2002-10-25 - 11:00 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "The Power of Love", Huey Lewis and the News

Some people like to write as a sort of catharsis when they're unhappy or upset. But me, I seem to get madder or more upset when I write about things. Especially things I can't change. I think Renee feels similarly, if I remember correctly.

So, I wasn't going to write about this at all, for fear I'd get worked up again, but maybe I'll give it a try.

We hired movers to help us bring the stuff up from storage in Virginia. We called a local (215) number, but somehow we ended up with movers from Brooklyn. I don't really understand how that happened. Poindexter said that the guy on the phone said we'd get a crew from Philadelphia. I thought it was especially ridiculous because they'd had to get up around 2:30am to get down to Alexandria in time, whereas a local crew could've left around 6.

Anyway, they were basically good. They treated our stuff with care and didn't fart around. So I wanted to tip them, but wasn't sure how much. The total bill was $1100 or so, and included 4 hours of actual work and 6 hours of driving time, plus some $200 of incidental costs (about $170 more than we'd expected based on our phone call and the estimate) for special wrapping of a mirror, curio, china cabinet, and TV. And they moved my piano.

I thought that a 15% tip off that was an awful lot, so finally I decided to tip $30 apiece, and Poindexter agreed. This is a 25% tip on the time they actually spent working. I didn't really see why I should base much of the tip on the driving time.

The work on the Alexandria end was really easy. The storage space was near an elevator, and we had four carts, so there was very little lifting/carrying involved. On the Philadelphia end, they had to take a few number of boxes up two flights of stairs, plus a bed, dresser, and bookcase, but most of the heavy stuff only went up a half-flight or one flight.

However, the crew leader whined a lot about the stairs, they asked to follow us rather than find their own way to Philadelphia, and they turned our (BRAND NEW EXPENSIVE) carpet gray at the top of the stairs and a little in the hall because one person was wearing extremely dirty shoes.

Ok, so there's the situation. Thirty bucks per guy seemed reasonable to both of us.

What I found out later -- after they'd left -- was that it wasn't acceptable to the crew leader. The crew leader said to Poindexter, point-blank, earlier on: "Do you have something for my guys?" He said we did. (I was not there at the time, and I had the money.) Later, after everything was signed, I gave him the money. And later he came back to Poindexter and said, "I don't mean to be rude, but a tip of $50-75 per person is pretty standard."

He and Poindexter had a go-round about that. I came in in the middle of it. It was pretty civilized, considering you could tell both guys were pissed off, but it upset the hell out of me. I had liked the crew leader -- he was a fun, chatty guy -- but I was just appalled. At one point, the crew leader said that it was our responsibility to let them know we were worried about getting the carpet dirty. As though it was even possible there are people out there with eggnog-colored carpets who don't care if the movers turn them gray.

But of course, I still started freaking out that I had been unreasonable in my tipping, although I had never heard that tipping movers was MANDATORY.

So that ruined my whole evening. Quite literally. I was disappointing to Poindexter because I couldn't get excited about having our STUFF back, because I was upset about this whole business.

I managed to calm myself down somewhat because of two things: First, Poindexter said that on Howard Stern, he hears stories all the time about the insane tipping practices in New York. People tip a LOT more, and they tip people who wouldn't dream of getting tips in other places. Also, I looked up stuff on the web and found that most moving sites say that tipping is optional, but nice to do if you like their work. As for dollar amounts, for local moves (ours was a hybrid, really), you should tip $5 per man per hour, or $10-20 or $10-$25 in places like Columbia, MD, or Portland, Oregon. In New York, however, the same web site said people tip movers $50 per person. Whoa.

Then Poindexter went to work today and told an abbreviated version of the story to a longtime-area-resident coworker, who said (several times), "People tip movers?"

Sigh. Down in Virginia when we moved a few times, I had movers who were surprised that I tipped them. And then there was a time or two when they were so dreadful I didn't tip at all.

Oops. Poindexter's staring me down. I have to go to bed. 'Night, y'all.

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