Um, this seems a bit scary - Bird Flu

coasterqueen wrote: My co-worker recently went to an insurance industry type conference in Santa Fe. She was telling me today that an executive w/ LARGE insurance company, which will remain anonymous, was talking to her about the bird flu since it was a topic at the conference and mentioned that at one time their large company was centralized in one big location. With the bird flu they have now scattered their company into smaller offices throughout the state because of the bird flu and if anything happened they wouldn't lose a whole company of employees. She mentioned to my co-worker that other companies were following suit. YIKES!!!!!! Do they know something we don't? Those actuaries can drum up numbers for a lot of freak-of-nature stuff.

Between hearing about that and at a recent insurance conference about planning for the BIG NATURAL DISASTER (and I'm not talking about New Orleans)....I don't like hearing about this stuff.

Boo&BugsMom replied: I'm not getting my panties in a bunch until we HAVE to worry. I refuse to live my life in fear over everything that is going on in this world.

gr33n3y3z replied: No I wouldnt let this worry me

They are looking out for number 1 themselves
But they can do that
I would say no they dont know any more then we do

C&K*s Mommie replied: I had not been up to date on the Avian Flu, but one of my instructors mentioned that the bird flu has been as close as Alaska to the US.

I am not one to worry terribly much though.

cameragirl21 replied: personally i think it's some kind of big scare tactic and i'm not worried BUT i will say that while i shoot children with animals a lot, i refuse to shoot them with exotic birds that have been imported solely because of bird flu fears so i guess it's not entirely true to say that i'm not at least being cautious....

coasterqueen replied: Well, I'm not exactly worried, a bit puzzled by the fact that large companies would go to extremes making me wonder what they know that I don't, but not worried per se.

I think when you sit in conferences days on end these days, after New Orleans, all I hear is "not IF but WHEN" and how they plan for natural disasters, and this and that it starts to wear on you. As a parent, hearing these things so much and reading so much coming across my desk, just makes you think a bit more about your children.

That's all.

cameragirl21 replied: Karen, this is just speculation but i'm wondering if this stems from what happened on 9/11/01, where entire companies were wiped out. Remember also that it's typically legal teams that are advising large corporations and they're going to be inclined to go through every hurdle to try to limit any company's liability, and while in this case the liability is not so much a lawsuit but rather complete destruction due to some possible act of God (or nature or whomever you believe in).
I think protecting children, especially your own from any pending disaster is a natural reaction...i remember not too long ago a bird shop owner wanted me to use his amazon parrots for a pic with a child and i simply said, "fine, but i want to see a clean bill of health on those birds dated today."
he thought i was beyond nuts and i just said, "sir, you don't work with kids much, do you?"
This is of course, JMO but i suspect that in light of some events of the fairly recent past, companies are taking what may seem to us to be extreme measures to protect themselves.

C&K*s Mommie replied: I can understand that POV Karen, although I have not BTDT per se. If you do find something out, please do share. Maybe they do know something that we do not. But until that day I will continue on with my life as best as I can.



Hearing that a Tropical Storm is headed our way, with the minimal potential for it to become a Cat 1 storm and hearing the emphasis placed on certain words by the meteorolgists gets to you too. After getting nerves wracked for a couple years with what seemed to be one storm after the other, I learned and chose to mute what they were saying in my mind. Catergory 1's or 2's are very minimal and are not as bad as it can be made out to be. I know the facts and can prepare myself the best that I can knowing the facts.

Hillbilly Housewife replied: This is why I don't listen to the news.

If I'm going to die from some unexpected crisis...I'd rather not know it and live happily until the last moment... then wonder in fear whether i'm going to live, my kids will survive, my husband...family...

I'd rather be blissfully ignorant of horrible events coming my way and be happy, then know about speculation about potential threats and live in fear all the time wondering when I'm going to die and from what.

C&K*s Mommie replied: interesting way to look at things. Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not, but I like that way of thinking, living in peace and not being overconcerned about what may or may come.

redchief replied: I don't think the insurance company was being overly cautious, nor do I think they have any inside info not out there for the rest of us. They're simply making a sound business decision. If all of their employees are collected in the same office space, any serious contagious illness could paralyze the company. Several very large corporations were literally destroyed when the WTC was destroyed in 2001. I think this is just a good business decision.

Hillbilly Housewife replied:
I'm not being sarcastic, I mean it. I rather die dumb and happy than smart and miserable! (about world events I mean...not actually dumb. )

jacobsmama replied: Karen, I agree that I don't like to hear about any of that and I don't live in fear about it either but I totally agree that I don't like hearing about it or not knowing it all when a big company is, even if they are just doing good business. It is scarey!

luvmykids replied: Way off topic, just had to add that Santa Fe is less than an hour from me ... too bad you weren't at the conference Karen!

coasterqueen replied:
Yeah, I wish I had got to go with her too. She always gets to go to out of state places...I always get stuck with Chicago. Course I asked for it to be that way with having kids; I didn't want to be away from them for too long at a time. One day maybe I'll get to do that kind of travel with work again.