The movers' cut

[thistle_chaser]

My mother told me that when you use movers, they always "lose" (steal) one box. I hadn't believed her at the time, but now I'm thinking that's actually right

Comments

[voidmagus]

Have to invoke Hanlon's Razor -- don't ascribe malice to what can be adequately explained by good old fashioned human error. I've moved a lot, used movers and not, and there's always a box that goes missing. Doesn't get packed right, gets left behind, falls off a truck, gets set outside during unloading and a passer-by nabs it. Movers get paid pretty well for what is a low-education, low-skill job, and most of those guys are aware of it. If a guy is a thief, he'll get ratted out pretty damn quick by his coworkers, the stuff returned to the owner, and the guy fired if not charges pressed. When your corporation is based around getting as much of someone's stuff from point A to point B intact, and their reputation on being able to do so well is most of what drives new business, they tend to not screw around.

The one bad experience we had with movers was a team that didn't feel like treating the furniture with the respect it needed or the hustle required -- they moved less than a 1/3rd of the job in a full day, and broke a 150 year old cabinet. Called corporate, and the regional manager and 3 of his premium tier teams came out the next day, fired the first crew on the spot, and handled the rest of the job gratis in 4 hours, and reimbursed us in full for a pro antique-restorer to fix the cabinet.

[thistle_chaser]

Yeah, that's a good point, you're probably right. It did make me nervous that at times there would be no one with my stuff (boxes in the back of the truck, both the men moving things from apartment to truck). Some random person could have helped themselves.

I'm glad that company made good on their team's fail!