Adventures in Moving part 2: packing!

On Wednesday the moving company contracted by the Air Force came to our storage unit to pack up our main household goods shipment (HHG as the military calls it...). We were up early to get there and get things organized. The way it works is that the movers will pack up everything for us, but since we are leaving from a storage unit, we had to UNpack the things we had packed up already. They are held liable for the whole shipment so they don't allow us to pack our own goods. So after we consolidated some boxes and made areas in the storage unit to represent rooms like the kitchen, office, and bedroom, Dereck went to pick up the movers some coffee and donuts for their arrival. Food bribes are said to work wonders with the heavy lifting movers! We had some water and granola bars for our first small shipment of stuff a few weeks ago, and they seemed to appreciate it. This time however, they gave us a different moving company so we didn't know what to expect.

Around 9am (surprisingly on time), one small van showed up driven by one man representing the moving company. He said his name was Phillip and that we was being sent ahead to pack, then later that afternoon the other movers would  come to load the truck which they would drive there. This already started me off on a doubtful foot, since for our shipment of less than 2000 lbs we had 3 movers and 1 lady taking inventory. Now for our main HHG shipment we have one guy to do it all? He looked like he hadn't showered since 1975 and didn't have very good personal skills either. However, we were nice, offered him some donuts and coffee, and gave him the 'tour' of the unit. I showed how I had things organized. He then said something about how this was way more stuff than he was told (however, it was not, since we spoke with the manager a few days prior) and got on the phone with his boss. Dereck eventually talked to the boss since this man couldn't seem to relay the information from one person to another. The boss explained how the main trucks that hold the crates our stuff will be shipped overseas in wont fit into the storage unit driveway and they'll have to pack up a smaller truck then crate everything at their warehouse. Ugh...more annoyance! I refused to trust them at this point and Dereck said that we want to come to the warehouse to watch the crating of our goods. Luckily the manager didn't have any problem with this, so one problem solved.

So now Phillip could get to work. However, he started packing a few things from over here, a few things from over there, and whatever else he could get his hands on into one box. I politely asked him if he could keep things together in boxes as much as possible to make unpacking easier for us. He seemed annoyed and said how he's "been doing this for over 20 years"... but started packing only things from one area. After he had some boxes taped up I noticed he wasn't doing any inventory other than writing "office" or "bathroom" on the box. Since the last company that came did a running inventory with each box (including numbered stickers that went on each box as well) I asked him when we was going to do that. He then got very angry and said "i'm gunna do an inventory, just later!", stormed out of the storage unit, and got onto his cell phone. We assumed he went to call his boss again and tried to listen to the conversation from inside the unit, but couldn't hear what was going on. By this time I'm officially upset and annoyed at this whole process! Why couldn't we have had the competent movers from before?

Phillip eventually comes back into the unit, in a mood I can only describe as being "tweeked", and said nervously that I had to tell him what stuff I wanted together because he can't read my mind and he's a good packer, cuz you know, he's been doing this for over 20 years. Apparently the "tour" I gave him and my polite request to pack "only this stuff here (pointing)" wasn't enough. So now I had to babysit the entire process. Dereck took a notebook and starting doing our own inventory, still not trusting his plan for doing it 'later on' while I pointed to specific things. After a while we got into a routine and Phillip seemed to relax and realize that we are nice people who aren't going to yell at him. We even were amused by his unique spelling used to label our boxes like, Camping Geer and Curting Rods. I went to go pick up some sandwiches for lunch (again, lets bribe him with some food!) and we took a short break then went back to work.

Did I mention it was only about 45 degrees outside too? Yah, so I was about freezing by noon... anyways...

We were quite impressed with how much packing Phil got done on his own, and after the rocky start we had with him. His crew members were over an hour late from when they initially said they would be there, but once they arrived things really picked up. One man took over doing an inventory, putting on the numbered stickers, and writing them down on the sheet. Dereck stuck by him and helped him since he wrote down more info than Phil had on the boxes. I continued to supervise the other packers and soon they had everything loaded on the truck and were leaving. We were home around 4:30 pm, so we had a good 8 hours in the 45 degree weather at the storage unit, but the unit was empty and our stuff seemed to be packed up safely.

Dereck went to the warehouse Thursday morning to finish the process. He observed the crates being loaded and sealed and got all the required paperwork we needed. Overall we are confident our goods will make it to Japan safely, but if you would have asked me at 10am on Wednesday, I was about ready to send him home and force the travel management office to assign us another company.

Here are a few photos of the unit getting packed up: