My Call to ConocoPhillips

The day before yesterday, while idly discussing the ST76B project, my flapjaw compatriot asked, what has ConocoPhillips said?  And I repeated, nearly verbatim, Lara Campbell’s statement (she of CP Communications and Public Affairs, whose words we posted here 11 March).  To which my comrade countered, that if I hadn’t made the effort to open a dialogue with them, then well, I was really lame.  My friend may be short on eloquence, but long on wisdom.  Why hadn’t I called them?

So yesterday morning I picked up the phone and gave them a ring.  I was routed to the voice mail of a very pleasant-sounding employee named Sylvia Hansen in “External Communications.”  I left a short and equally pleasant message about us, and them, and about opening a dialogue, and how we could work toward a win-win situation, and so forth, and that I very much looked forward to hearing from her at her earliest possible convenience.

And now we wait.

What we have to discuss with ConocoPhillips isn’t terribly complicated.  We are asking of CP that a) we work with them and the LA Conservancy to select some historically significant 76 stations that will retain their balls, and b) that the now-removed balls be offered to collectors for purchase, instead of destroying them, and that CP gift 76 balls to American signage museums so that future generations may enjoy them.

We wish ConocoPhillips no vicissitudes, but the campaign, including its boycott, is gaining great momentum and amazing supporters.  It would seem a no-brainer that they would wish to avoid bad press, especially in these times when Big Oil ranks right alongside Satan and al-Quaida in popularity.  But in the interest of full disclosure I want it known that I’m not of that ilk, disingenuously decrying high gas prices while still paying for the stuff.  In fact, I own royalty interest in CP subsidiary Burlington, so far be it from me to bite the hand that feeds (despite my issues with their manner of foreign investment, but that’s another topic altogether).

So call me, ConocoPhillips.  Let’s confab.  You’re talking to one of your own.  

I foresee great things for both of our camps, if we walk hand in hand toward this rotating, rising sun together.