Pet Peeves aka Yes, I am Venting!!

I will have to set the stage for this one. Be patient with me so you can feel the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat experienced by myself, my daughter and her husband yesterday!!

I spent the day yesterday helping my oldest child and my son-in-law move into their new place. They are starting a new phase in their respective careers and being a Mom, I felt it was my duty to lend a helping hand, however slight, to their new adventure. I took a vacation day - all 8 hours worth - left the island early and caught up with them at the old place in League City, Texas. [for those not from the area, it's a burb about 25 miles south of Houston on I-45]

When I arrived, late, around 9am, the son-in-law was on the phone with the 'scheduled' moving company. The moving company's excuse for not being there or on the way there is "they had a 7am move and that crew isn't finished". The plan was they would call the kids or show up by noon. HA! The 3 of us made an executive decision to load our respective vehicles with the little stuff, stuff in open containers, pictures, etc and head to the new place. The new place is in the Bellaire area of Houston [again, for those not knowledgeable, Bellaire is a city within the big city and known for it's fabulous homes and great high school] We make it to the new house about 11:30am and proceed to unload boxes, bags, pictures, etc. All this time, son-in-law is talking to the original moving company and trying to arrange a backup solution. Attention Fly By Night Moving Companies: We are on to you; we know you only want the money and you hire minimum wage jerks who are also scam artists trying to screw the unsuspecting customer out of more cash!! We will not use you again and will tell everyone we know and that's a LOT of people!!!! And quit over booking your trucks and people, dumbass dispatchers!!!

We decide at this point to divide and conquer; Mom [that's me!] stays at the new place to unpack - unload - put away the few things we've brought in our vehicles and the kids [daughter and son-in-law] leave to meet the movers [or so we hope] in League City. I work on putting things away and arranging the kitchen and then I sit...........and wait...........and read my Nook............and play on my Blackberry.........and 2:30pm rolls around. No movers......no truck........craptastic!

The kids in the meantime are calling all over the Houston area looking for movers, a truck, helpers, etc. At this point it's evident that the original movers nor the backup movers are going to show up. No one is returning phone calls to the kids and they are beginning to PANIC! Son-in-law starts his new Fellowship on July 1st and this move has to take place on June 30th!! About this point in the day, I'm so bored, I go out into the backyard and start pulling weeds on the patio. Son-in-law now has several moving companies [and I use the term company loosely] lined up and the first one to show up with strong backs and a decent size truck wins the prize!

I am now running low on Nook power and only a third of the way through my latest book. My Blackberry is down to about a quarter of battery power and there is no cable tv scheduled to be installed until between 5pm and 7pm I do, however have 2 tv's in the house so if the cable guy(s) show up, I'll at least have tv. No one has shown up or called at the League City apartment and the kids have now taken apart the bed and staged all of the boxes to be moved. And they wait, and wait, and wait.

Fast forward to 5:20pm more or less. I talk to my daughter - they are still in the same holding pattern and the cable company is now on the clock. At 6:30pm I go out to my car, start it up and plug in the Blackberry so the battery can charge. I call the cable company and get a dispatcher on the phone. She was very polite and professional and tells me "it's not yet 7pm and the guy is on his way to your location." At 7:30pm, no cable guy BUT there is now a truck headed to the old apartment!! WOOHOO!!!!

Approximately 8pm, the movers are finally at the apartment - moving company number 1,268 on the call down list. The FB message from the son-in-law reads "We have adopted two special needs children. Named them "the movers". Now, I have nothing against hard worker guys that use their backs to perform manual labor BUT, what the hell happened to taking pride in your work?!?!? These guys bitched and bellyached and fussed about working so late and if I heard from the one guy another time about how he only gets to see his girlfriend 2 nights a week, I was going to SMACK the guy!!!

The movers finally make it to the new place around 11pm. HALLELUJAH! They get there right after the cable installers leave.

Oh yeah, the cable company calls about 8:30pm to say that they are about 45 minutes out and did I still want them to come out.....well, Yeah, I still want them to come do the job they were asked to do! WTH did you think I was going to say?!?!? I nicknamed the cable installer team Dingleling and Dingleberry.......first it was "it's too dark to make the connection on the pole outside"......You have got to be kidding me! There are two of you and you each have a ladder and you each have a good strong flashlight and climb that damned ladder and make the connection! So, they get the connection to the house working. Then they say....."where is the computer?" Ummmmmm......it's being loaded on a truck in League City as we speak, should be here in about an hour more or less. The two Dingles start to PACK UP THEIR STUFF!!! WTH! Oh, they cannot split the work order and only do a portion of it and they cannot do the internet connection without a computer. Plan B - call the youngest daughter, who is on her way over; in my best Mom voice I tell her, go get your laptop and bring it with you. The Dingles then give me the Reader's Digest version of a day in the life of a cable installer; up at 5am, to work at 7am and still on the clock at 9pm. [mentally I am playing my small violin in sympathy] Ok, and? You want my sympathy? You are not getting any sympathy from me - you need to work more efficiently, gripe about it less and just do your job, dammit!!

Laptop shows up, Internet and Cable T.V. are now functional. Cable guys leave. And now the moving truck shows up. All you folks reading this that are military understand the acronym for SNAFU and the phrase that starts with Cluster? Multiply that by about 1,000!!!!

The tall mover dude, Tweedledee, says to my son-in-law, after stopping traffic on the busy street in front of the house to maneuver the truck into the driveway, they won't unload the truck until they get paid and now the rules have changed, they have to get paid in CASH. NOT the agreement that was made with their company. They finally get it, that no one is paying in cash so, they get the card info and the truck is opened and they begin to unload. Tweedledee and Tweedledum start bringing things into the house; both of them constantly grousing about how late it is and they don't want to be there.....youngest daughter tells Tweedledum to be happy he's got a job and a paycheck - she works in HR for a large company and knows how tough the job market is out there. Tweedledee keeps tripping over the step down just inside the front door - the entire time he is there moving things into the house, I don't think he ever hit it just right. Oh, and they dropped the king size mattress on the ground, in the dirt and do nothing to clean it up, apologize.....nothing. Good riddance to bad news!!

By MIDNIGHT all of their stuff is in the house - HOORAY!!!! Bed is set up and has linens; boxes lined up in the extra room off the kitchen and the kids are pretty much settled into the new abode.

The things I took away from the day are this:

• Mover types, the small local ones anyway, tend to be fly-by-night operations with no vision for repeat business. I've used both local and nationally known companies in my many moves and have come to the conclusion it's worth the money to spend on the bonded larger movers. My opinion and my experience color this one. [Click here for my take on my most recent move]
• Cable installers come in two flavors: there are the complainers like I encountered last night that bitched and griped the whole time they were there, making sure I knew they were on their way home and got called back to do this install OR the type like I got when I moved last month - one dude, efficient, professional, offering advice on where to place the modem, etc. Cable tv and internet are necessary evils - again my opinion, the cable companies know this and are indifferent to how good or bad the customer service delivered to the customer is and they don't care as long as they get paid

So, the move from hell is over for now. The wifi at the new place was balky but we got it working this morning - me on the phone and my daughter plugging and unplugging stuff until it kicked in. We discovered that the new place has fleas in the backyard so she's hunting for flea spray this morning. Would I do it again? Hell yes, it's a Mom thing. You do what you have to for your kids. Did I want to kick some ass yesterday? DOUBLE hell yes!! Mess with me BUT do not mess with my kids, biological or married to my kids. I will be writing an impromptu review of the two cable guys; that was really uncalled for. And as for the movers, well let's just say, I won't be recommending them to move the fleas from the backyard.

In closing a general observation about customer service in general. If you don't have the personality or the patience or the demeanor to perform customer service work, I am sure there is something else out there. And if there isn't anything else out there, then be professional and give it 100% effort; you will be rewarded in the long run. I work in a customer service capacity; I know I have bad days and I have good days but I try to remember that my customer is why I get a paycheck and the customer is the primary reason I am working in a place I truly like working in and hope to continue working there. I know how easy it would be to let my personal life - family, health, money - interfere. All of those things could color how I deal with customers on a daily basis and I know that in order to give professional service, I have to leave those distractions at the door and I am a better employee and a better service provider for making the effort.