Off Track

Scott Hardie | December 13, 2016
I've been kicking around an idea in my mind. I'm just curious what you think. This is a long boring story that I won't mind anyone skipping, but detail may matter to the outcome.

Two movers showed up on Friday morning as scheduled. They were two young hotshot guys in their early 20s who talked about going to clubs and getting laid (including plans that night), and had a lot of rambunctious energy for running back and forth and jumping around. They complained a little about the picky, snobby, rich clientele that they tend to get around here, but this is Sarasota after all. They also complained about some customer who called and got them into trouble for something they didn't do, but I only caught the tail end of that topic and missed details.

They worked hard and quickly finished moving our house contents by midday, and we bought them Subway for lunch. But they needed a second trip for the garage, and that part seemed to stretch on forever. In the late afternoon, they kept trying to wrap it up early by making excuses to skip certain items, and I had to keep pressing them to take heavy things that I didn't want to be stuck carrying by myself later. I got to talking to the assistant mover about a lamp we were going to throw away, and he asked me if he could keep it; I said yes and offered him the microwave too, without offering the lead mover anything since he wasn't in the room at the time. Rush-hour traffic made for a very long drive across town, and by the time they finished unloading, it was after 8pm and had long since become dark outside. We settled the bill, and I gave each of them the same very generous cash tip for their hard work, twice what the Internet told me would be considered a good tip. They were friendly and polite.

On the way out of the garage to leave, the head mover said that he had accidentally bumped the open garage door with a large item on the way in and "knocked it into manual mode" and needed to adjust it. He started repeatedly pushing the door along its track as if trying to get it to snap into place, then pushed it really hard like he was slamming it, all of which was noisy. I was tired at this point and told him not to worry and that I'd take care of it, and he thanked me and took off in the truck. When I tried to close the garage door, I found it broken: The top of the door has a metal hook that attaches to the metal claw that moves back and forth along the track when you activate the opener, and it had become detached. When I pressed the button on the wall, the claw would move along the track, but the door would stay in place. I had to shut the door manually and lock it, which is how it has stayed since. (The opener definitely worked when we arrived; I used it myself.)

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt in general. I have had very cynical friends who were, say, afraid to ask for any customization of their order at a fast food restaurant because they believed the workers would spit in their food in retaliation for being inconvenienced. (As a former fast food worker myself, I can attest that they just want to make the food correctly and move on; they don't care.) That kind of cynic would say that a mover who felt stiffed in his tip, or wronged or inconvenienced in some other way, would find a way to break something on the way out and make it seem like a plausible accident. I read about this very notion online when researching what amount to tip, as the sort of punishment you'd get for not tipping.

What do you think: Am I just being paranoid about an honest mistake, or did the mover break my garage door on purpose? I haven't called the company to complain because I don't want to get a hard-working kid in trouble if I'm not sure, and I also want to believe that it was an honest mistake. But I keep wondering if it was deliberate, if I somehow irked him into it or if he's just a jerk who does this sort of thing to customers anyway. It changes nothing; the repairman is coming on Friday either way. I'm just curious. Thanks!

Justin Woods | December 13, 2016
I will be going through this in the next few weeks, moving again and using movers again. What I have learned from our move from STL to DAL is that you should contact the company regardless if this was intent or not. They are usually insured and understand accidents will happen.

Now as you stated, this was working before the movers and one mover was trying to fix it before leaving which may have caused the garage door to become damaged during that time.

This should have no impact on the performance of the kid, but should still be fixed by the moving company.

Scott Hardie | December 13, 2016
Good point. A friend pointed out that it doesn't really matter whether it was deliberate or accidental: He should not have been touching my garage door either way. Proper procedure should have been to tell me about it and let me take it up with the company.

Good luck with your own move! It sounds like you got the house. Congrats!

Samir Mehta | December 13, 2016
[hidden by request]

Jeff Coopes | December 18, 2016
I'm inclined to assume it was an accident. Movers hits cars and buildings with their big trucks all the time. And furniture gets scratched and things get broken. it's part of the business. But it doesn't matter if it's an accident or on purpose. If one person is breaking things more than is normal then they should know about it.
Also, you mentioned as a restaurant worker that nobody cares about being inconvenienced and wouldn't waste their time spitting in their food. I agree with that mostly. But those people do exist. Most nurses wouldn't steal pain meds but some do. Most cleaning people wouldn't steal but some do. And they always get caught. Coworkers say something. Enough patients turn up missing meds and it leads back to them. Enough clients question missing items and the manager will figure it out.

Scott Hardie | December 18, 2016
All good points. It's up to us who notice to say something.

The repairman had an easy time fixing the garage door. Seeing how simple the repair was, I think I was just paranoid and the mover made a genuine mistake. I'm just glad it's fixed, and that a bunch of other problems around the house (non-flushing toilets, leaky sinks, ripped screens, broken door hinges) are getting fixed too.

I agree that there are bad actors in any service business. I worked with some exciteable teens at a Taco Bell, and one of them had a sense of humor with shades of cruelty in it; she would, say, joke about putting no sour cream in someone's burrito after they had paid extra to triple the amount. Luckily I never saw her actually do anything, and certain I never saw anything on a level like the Domino's prank video. I tend to trust that incidents like that are aberrations, whereas my cynical friend believed that they were the norm.