But Who Will Pack The Mattresses? Part I

[Since the next couple of days will be filled with doctor's appointments for RWT, time is at a premium. So for your reading pleasure, I've dredged up an old account of our move from Maryland to California.]

April, 2001 --

To make things "easier", within the last six months or so, the military has implemented a new (and improved?) system for moving household goods. Someone must have decided there were not enough layers of people involved in the old system. Now you get to talk to even more organizations…

First, there was Cendant (what that stands for still eludes me, or maybe it is not an acronym at all, but one of those touchy-feely, world-class, delight your customer names) Mobility. They are a government contractor that has taken over all the move coordination for military members. Our representative was Karen.

We started talking to Karen in January to try to find out how much extra it would cost to ship RWT's newly built sailboat (which missed the free shipping by 9” and in hindsight, maybe we should have just cut off the end off the bow). Karen gave us a copy of the boat instruction (which was full of bizarre formulas and weight calculations which basically worked out to: the more the boat and your household goods weighs, the less it costs) and told us that someone was working on determining how much extra (if any, we hoped) the shipping of our 200 pound boat would run.

Next, there was “Moving Company A” – the overall moving company. They are out of Florida and our representative was Matt (who, curiously, went to college in the very small town in MA where RWT's brother is living). Matt was very enthusiastic and, I must admit, surprisingly helpful. When they realized (after the pre-move survey) that they'd need more than one day to pack all our junk (duh!), Matt was able to convince the packers that packing Friday and Monday was not an option.

That brings us to the packers. They were from “Moving Company B” out of Woodbridge, VA and are the local representatives of "Moving Company A". Of course, Woodbridge is only local to Indian Head if you have a boat or swim really, really well. While Woodbridge is about 10 miles in actual distance from Indian Head across the Potomac, it is over an hour's drive (without traffic) since you have to drive up to D.C. and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to cross the river.

Now, one cannot confuse the packers with the movers or the driver. The driver was from “Moving Company C”, which is affiliated with “Really Big Moving Company D” and is located in Missouri (although the driver actually lives in Florida). And to help him load up in Indian Head, the driver hired a couple of guys who work for “Really Big Moving Company D” locally (actually out of Fredericksburg, VA, even farther away than Woodbridge). At the Twentynine Palms end of the move, his helpers were from “Moving Company E”. Complicated enough? It is amazing anything got here. On to the actual move…

Two packers arrived Monday (late, they had no idea there was anything in Maryland south of D.C.) and immediately started saying they could never get it all packed in time (a recurring theme from all of our moves). Luckily, they brought a third guy on Tuesday and everything was going well until… ...Thomas.

Tuesday was our first contact with Thomas, the owner and driver of the moving van. Thomas (who's last name has a very high ratio of consonants to vowels that I cannot even attempt to spell) is from Poland. He has been in the U.S. for 15 years, but still has a very heavy accent. And he is the embodiment of a stereotypical northern/eastern European – blunt, disdainful, perfectionist, and his opinion is the only correct one. I would love to get him in a room with RWT's grandmother… it would be a battle of iron wills.

Since we were originally scheduled (before Matt's intervention) for a Monday pack and Tuesday load, Thomas had nothing to do on Tuesday and wanted to come over a day early and get started. He called asked if he could check things out and I said sure. Big mistake. I told the packers that the driver was coming over to start the prep for loading and they immediately got upset. Why? They felt he would be rushing them. Much sighing and huffing. It only went downhill from there…

Thomas arrived. Boat?? Piano??? Boat???? What boat????? One of the myriad of entities handling our move sent the information for Thomas to the packers instead. Thomas was picking up three more loads after ours (our stuff was the first on and first off) and the boat would take up precious space in his truck. Much sighing and huffing.

Then the clash – Thomas wanted to start loading boxes that day. This sent the packers into a tizzy. Mere sighing and huffing turned into grumbling and muttering. Later we realized they were irritated because, by his loading of the boxes, Thomas would not be paying guys like the packers (who also do loading on other jobs) and Thomas would be keeping more money for himself.

Enough tension? No. The subject of boxing the mattresses arose. The packers said they never box mattresses and it is the mover's job. Thomas said the packers always box the mattresses. Rob and I distanced ourselves and let them fight it out. In the end, the packers boxed two of the mattress sets and the mover boxed one.

Wednesday morning started off with rain, but, luckily, it was not pouring too much. Assisting Thomas were two local Virginia boys attired with (I am not making this up) Ducks Unlimited and Bass Fishing hats. They were quite good-natured although Thomas tried his best to put a major dent in their easygoing manner. Thomas was a hard taskmaster and was packing the trailer to a density comparable to lead. I felt bad for the local guys helping him… “More flaut box, more flaut!” Bass-boy says no more flat boxes. Thomas snorts, points and says “Ironink board”.

The boat went in first and was hung against the wall with all the furniture packed around it. The loading was going well (although slowly) when about 2:00 that afternoon (when the boat was no longer even visible behind the wall of furniture and boxes) we got a call from Karen at Cendant: “It will cost you to ship the boat, but we don't know how much…” All along we had planned to simply move the boat on our trailer if it was going to cost too much to move in the truck, so Karen did something very difficult to do – she made RWT mad. It turns out the brainiac who could perform the arcane boat moving cost calculations quit the company (hmm, coincidence?) without coming up for a price for our boat!

After Rob finally threatened to have them take the boat off the truck (which would have taken hours) so we could just trailer it ourselves, they came up with a rather fair and reasonable price for shipping the boat. Then the van was finally loaded and Thomas said he would meet us in Twentynine Palms at 0900 Wednesday morning. Phew. That part was done. We were possessionless and ready to work on being homeless...

Next was checking out of the house in Indian Head. Since they were going to do major renovations to the interior of the house, we decided to clean it ourselves. We figured that we would not have to spend much time cleaning things they were ripping out and throwing away. Well, that turned out to be a hugely incorrect assumption on our part! Housing thought it would be unfair to the other housing residents if we did not thoroughly clean the whole house.

However, after RWT had a heart-to-heart with the housing officer, a reasonable cleaning plan was agreed upon. The final inspection went well, with the only hitch being that we had to wipe out the under the top of stove in case someone wanted to use our 1950's-era range for parts.

After a really nice going away party from our friends in Maryland, we headed out of Indian Head Friday morning. And since it would not cost an arm and a leg to ship the boat, we had our car loaded up on the trailer and were ready to start the cross-country trek.

To be continued...