So, the move is almost done, but like every move I’ve ever made, the end-stage drags on and on. I have to go to the dump—at least once, prob twice. I wish the construction dumpster here wasn’t full, I’d give it a bunch of old boxes (especially now they’ve been rained on). Ack! Prob two dump runs will be needed… 🙁
A Date Which Will Live in INFAMY
At the old place, it is mainly just clean-up, very little left there. Alas though, the back porch DOES have a lot of crap there and I think much of it is destined for the dump. We’ll see. We have too much shit! Way too much! Last Sunday, December 7th, two thousand and eight, a date which will live in INFAMY, we moved most of the basement. Of COURSE, it had to be the coldest day it’s been so far, like in the teens w/ a strong wind blowing. 🙁 The next day was not much better. Luckily, we had some help from great friends!! Tuesday, I was able to hire a couple of movers to help get most of rest. Soooo much stuff >:-( One note on moving: U-Haul… $39.95 a day… yeah, isn’t it interesting how that morphs into $282. for 3 days on a local move?! How I used about 120 miles and it became 152 and last, how they tell you to make sure the gas gauge is where it was when you got it—fine, but it was broken and I ended up putting $40. in the tank… and I’ll say this I AM A PROFESSIONAL DRIVER and I had trouble keeping that truck on the road—how can some normal schmoe do it? It drove like a drunken porpoise and when I used the cargo light, it killed the battery; when we ended up jumping it, we found the truck had a CAR battery in it… no wonder. Rant, rant, rant. Nice people, nice boxes and supplies, but sometimes ya just wanna scream.
Unpacking
Wendy has been unpacking and putting stuff away. Without her, I’d be lost. Of course, right now, we have the garage stacked floor to ceiling and my office is mostly stacks of boxes. It’s just so stressful moving and why is it every time I turn around, something else is costing me $200.??? Get’s old, ya know!! I DO like the new place though. Like the neighborhood, I like it being close to town. I like ELECTRIC heat vs. oil >:-( I just need for one of my days off to be that… not something where I have to work all day humping boxes, etc.
X-Mas Rush
Well, one good thing this year… I have a run, I don’t have to go to a P.O. in fact, I don’t have to deal w/ them in ANY way, what-so-ever this year 🙂 Warms the heart it does! Not that I hate the P.O., I just hate chaos and the P.O. during X-mas Rush is a lot of chaos. Common sense and organization make jobs easier… when companies just don’t plan, it makes it waaaaay harder and waaaaay more expensive… why do they do that? They know it’s coming, why not plan ahead of time?? I will say this, one of the Postal Contractors I used to work for would hire all the X-Mas temps in November… when the Rush started (they called it “Peak Season”) things were already smoothly (if you can call anything dealing with X-Mas in the P.O. “smooth”) rolling along. I think a lot of it had to do with the manager there at the time, Steve Pratt… He’s a good guy and made things easier by planning and common sense. Of course, no planning can account for the P.O. doing things like neglecting to have a place for drivers to wait (trucks around the block), not enough help or deciding there will be “no overtime” (something I am told they’ve said this year–their dock workers have been telling my fellow drivers this as to why things are late…).
Can It Be Done?
And of course, often, things will be scheduled so as to be impossible to run. It’s all well and nice to say “We’ll run legally” until you get a run that can’t be. And the P.O. doesn’t really care—they just want it done. “Oh, and we don’t care if your driver doesn’t have any hours left because we’ve held him at our facility for an extra hour or two… make it so!” Little Timmy needs his present from Grandma, the cards must go out, gifts must arrive (not to mention the normal mass of junk mail, welfare checks and credit card bills that the Postal sytem is snowed under with). And even then, Postal volume seems down. My PERSONAL opinion is that now-a-days many people order online and those places tend to use UPS or FedEx (we won’t even go into the P.O.’s unholy alliance w/ FedEx right now).
Ende
So, a blog that started about moving has ended w/ me blathering about the P.O. A final note on this though: for all the irritations, all the problems, I still think the USPS does a damn fine job—they’re better than any other nation’s postal system and they’re cheaper. And really, most Postal contractors do a great job, an awesome job of making it work. I just think sometimes it could be better. And, as always, this is my blog, my PERSONAL blog. It’s MY opinion, it’s not an agenda. The only agenda’s I have are to pay my boat slip payment, make my websites better and get my life stabilized—oh and to keep my wife and animals happy. 🙂
RiB