5 Things I'm Thankful for in Philadelphia

Because the theme of the last six months has been "Nothing Goes Right in Philadelphia" I thought I'd instead focus on the things I am thankful for here.  Maybe it'll turn everything around!  :)

1-T3!  It has been such a blessing and help to have them nearby.  To have them feed me, and listen to me complain, and to have that family connection that I miss, and to bail me out when I suddenly need a ride to northeast Philly because my car broke down, and to invite me on fun adventures!  Also, those kids are freaking adorable. 

2-My job.  I complain about it a lot, and in truth I don't really like working there, but without it I wouldn't have had the opportunity to follow my dream to live on the east coast.  And regardless of the my feelings for  this specific job, I do like the company I work for and (hopefully) they will continue to provide opportunities for me to progress in my career.

3-Location, location, location.  Being on the east coast gives me easy access to almost every place on The List.  In the 3-ish years I've committed to living here I hope to visit dozens of places, hopefully including at least 1 trip to Europe.  In fact, I've already seen several in the 6 months I've been here.

4-The climate.  I expected summer to be humid and miserable, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  In return for the occasional mugginess I get trees everywhere, the additional oxygen that comes from living at sea level, and ooh, did I mention all the trees?  I may be regretting this come our first big "shut everything down" snowstorm, but right now, It's high 50s in Philly, while SLC had a blizzard warning. 

5-After 6 months, I'm finally feeling settled.  Like this might be home.  My car is registered, my driver's license now says PA, and I'm enrolled back in school to finally finish my degree.  I feel like I'm out of the rut that trapped me in Utah, and now, all I see are opportunities. 

Obviously, I'm thankful for a lot of other things more general to life and some specific to Utah, but it seemed appropriate to focus on the biggest changes I've ever made in my life, and to say, "Hey, I finally feel pretty good about this...finally."

Thomas Jefferson

I was at Monticello recently, and I had two really fantastic guides. The house tour guide made a point at the very end of the tour that made me really think, and yes, get a little teary. She was telling us where the family cemetery was and talking about the epitaph, which he wrote himself, on his tomb. It reads:

HERE WAS BURIED

THOMAS JEFFERSON

AUTHOR OF THE

DECLARATION

OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

OF THE

STATUTE OF VIRGINIA

FOR

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

AND FATHER OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

BORN APRIL 2, 1743 O.S.

DIED JULY 4. 1826

Of all the things this man accomplished, including being the third president of the United States, Governor of Virginia, Secretary of State, and Vice President he chose these thee things to be remembered for.  The accomplishments he was most proud of all were based on Freedom:

Freedom of the people to govern themselves,

Freedom of religion, and

Freedom of the mind through public education.

Later, at the visitor's center I was watching the movie about the Declaration of Independence, and at the end there was a montage of the world governments that have been built on the prinicples that Jefferson espoused in that document.  That all men are created equal, that we are endowed with certain unalienable rights, and during that moment I sat with tears streaming down my face, thinking how lucky we are to be Americans, and how often we take it for granted.

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."  --Thomas Jefferson

September 2010

September was a pretty low-key month around here...thank goodness. After all the drama of moving and car troubles and a new job and the 1,000 other things that have gone on over the last 5 months I needed a little break.

I did manage to cross another place of my list, Winterthur, make another trip out to Lancaster to visit Amish Country, and enroll back in college to finish my B.A.

Unfortunately, things are notlooking any brighter at work, and at this point I'm merely counting off the time to fulfill the time in job requirement to post out, but at least it's not worse. Although a friend recently coined a new theme of my life, "Nothing goes right in Philadelphia".

But here is hoping that I can get through the next while without any major catastrophes.

October will hopefully bring another 2-3 things off the list and starting school.

1000 Places Update

New posts will be up shortly at 1000 Places to See. Complete with pictures.

July 2010

Friday, back in Salt Lake, another dinner at Chihuahua, this time with a bunch of the family, a rental car switch, and checked in to my hotel for the remainder of my stay.

Saturday was Porkfest 2010. It was a little scaled back this year. Brendan and Mike were getting home from Scout Camp later in the day, Macklyn had practice for Stadium of Fire, and T2 had family pictures so things broke down early in the day, but there was still frosted crack (Thanks for getting up early to make it, LaNae!), and a BBQ. LaNae and I then headed over to Provo for Stadium of Fire (Fire!) to watch Mack perform and enjoy Carrie Underwood. I’m a huge fan, so I was definitely more excited by that than LaNae was. Mack did great! Even with a slight firework malfunction.

Sunday I just hung out at my folks house and again most of the family showed up to say goodbye. There were more tears, but they’ve all promised to visit and participate in an upcoming family reunion (with river rafting) so it’s all good. Early Monday, I got up, returned the rental and winged back across the country…”home”.

Crock Pot

You know that crock pot that has been moving around with me, still in its original, unopened packaging for approximately 8 years and 4 homes? I busted it out of the box and made taco seasoned chicken this week. I am now a crock pot convert. Thanks for the recipe/suggestion Nate!

New Planet Moving and Storage SUCKS!

Remember how way back in June the mover’s pushed and pushed to move up my load date so they wouldn’t have to pay to have an empty truck sit for 2 days in Salt Lake City? And how when I finally agreed to that they showed up 4 hours late causing me to miss another commitment?

I foolishly though that was the one glitch for this move, and whew! wasn’t it nice to get it out of the way early on? If I’d had any idea what was to come I would never have put my stuff on their truck.

Second of all (first of all, being the pressure and then the lateness) they arrived with a big-ass semi truck, which did fit in the parking lot, but they parked it as far away from my door as they possibly could and then told me that I would need to pay CASH for the “long carry”. I knew this was a possibility (they only include carrying 75 feet from door to truck), but seriously you couldn’t maneuver 15 feet closer? So I had to run to the bank and get $80 for that.

After they got the truck loaded and ready to go, the driver told me they were required by law to give me a booklet outlining my rights and responsibilities. He told me, “This law says we give, you no take though, right?” Hmmm, yeah. I will take, Einstein. Not that it did me any good, New Planet Moving and Storage managed to violate nearly every right assigned to me, and it’s is clear that they’ve never read the pertinent sections of code.

When I had originally spoken to their sales person, Trish Cardenas, she was very nice, and sweet and helpful. Little did I know that she has no idea how her company actually functions and would not be available to address any concerns about the initial contract after she had my credit card and signature. Thanks, Trish, I’d say you’re a peach, but really you’re just some kind of rotten fruit.

I was incredibly worried that my stuff would come and by $2000 more than the estimate. I asked Trish repeatedly to estimate high so I wouldn’t be blind sided at delivery. She repeatedly reassured me that with a move as small as mine there was no way it would exceed the 3500 pounds she was estimating. LIE! (Maybe)

Anyway, I told her that my new apartment had insane rules for moving in and out and would New Planet be able to accommodate. She said yes, of course, she was trying to make the sale at any cost. I also told her that I would need an elevator appointment (Trigger the ELEVATOR FEE!) and that I was certain in would more than 75 feet from truck to door (Trigger LONG CARRY FEE!). She said she would give me the 3rd floor pickup (New Planet only covers the first flight of stairs in their quotes, and they consider 5 stairs a flight) for free, charge me $50 for the elevator at delivery and $50 for the long carry at DELIVERY. Fine. Given the situation with the apartment rules, I asked if there was any way to work with her to get a delivery day in advance. Absolutely, she said. LIE! Not a problem. LIE! Just put down the “first available date” as July 8th or 9th and we’ll get it to you on one of those days. LIE!

So, the mover’s came, charged me more, tried to get out of giving me legally required documentation and were finally on their way. I got back to PA after finishing my vacation in Utah on July 5th, and by July 7th still hadn’t heard anything from New Planet about delivering my stuff on the 8th or 9th. I called. “Oh, Trish can’t help you any more you’ll need to speak with Jessica in Dispatch.”

Jessica at New Planet. Here is the deal with Jessica. She is very nice and speaks perfect English. However, she is pretty unresponsive to messages and emails and does not possess the logical reasoning skills to figure out that PA is FREAKING 3 hours ahead of Las Vegas. She needs a remedial school, I think. But, she was pleasant to deal with on the rare occasion I could actually get her on the phone. And after sending her 2 weeks of available dates my stuff wasn’t even scheduled to be delivered yet. This brought us to July 21st.

On July 22nd, I was near a breakdown. So stressed out by the lack of commitment or customer service from New Planet and living like a hobo I finally got Jessica to go to her boss and get a frakking deliver date. I had sent her the available dates for the week of July 26th and asked that if there was any way to avoid delivery on Monday, July 26th it would be great. The elevator was already tentatively reserved by someone else, so please, any other day that week.

That evening I got a message from Jessica saying my shipment had been weighed and my shipment was 120 pounds over and that the final changes were going to be more than anticipated. I immediately called back, asked to speak to a manager and told them that considering their F-UP at pickup with the lateness, and the me saving them money it was time to repay the favor. They agreed to a small discount and my final amount would be $1000. About $60 more than the estimate. Fine. Whatever.

Jessica then told me that the delivery was scheduled for Monday, July 26th. “Wait, isn’t that the date I asked you to avoid?”

“Oh yeah, I guess it is.”

“But my stuff will definitely be here?”

“Yes.”

“What if I can’t get the elevator?”

And here is where Jessica started the path toward rotten fruit. “Listen, your stuff will definitely be there Monday, July 26th at 8:30 a.m. If you can’t take delivery at that time then we will have to charge you a redelivery fee for sometime later that week. That’s all. That’s the deal. The driver will call you on Sunday to verify everything.”

…

“Fine, I’ll work it out.”

I went on a little weekend vacation, and when I came back Sunday night there had still been no call from the driver. I started to get a worried feeling. Monday morning I was up and at the bank to get a cashier’s check. I was speaking with the teller about options should the mover not show because now it was 9:15 a.m. and I still hadn’t heard from them. The teller assured me that I could cash in the check and have it reissued if needed. As it turned out. The bank were the only people with half decent customer service skills in the picture!

At 10:30 the mover’s still had not shown up, nor called to tell me there were delayed. I called Jessica. Since I can adjust for various time zones my message said something like, “I know you’re not in the office yet, since it’s only 7:30 there, but, um, it’s 10:30 here and they haven’t shown up. If they’re going to be done by the 12:30 promise time they need to be here now. So, call me as soon as you get this!”

At 1:00 Jessica finally called me back, acting infuriated that they hadn’t shown. I assured her that I would be expecting some sort of reimbursement considering I had taken a day off work to wait around and have them not show. With her on the phone I double checked available days for redelivery (sans fee).

Me: “I’ve got Thursday or Friday morning, but would really prefer Friday so I can take the whole weekend.”

“Let me just double check with them about Thursd….you know what? Screw them. They screwed up they can sit there until Friday and deal with it. You’re rescheduled for Friday morning.”

“And the discount.”

“Let me talk to my boss and call you back.”

At 8:00 p.m. ET I got a call from some guy affiliated with New Planet, called Andrei that I had never heard of or talked to before. He was incredibly rude, abusive and unprofessional. He told me that delays happen and it’s “too bad” that I took a day off for nothing, but I have to be available “24/7 for the 21 days required by contract” to take delivery. He also told me that one way or another my stuff would be “off his truck by noon tomorrow” or it would “disappear, gone, poof!” I told him that threatening me didn’t seem like a very good idea. He got even louder and more abusive. “you want to me to lie, fine, I lie. Stuff will be there Friday, but really it be gone! Poof! Tomorrow!”.

I was near tears at this point so I called Jessica (the advantage to PT was that it was only 5:30 p.m. there), they told me she was unavailable, but I asked to hold, and sent her an email telling her what had happened, that I was holding, and that I needed to talk to her tonight.

While I was on hold, someone else, Joe, from New Planet, left me a voice mail. I called him back, he apologized for Andrei’s behavior and seemed to not know that my issue was the no-show was that they HAD NOT CALLED TO TELL ME ABOUT THE DELAY!

Okay, seriously, guys. Stuff happens when you drive across the country. People don’t show on time, there is bad traffic, there might be severe weather, there might be mechanical difficulties. I get it. My problem is that NO ONE CALLED TO TELL ME ABOUT THE DELAY! And in my mind it is inexcusable and incredibly unprofessional to not have basic communication skills. Not only did no one tell me that they were delayed, but once the issue had blown up into a no-show, after I had told Jessica and demanded reimbursement, after she had promised to take it to her boss, SHE HAD NOT TOLD HIM about it. ROTTEN FRUIT!

Anyway, Joe told me not to worry, that they truck would wait, and if it was possible could I find out about delivery Thursday. I, foolishly, agreed. I should’ve made them sit there until Christmas. Joe also said he would talk to Andrei, tell him not to contact me again, and that I would only deal with him or Jessica for the rest of the move.

On Tuesday, July 27th I sent this to Jessica:

Hi Jessica—
I’ve been thinking about the delivery no-show yesterday and in light of the situation I believe that a discount equal to the “redelivery fee” you mentioned to me last week is appropriate compensation for my time and inconvenience and New Planet’s unprofessional behavior.

As you’ll recall, when the delivery date of July 26th was scheduled, I wasn’t sure I would be able to secure an elevator reservation for that day. You told me then, unequivocally, that the truck would be there Monday, and if I was unable to accept delivery the only option would be storage and to pay a redelivery fee when my shipment was delivered later that week. When I asked about cost you told me that the fee usually was about $250.

I begged and cried to my landlord to secure a reservation for Monday, July 26th and then New Planet neither called to tell me about a delay nor arrived with my belongings. Obviously this meant that I had to take a day off work on Monday, July 26th, but that I’ll have to take an additional day off when the shipment arrives on Friday, July 30th.

Given the fact that the mover’s also asked me to move up my pick up date in Salt Lake City to save New Planet the cost of having an empty truck sit overnight, and the fact that once I agreed to the earlier date they arrived 4 hours after the promised time (they promised 8:30, they did not arrive until 12:15) causing me to miss a previously scheduled function, combined with the delivery no-show I feel the $250 credit is more than fair.

I will, then, have a cashier’s check prepared for $750 as a complete and final payment when the truck arrives at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, July 30, 2010. Please let me know if you have any questions or issues. Thank you for a quick resolution to this matter.


Jalaire Taylor


See, that sounds reasonable and polite, right? I received no response. Finally, I called Jessica back, of course she was unavailable, so I left a message. When someone finally called me back it was Joe, wearing Andrei’s delightful personality.

Joe started with the raised voice, saying things like it is a small profit margin and they already gave me a discount (yes, for your bad behavior up front) and blah blah fishcakes. On and on about how this isn’t their fault, and I don’t understand, and what the hell ever. I don’t care. I read him the passage from the federally mandated “Rights and Responsibilities” manual saying that they were legally obligated to reimburse me if they missed a scheduled delivery without notification and finally, finally we settled on a final price of another $900 payable by cash, cashier’s check or money order.

I made Jessica email me an invoice, because I already knew those dirty bastard would try something at delivery. Then I had a breakdown, in the bathroom at work because seriously, this is totally frakked up.

The mover’s did show up outside my apartment building at 8:30 a.m. They sat there for 40 minutes arguing about how the couldn’t fit a semi into the parking lot and they’d have to rent a smaller truck and charge me another $400. Yeah, you read that correctly. I kept telling them that they had to use the SIDE entrance and that both Asshole Joe and my building’s management had assured me that a truck that size would fit. And after 40 minutes of arguing they finally TRIED, and they fit. That’s right, they were going to charge me $400 without even attempting to turn the frakking corner.

Then the argument started about long carry cost. I maintained that I had pre-paid. They steadfastly refused to acknowledge it. Again, they had not even attempted to pull up to the loading dock, but instead parked perpendicular to maximize the carry distance. I told them fine, I would pay the maximum amount the law allowed and sue them for the difference later. No, they said, all of it now or your stuff disappears. (side note: did they want to be magicians when they were little, what is there fascination with making stuff disappear?) The only east coast contact, Asshole Andrei. Perfect. I argued with him for another 30 minutes. Finally, I gave up, gave in and said I’d pay them and file the complaint later. I gave them the cash for the bullshit long-carry ($150) and the cashier’s check for the $900 Joe agreed to.

OMG!

“No. cannot take. Need money order only.”

“But Joe told me…”

“No money order only.”

So I ran back to the bank to get a money order.
I went back to the truck with the money order.

“No cannot take, must be Postal Money Order.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!?!?!?!?!?”

“Cannot take. Cash only. No unload without money.”

ME: Taking a very deep breath so I don’t beat them to a bloody pulp with my bare hands. And I head back to the bank.

The poor bank tellers got to witness first hand the flushed and sweaty me slowly losing my marbles, as dealing with the mover’s got worse and worse. Again, they were super professional and understanding. Shout out to them!

This time I had them give me cash. Because, just no, you know. By this time it was 11:00 and they hadn’t even started unloading the truck.

So, I took the cash back.

“No cannot take cash. Must pay with own blood!”

Okay, I made that last sentence up, but it feels true.

They started unloading the truck. Every single box was crushed. A bookcase was totally destroyed. Like a million pieces destroyed. I took a lot of pictures. And finally they started taking stuff up to the apartment.

So, finally tally:

Destroyed: 1 bookcase
Lost: 1 bookcase
3 boxes of books
1 box of artwork and computer stuff
Damaged: 1 Antique sewing machine
1 set of book shelves

And now, they haven’t done anything about the claim I filed. I think this is headed for either arbitration or a court room.

To sum up: DO NOT EVER HIRE NEW PLANET MOVING AND STORAGE. I will be doing my best to completely put them out of business so nobody has to deal with them again.

Conclusion: It would have been cheaper. less stressful and likely less damaging to my property to rent a U-Haul and hire day laborers from outside Home Depot to load/unload.