The Glitch

Remember how I said a while back that, whenever things go nice and smooth, the Universe stops, looks at the situation, goes "Nah!" and throws in a little something extra to make sure things don't go too smoothly and we don't get too complacent? Yeah, it's been another one of those days.

After getting a very smooth start on Sunday, setting aside and packing the things we'll be taking with us in the U-Haul trailer, taking all pictures off the walls, closing nail holes with Spackle, replacing the air filter for the AC unit, painting all of the freshly-dried Spackle with matching paint, and getting some of the cleaning - window frames, window sills, door frames, etc. - done, we were all set for the movers to shop up on Monday, between the hours of 8am and 5pm.

Everything was going smoothly, except for the fact that no movers were to be seen or heard anywhere. By the time 1 o'clock rolled around, and we hadn't heard from them and hadn't seen as much as a moving truck logo pass by the house, I was starting to get a little worried. We ended up contacting the quality control phone number on the big stack of paperwork we had from Household Goods on base.

You know, Household Goods. Where we went on April 14th to schedule our household goods pickup, get an idea on how long it would take to have our items delivered to New York, and get an advance to pay for the U-Haul trailer to haul the items going up with us. That Household Goods office.

Turns out that, after spending an hour and a half in there, going over everything in minute detail, having explained to us whom to call if the movers are rude or there are any issues, how to file a claim if anything is lost or broken, and all that other good stuff, the idiots at that office didn't actually enter any of our information and the work order into the computer system. As a result, logically, the movers were never scheduled, because nobody ever scheduled them.

We went back again to the same office on June 8th, as part of Trueman's outprocessing, and checked with them again at that point. We showed them the paperwork and asked whether there was anything we needed to do, or whether everything was right on track with our move. Everything was fine and we didn't need to do anything, we were assured. Just be at the house on June 22nd, between 8am and 5pm.

Today, when we called them, it was a whole different story, of course. "Why didn't you tell us they never contacted you?" they demanded to know. Well, because we were told they wouldn't contact us and that we didn't need to contact anyone. We were told it was "our fault" that the movers hadn't been scheduled. Really. How exactly do they work that one out? Are we supposed to enter the information into this computerized system ourselves? The system we have no access to? The system that three women in an office on base are trained to use to schedule shipments? The system that is their job?

The woman on the other line actually got offended and rude to Trueman on the phone when he explained that we had done exactly as we'd been told, that we'd gotten our advance for the U-Haul trailer with the paperwork given by them, and that we needed to be out of this house by Wednesday morning because the power, phones, and other utilities were getting shut off and the landlord was going to have the carpets cleaned and a new tenant moving in.

He eventually said "excuse me, ma'am" enough times to interrupt her diatribe on how everything is our fault and got her to give him the phone number to their higher-up office, the one that actually schedules the moves after the information is entered into the magic computer system at the local household goods office on base. That office is somewhere in another state and run by the Air Force, and it's staffed by soldiers, not civilians.

There, Trueman explained the situation to one of the Sergeants working at the office, who spent the rest of the day on the phone to the various carriers that handle pickup and shipping of household goods, and got back to us a fair amount of time after his office up there actually closed, having stayed late to resolve the issue. He had just heard back, at the time, from a local moving company, who informed them that their crew was currently out on another job, but that they would come get our things tonight if they got done early, or, if that turned out to be impossible, tomorrow (with absolute certainty) and would have us packed and ready to leave no later than 1900 hours tomorrow.

So, the house is still a mess because there's piles and boxes and bags everywhere. But at least now we have movers scheduled to come, tomorrow, to get our things, so we will be able to load up our U-Haul trailer and head north ourselves. It will delay us some in getting all the cleaning done - at least we have a head start on that - and it's certainly highly aggravating, but that's where things stand now. As you can imagine, I am hoping for things to go well tomorrow, although it's a lot harder to be optimistic after today's fiasco than it was yesterday ...