By: Zac Meyer, Director of Operations
What a week this has been in Wisconsin! As we watch the weather forecasts and temperatures, it’s hard not to feel a little sick to your stomach. This weather not only poses a risk for those working outside – including our farmer and nutritionist customers – but for those on our staff traveling the treacherous roads.
You’ve likely noticed by now that we closed our headquarters laboratory in Watertown, Wis. on Monday, 1/28 and shut down our Convenience Routes from running that day as well [the lab is back running today, 1/29, but routes are cancelled again tonight]. While the snowfall wasn’t record-breaking, we talked as a family and reviewed road conditions and didn’t want to put any of our employee family at risk. We have some employees commute from as far as an hour away, and others that drive a mere five minutes to arrive at the lab. Our Convenience Routes traverse large areas of the state and run on everything from state highways to country roads. Regardless of the distance or the grooming of the roads, I couldn’t live with myself if any of our team members were hurt under circumstances for their employment.
We may have many locations and many employees, but all of them are valuable people who we care about. We’re a family business, and that doesn’t just mean our immediate Meyer family. Our employees in the lab or out in the country shouldn’t have to worry about their safety when they come to work. Much like we take extreme safety measures in the lab to ensure OSHA compliance, we want to be just as precautious when it comes to safety risks outside of our lab.
Our customers always have been, and continue to be, who we pledge to serve to our best abilities, day in and day out. But our employees make this business run and we need to ensure their safety. It’s our duty. I wanted to write this blog post as a thank you for your understanding and patience. As this weather continues, there will likely be more days and evenings when we are unable to run our Convenience Routes. There may even be more laboratory closings. We don’t wish for these, but they may happen. It’s Wisconsin (and New York, and California), and odd circumstances occurring are as unpredictable as is the weather. We apologize for this inconvenience (I know – such irony considering their name!) but hope you can understand that we’re doing it to protect our team members. We will continue to process samples with the same quality and accuracy as we always do, ensuring our customers can be confident in the results received. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to call us – our customer service team is at the ready to help. They can’t change the weather, but they will do everything in their power to accommodate your needs within reason.
Please save our website on your phone or computer (www.rockriverlab.com) and follow us on Facebook (@RockRiverLaboratory) and Twitter (@Field_Updates). We work diligently to update those outlets (the front page of the website has an announcement area with links that share full details for planning ahead) as soon as we know if there is a delay or closing from weather or otherwise. This is the best means to know exactly what to expect and plan accordingly.
Thank you to all of our customers and friends for helping us in keeping our laboratory family safe. Please keep yourselves safe in these conditions as you work with your own customers and animals. This recent article has some great precautions to take as well as some signs to watch for to avoid hypothermia: http://bit.ly/2DF2pes. Let’s all hope for an early spring!
