Moving
Admittedly moving is one of my least favorite activities. It’s not the discovering and exploring a new area of the globe thing that I detest. It’s the packing of all of my stuff into cardboard boxes, labelled “bedroom” “kitchen” and “bathroom,” lugging it to my new abode and then unpacking it into my new bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. Phew! Thankfully my move from the northeast to Cincinnati was made much less stressful by professional movers and the free market. I asked them to lug my stuff. They said pay us. I said no problem. Done.
I find the moving companies fascinating. Any company that relies on vast complex, timely delivery blows my mind. I think of my one little move blown up 1000 fold across the country coordinated like a giant web of interconnecting parts. how much information transfer goes into the safe handling, tracking, storing, delivering, and billing for thousands of pieces of people’s lives each and every minute. How many pieces get lost, stolen, broken or misdirected? Every transaction involves some risk. What factors influence the risk: distance, road condition, personality of the mover, coordination of the mover, sobriety of the mover, efficacy of the packing job, size of the truck, fragility of the cargo. Obviously each move is individual. And some factors are just unknowable. So you do your homeowrk, you buy insurance, the moving company buys insurance and you both engage in a mutually beneficial transaction knowing that the world we live in contains a certain amount of uncertainty that neither party will ever be able to fully squeeze out of the system.
A few points of interest about my move
1. We got quotes from 2 large reputable - and what we thought were- independent - movers: Mayflower and United. The guys each came to the house, had different sets of paperwork, counted the boxes and furniture and then did a weight estimate. We were pretty amazed that they both came out with the same weight. Maybe an industry standard formula- who knows.
2. You have 2 options, a fixed rate based on the estimate or a variable rate based on the actual weight of your stuff once the truck is loaded. We took the fixed. Happy with the estimate, we didn’t want to risk going over and paying more- an insurance policy so to speak against the unknown weight of our stuff.
3. The movers did a good job. Everything made it - we’ll see if it’s intact when I open the boxes. But the guy came in a United van and we thought we had hired Mayflower. Our mover worked for neither. He was an independent contractor with his own truck. he told us that Mayflower went bankrupt 10 years ago, united bought them but they still use the same name. Interesting - so our estimates were not so independent. He also told us we should get a refund since we came in under estimated weight- the company did not tell us this-be sure to ask this- we did not think of this.
4. Our mover seemed like a good guy. He’s 37, has a high school education, been moving stuff since he was 20, has a CDL , owns his own 18 wheeler, takes 4 months vacation every winter and says he pulls in about $200K- $300K per year. And who said the American Dream was dead.
To bring it all back to current events: the average US citizen moves every 7 years (or if you are me almost 7 times in 7 years), presumably some of those times for job changes. Health care reform needs to address portability of policies. Tying one’s health insurance to one’s employer is a practice founded on an historical accident and perpetuated by outdated legislation. Break down state lines that only serve companies and not people. Break down the state sanctioned monopolies and oligopolies and open them up to REAL market forces and let the best service win.
