Dear Movers,

Dear Movers,

Hey there! I’m gonna jump right in- I acknowledge that you are professionals in the field. And I really appreciate what you do, because I would NOT want to do all the packing and moving myself. Unlike many, I am not a DITY (Do IT Yourself) mover! But after ten moves, I have three tips that would help us in our stressful situation feel more at ease with your role in our move:

1-Please, for the love of Pete, respect our time as we respect yours. Transportation offices need to synch up with the moving company dispatchers, who need to synch up with their truck drivers & teams! This past pack-out, the Transportation office verified 3 dates for our pack-out (but no times), and when I found out the second day that it had been scheduled as a 12-5 time slot for 3 days, I almost lost my mind. Anyone who has ever done a pack-out of a house larger than 2000 square feet knows you cannot pack a large home (3200 square feet in this case) in THREE HALF DAYS! So I wasted the mornings of the first two days, then I had to juggle my schedule to create space for a fourth day, which lasted TEN HOURS as they completed the job. NO BUENO. Time is precious during a PCS, please do not waste it.

2-Handle our precious things as if they were your own. I know it’s a laborious and unglamorous job, but it’s yours. So please do it well and with pride. Wrap my items to ensure their safety. Don’t just dump drawers of random-appearing items into a pile of paper and toss it into the box crumpled up. I want to believe that you care for the wellbeing of my personal effects, even though there’s little to no chance that you would ever be held personally accountable for loss and breakage due to negligence or poor job performance. Use all your cool industry secrets to protect our stuff, please!

3-Own your mistakes. We are all human, we all screw up from time to time, and that’s fine. But when you are called out on the mistake, please don’t point fingers all over the place. Just own it and apologize, with a heart for doing better. Please. When I tried to get to the bottom of the scheduling and communications clusterfuck from this past pack-out, each entity I addressed, blamed it on another. OMG, just OWN it. And DO BETTER! (Also, see #1 above.)

So, thank you. Thank you for doing your job and doing it well, and with pride. I do appreciate your role in this adventure. And I see you working hard on my behalf. I appreciate that.

Grateful,

Christine