for.

I hope that my sharing this accomplishes something.  I guess I hope that you realize that you have a group of extremely dedicated people but they aren't superhuman.  I hope that you realize we can't triple our number of responses and not add any additional staff.  I hope you realize that you have a team with a pool of tremendous experience that you can utilize in decision-making.

We finally have a group of amazing people in this department and I don't want to see them implode.  I believe we can do great things, but only as a team - you and all of us working together.

Respectfully,

Meredith Shields

Field Responder
Emergency Services
The Humane Society of the United States