Covid-19 & Moving Update: 4.27.20

A lot has changed over the past month and we’ve learned a lot about how it impacts moving. Going forward as the weather warms up we’re finding it harder to perform the moves, interact in person with customers and keep everyone safe. Masks and bandanas are a decent solution when it’s 10 degrees out, not so much when it’s 60 degrees out (lets not even talk about 100 degrees out yet). In order to have everyone wear face coverings we’d likely have to increase crew sizes and have workers take frequent breaks to change their coverings and catch their breath. Moving’s hard enough work as it is, breathing through fabric to do it has a significant impact.

Even with face coverings, let’s face it, the house and stairs still fill up with our breath and sweat when we’re going full blast. There’s a reason the gyms are closed, exercise is a pretty biological enterprise and so is moving. I think the right answer is to find ways to keep the movers and the customers separate and therefore safe. We’re currently working on solutions that allow us to set up a tablet and leave google-hangouts/meets running so that the crew has a safe portal to the customer who can supervise remotely from outside in their car or another nearby location. This will allow us to work at full speed, but also have the contact and communication that is both necessary and which we’re known for. The tablet can be brought around, pre-existing damages or challenges can be pointed out and we can still do our walk-throughs.

We really prefer to do things in-person, we’re people people. But these days that’s just not in the cards. We don’t like wearing masks, interacting with customers through a device or worrying about disease. We’re movers, we worry about furniture, customer experience, driving trucks and that’s usually enough. We don’t like these new ways of doing things, but they’re better than the alternative and we’re going to do our best.

We’re also working on paperless contracts and payments, but those aren’t ready for prime-time yet. Google-hangouts however is, so we’re going to try that and revise our work-flow to make it work.

Thank you,

-Ezekiel Wheeler