Mass of Stuff

8/13/08

If you’ve been reading my other posts you’ve heard me vent, rant and rave (you get the picture) about finding housing. In my last post I mentioned that I have my keys. We’ll today was “move” day from my service apartment that HP has been leasing a couple of years. In addition to me moving, I also am responsible for closing down the service apartment. Well, like any good home, the longer a person lives there; the “mass of stuff” accumulates.

Humm, so here goes, let me explain the process. Last night (Wednesday), Ava my admin assistant from work came to my apartment with me and we reviewed the “furnishings list”. This is the list that the landlord and leasee sign that identifies what belongs to the landlord. We began to discover that a lot of stuff didn’t belong to the landlord and instead had been furnished over time by HP employees to make it their home away from home more comfortable. Upon discovering the “mass of stuff” we decided to ask Zhang, my driver to come up to the apartment and Ava asked him how to move the “mass of stuff”? As she walked him around and showed him everything, it became pretty clear by the excitement and laughter in their voices that we were clearly in over our heads. At this point Ava turns to me and says, “Zhang suggests calling some movers.” You can imagine my thought process at this point, A) Oh man, too much crap, maybe I’ll just dump it off the balcony, it’s 29 stories up. B) Humm, ok I need some of the “mass of stuff” for my apartment. I opted for B, although A would have been very entertaining. One more catch, did I tell you I don’t speak Chinese and how in the world would I find movers? Zhang must have been reading my mind because at that precise moment he picks up the phone and starts making calls, keep in mind I can’t understand anything that’s being said. About 10 minutes later Zhang comes and tells Ava the options, she translates to English, I chose pack and move everything for 600cny (about $90). Zhang calls the company back, says 10 Chinese words, hangs up, then turns around and says “10:30 tomorrow.”

It’s now 9:50am today (Thursday) and the movers are here. I had been up since 5:00am working with folks in Boise and I had just barely gotten out of the shower. I answer the door and there are 5 movers standing there and they start talking to me in Chinese. I show them 10:30 on my cell phone text message and one guy says, “oh ok ok!” which in China is universal for “I understand”. I even catch myself saying “oh ok ok!” At 10:30 I let the movers in and they feverishly start packing. Ironically, one of the movers made sign language to tape a box and I ended up providing tape from the apartment. Five men can pack fast, including dishes and glasses. They started to set them in the box without any packing material. At that point I decided to say something because I need the dishes and was afraid they were going to break. Within an hour everything was packed up and everything was moved down to the 1st floor.

Then the rain came down like cats and dogs and the movers couldn’t load the truck so they just sat down by the elevators and waited. Once it let up, they moved everything to the truck. Zhang gave them directions to my apartment and off we went, almost…. The streets were flooded (up to 1 foot in some areas) and we had to make a lot of detours or sometimes just drove through it along with the scooters and bicycles. It took about a ½ hour instead of 15 minutes.

I opened the door to the apartment and within 15 minutes they were done unloading the “mass of stuff”. There is no OSHA, no contracts to sign, just get it done. What an experience!

Tomorrow my family arrives! Whoo Hoo!