'[The] customer thought we were moving her stuff too slow': Movers refund entitled customer to avoid her negative reviews

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  • 01
    Automotive parking light - 'As the date of her move approached... so did a huge snow storm.' HUMBER CL
  • 02
    Font - Customer thought we were moving her stuff too slow and wearing her tone, so we hurried up. XL OC Edit: Title should read."Wasting her time" not "wearing her tone". Sorry. Super tired from work when I wrote this and I missed the autocorrect.
  • 03
    Font - So I work as a mover for a very small moving company. My boss, let's call him Mike, is a really nice guy. It's really just a two-man operation, with me working as a subcontractor under him with a few regular guys we call in for bigger moves. It's really physically demanding work sometimes, but typically our customers are super nice and the pay is pretty good. Most people are just happy to have someone else to lift their heavy stuff and get it into a truck. And we're always super careful t
  • 04
    Font - So Darcy booked a move with Mike, and told him she had a small storage unit she wanted us to load up into a 20 foot truck. We said "no problem!". As the date of her move approached, though, so did a huge snow storm. Days before her move the news started reporting that the weather was expected to take a severe turn for the worst. Not uncommon for the time of year in our state, but also something not to be trifled with.
  • 05
    Font - We called Darcy a couple days before the move to see about rescheduling to avoid the storm and she said she absolutely HAD to move that day, no other days would work. A lot of (probably much smarter) movers would have cancelled, but after talking, Mike and I thought it was no big deal. We move in the snow all the time. Just meant we would have to dress appropriately and be extra careful not to injure ourselves or damage any property. Cut to the day of the move. We get to Darcy's storage u
  • 06
    Font - As we pulled up the snow was already coming down pretty heavily, and the first thing that made us nervous was the truck. Instead of a 20 foot truck, there was a HUGE 26 foot truck. Darcy greeted us by the truck and showed us the storage unit. Darcy: Okay! So, this is our unit. We shut down our businesses and I'm moving it out of town to pursue other opportunities, and I need all of this loaded up in 2 hours. The last movers I had got it unloaded in about that long. Mike said something abo
  • 07
    Font - Darcy: Yeah, it's the biggest one Uhaul had. Last time we used a another company and it was much bigger. I'm worried about getting it all, but you guys will have to figure it out. I need all of it. This was a HUGE storage unit. Like the kind you'd store a few cars or some farm equipment in. When we opened it up it was filled with what appeared to be the contents of a couple of pretty decently sized businesses. A dozen of those huge floor-to ceiling filling cabinets, several desks, office
  • 08
    Font - Now, our company safety guidelines for weight limits are 100lbs per person lifting an item, but there's no real practical way to enforce that in the field, so we usually wind up using our best judgement, even if the item is over that limit. Nearly everything there was over limit, but we had our equipment and we were pretty confident we could handle everything, weight-wise. Mike and I are both pretty strong. But in my estimation, this was definitely going to take a bit longer than 2 hours.
  • 09
    Font - Darcy sat in her truck nearly the whole time we were working, so she could stay warm. Perfectly understandable since it was -2°F outside and the snow was coming down pretty hard. Though she'd occasionally roll down her window to offer up critiques. Mostly about how much time we were taking going up and down the metal ramp of the truck, which was now COVERED in ice and snow.
  • 10
    Font - About an hour and some change into the move, Darcy gets out of her truck and starts chatting with Mike about her previous movers, and how they did cause some damage to her stuff, but they were SO fast. It was weird. She went back and forth between complaining about them and praising them for their speed. And she kept referring to them as "the professional moving service I hired", which really bugged me, because the way she said it seemed to be implying that because we aren't a big nationa
  • 11
    Font - Now we're far enough into this move that we could tell this was going to run long. Mike decides it's a good idea to let her know that it's probably going to take a half hour or so longer than expected (which was still a feat, considering how much there was to move and how well-packed this truck was. I pride myself on playing a mean game of Truck Tetris). Darcy was NOT having this. She started to get upset and started saying how we were just trying to get more money out of her, and we were
  • 12
    Font - Mike explains to her that unloading always takes less time than loading, because you're moving it into a bigger space and you don't have to pack and pad the stuff to fit into a truck. I also mention that there's literally a blizzard coming down, and we're only going to go a little over. She gets quiet and seething. Mike can tell how angry she is and let's her know we won't charge her for any extra time since it's not her fault the weather is coy. He also brings up that they damaged her st
  • 13
    Font - She stomps back to her truck without saying a word. I'm usually pretty chill, but I was already getting increasingly mad at this woman. Her yelling at my boss and calling us lazy when we were risking our health and safety to move her stuff in a blizzard was just too much for me. Mike thinks about this a moment. I know customer reviews are super important to us as a small business. The booking site we use highlights the last handful of reviews, so a bad one takes FOREVER to stop showing up
  • 14
    Font - She wanted it all loaded in 2 hours? That's exactly what we'd do. The front half of her truck was loaded up neatly, with everything padded and stacked tightly floor-to ceiling to keep it from moving on the road. I pride myself on my ability to load a truck properly and safely without wasting any space. The second half of her truck was the worst, jankiest truck I've ever loaded in my life. We're talking huge heavy office furniture haphazardly stacked on top of each other at the weirdest an
  • 15
    Font - I just wanna be clear, we've never intentionally damaged a customer's property, and we never would. We pride ourselves on our professionalism, courtesy, and specifically our ability to get your stuff where it's going safely. But the particular combination of unsafe conditions and this lady's outright disregard for our safety and feelings was just too much. And technically we didn't damage anything. Nothing was broken when we closed the truck doors. But literally the first bump in the road
  • 16
    Font - Mike went to her truck. He told her that we were done and that he wasn't going to charge her at all for the move. She insisted that "She's not poor, and doesn't need charity" and Mike just said that it was clear that she wasn't happy, and that he didn't need her $150 (that's right, we charge $75/hr, so the extra half hour we needed to do it right would have cost her a whopping $37). He cancelled the job and refunded her what she'd already prepaid. As we drove away in Mike's car, I looked
  • 17
    Font - Mike: She was worried about paying an extra $37. I doubt she'll risk more money on hiring a lawyer. And besides, you can't leave a review on the site if the job gets cancelled. We just gave her exactly what she wanted. And besides, it's worth losing out on the money I would have made just to see her face when I said I didn't need her $150. When he dropped me off he still paid me for my time because " that lady". My boss, Mike, is a really nice guy.

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