09/10/2018
In response to our Angie’s List customer Rodger pool. A detailed step by step break down of his move.
By Barry Fischel
We Moved Rodger Pool on January 11th, 2018. He wrote his review 6 months later, after retrieving his belongings from the storage room we moved them into.
Let me explain accurately how this move unfolded. When I spoke with Rodger over the telephone, I explained our Angie's List "Deal" exactly how I explain it to everyone who calls. I shared our hourly Angie's "Deal" rate, and asked Rodger what needed to be moved. He said he had a number of boxes, books, shelves and other furniture. It sounded like a 6 - 7 hour move, plus some small fuel and toll charges since he needed everything driven to a storage room about an hour away.
When we arrived the morning of January 11th, 2018, the first problem was the street he lived on was too narrow to double park the truck and no curb side parking was available anywhere up or down his block. After many futile attempts to park on his block, even the fire hydrant had vehicles parked there, we were forced to park all the way at the end of his block, since he lived right in the middle of the block, we would be forced to Dollie roll everything he had to move, all the way to the end of his block to the only place available to park the truck. The truck had to be illegally parked, to fit anywhere at the adjacent street all the way down his block, or the next choice was to park a couple of blocks away, and this would have meant a huge effort and hours more than the hours more this job would now take.
Before even looking at the objects needing to be moved, I explained, in detail, the whole parking drama that was unfolding. First I explained that the truck could be considered illegally parked, as the back half of the box stuck out of the lines, and after many attempts, and after many circles around many blocks, this was the best we were going to get for now. I explained that having to carry and Dollie everything to the end of the block, to the adjacent street, meant this job would now take longer to complete. He simply nodded as he listened, after my explanation I remained quite, until he said to get started moving.
Show me everything you have for us to move, I asked. He was a retired professor, living in a 2/3 level town house, on the East side uptown. Upstairs, there was a library. He had been collecting encyclopedias since the 60's the best I could summarize. Encyclopedias are the heaviest "Books" there are, and 50 boxes full of encyclopedias, to be carried down 2 full flights of stairs inside his town home, 1 flight of stairs to reach the street, and then a long stoop down to reach the street level. We are only 3 movers. 3 strong, experienced movers, but even we are going to have trouble with these boxes full of encyclopedias. 2 men carried box after box to the stoop, there I carried each box down the stoop and tried my best to get them to stack on the dollies. There was simply to much weight to roll a Dollie up the street, to the end, where the truck was situated. With the truck being far away, and with the move requiring all three of us in order to manage carrying the boxes to the street, no one could stay to pack the truck. Had the truck been parked out front of his town home, this move could have taken half the time, and the possibility of a ticket would not have loomed over our heads. Many boxes ripped apart at the seems, and had to be completely repacked, or the box needed to be taped extensively in order not to rip apart.
Our customer, Rodger Pool, seemed to not have a care in the world. In the beginning, as the horror of what this move was going to take to execute became clearer in my head, I tried to explain to Rodger what was happening. Never looking me in my eyes, he said, "I told you I had some books", and he retreated to a back room where he slept for the next 3 to 4 hours.
My team and I are never defeated by a challenge. I said to my 2 guys of 10 years working together, "OK guys, this is where the men and the boys are separated, which are we ?". Earl and Robert, 2 great Movers, strong as oxen, positive and full of determination, we all lifted these boxes, weighing 100's of pounds each, together at times, and I alone down the stoop and onto the Dollie, then with everything I had, to push the Dollie and keep the boxes from tumbling when the Dollie hit a crack in the street, or a rock, once to the truck, now a box at a time onto the truck, then to carry each box to the back of the truck and begin packing the truck with these extremely heavy, tearing apart, boxes. This job called for 5 men, but Rodger Pool was not interested to hear me, nor to even see the effort involved for each box. Not a sip of water was ever offered. After Rodger awoke from his restful sleep, I noticed him questioning the others. They told me he was wondering why it was taking so long. I went to Rodger and suggested he watch a little what we were experiencing. He declined and disappeared again. Finally everything, boxes and furniture, was all loaded onto the truck.In order to save a little time, we had to make some difficult choices. Since this customer was not willing to understand the difficulty of his job, he only was concerned with why it was taking so long, I decided not to wrap some of his older, worn, shelving units. We saved about 45 minute to an hour by shrink wrapping everything, instead of cardboard shielding everything. We would have had No Issue with fully cardboard shielding everything had the customer said it would be OK to spend the time doing so.
Rodger asked if he could sit in the front seat of our moving truck, he wanted me to drive him to his storage unit where we would be unloading the truck. My 2 team mates gave up their seats and sat in the back of the truck so Rodger could sit there. What great guys.
Driving through the city, 80 blocks to interstate 87, then the traffic backed up as 87 had only 1 lane open to work. 2 hours driving to his storage unit, 2.5 hours unloading again the heaviest, encyclopedias filled boxes, falling apart, needing to be extensively taped together,
Finally the furniture and every one of the 70 plus boxes had been moved and nicely arranged in the storage room. With shaking hands I tried to write out the contract, my hands were shaking because my muscles had been pushed beyond their limit. I could barely hold the pen, but I managed to calculate the hours we worked times the hourly rate, fuel and tolls, and of course a parking ticket, not because the meter was not paid, but because there was No Where to park, except this half legal and half illegal parking, as I explained above. AND, of course this move took twice as long as the example I gave over the telephone. Any other mover would have declined to even start this job without 5 men. But I do not shrink under the pressure of difficulties, that is why I have 66 A Reviews, this is why this company won the "SUPER SERVICE AWARD" in 2017. And on every other Moving lead platform we have 95%, of the most satisfied, Happy customers, expressing the most kind-hearted statements about our services. I Love them all. Even the ones who expressed negative feelings, they are only a few, and I Love and respect them just the same. To them I say, my team and I, we always give everything we have to give. We are so sorry you did not end with satisfied feelings, what can I do to make it up to you, return some money, move you again for free, just tell me what, so long as it is reasonable, OK.
In the end, Rodger would not agree to pay the bill, he became so angry, and scoffed at the 3 most worn out movers. I broke the part of the bill that was over my telephone explanation example, broke it in half, and he agreed to pay that amount. The example I give over the telephone is only an idea to explain in action how the billing is calculated. I explain, IF your move were to take this long, plus the 1 hour travel time, plus the fuel and tolls being this amount, then take the number of hours and times it by the Angie's List SPECIAL hourly rate, your bill would calculate to this amount. How ever long your move will take in the end, we cannot know what the driving circumstance will be like the day of your moving, or how we will have to park, or that you have 70 boxes full of encyclopedias, and all the rest of the hassle your move amounted too, only once we execute your move, can we KNOW exactly what the effort / time will amount too, hence your bill will reflect this effort / time.
We are an HONEST, INTEGRITY based company. If we were not, 66 A Reviews on Angie's List would not appear.
