Moving ain't for the Weak

 I'll be ecstatic and over the moon if we are fortunate enough to find a place in the future, like in the next few months or in this next year.  I won't be thrilled to move though.  

We almost didn't move in and thank god landlords are jerks.  My mom had a change of heart after we signed the lease and said we can't do it.  We're not going to have enough space.  When she talked to the landlord at the time, he said ok, we'll just have to pay the rent until he finds someone else.  Awesome.  I know.  We signed a lease.  What did we expect?  He was better than what we had dealt with in the past and that's not saying a lot.

It was empty when we moved in and we were able to get the keys around mid-August so we were taking boxes every night.  How great is that?  We were going to be organized and it was going to be easy.  Like hell we would.

For starters, the first sign of trouble is when I called the movers and set up a date.  We were moving in shortly before Labor Day and I had it scheduled the Friday before the three day weekend. I put in to take time off that Friday and then the following Monday.  I got it approved by my manager right away.  We had a new system where she couldn't say, I never saw your email.  

There was a new problem.  We had our monthly meeting and she would hand out our calendar showing when people were off and she asked if she missed anyone.  I raised my hand.  I was missing on the calendar.  Why?  Corinne had a lot of time off, but she never asked for time and her future husband was coming to town so that was totally fine.  It was Frick.  Frick had family time and was marked off.  I couldn't have that time.  Why did she approve it?  

She wanted me to come talk to her after our meeting.  She was just a bitch.  She was so good at putting me down and saying No to me all the time.  I was tearful and said I had spent the last year getting harassed by our upstairs neighbor and I just got movers.  She said I can let you have Friday off but Corinne has time off and Frick has family time.

Yeah.  She was another one who was good to let me know that I didn't have a family so I didn't count.  I said fine. I was upset and I did say something to Frick about it.  I said you don't work a full week, so why should you even get your stupid half days?  Someone tried to console me and I said I get it.  I don't count. I don't matter.  We also had 6 other people who could have helped us out.  Why weren't they held accountable to help if the group needed time off?

I had gotten a call the next day and I happened to be off.  My manager told me that Frick graciously agreed to give up her family time and let you have Monday off.  Oh give me a break.  Frick used to spend hours in this manager's office kissing up with all of her stories.  I thought Here we go.  I'm the bad person.  I'm the selfish person.  I said it's ok.  I said I talked it over with my mom and we were going to push to get everything out on Friday.  We had a three day weekend coming up so anything we could get more settled in.  We were getting our stuff out over the weekend.  

When I came in the following Monday, my manager talked to me about making it nice with Frick. I really wasn't sure why.  I thought because I called her out for not showing up half the time?  She called in the first week that she was supposed to start and then the next week, she showed up for a day and then was sick the next three days.  Who wouldn't get upset always having to cover for someone like that? I had double the workload because of this person.  She always had funerals.  It would be a neighbor's dad.  Or a friend's step-dad.  It was insane and I thought No.  She should be ashamed of never showing up.  I just told Frick thanks but no thanks.  She didn't talk to me for about a month.  

When we moved the year before, we really had good movers who made it a breeze but after living in the same place for over 20 years, there was a lot we had to haul and we really had to downsize.  It was just bad.  The movers were great though.

Not this time.  We had gotten rid of a lot of furniture and I showed them what was in the storage unit that we had and they acted like they couldn't get it down on time.  My mom blew up at them and told them to do their damn job.  One guy was nice, the other had an attitude.  It took four hours for everything to get moved when we first did it and there was a lot.  This took six hours and we caught them on the truck loafing.  What a mess.  I spent the weekend hauling stuff that we left behind at our old place.  It's not a lot of fun going up the winding steps when you're carrying an old TV and plenty of heavy boxes.  They had to come back to get our box springs up over the balcony because they couldn't get it up the stairs for the first week, I slept on my floor on my mattress. I didn't care after that move.

On the next Friday after we moved, we were supposed to get cable and our phone set up, but they weren't supposed to come until after I got home that day.  I got a call from my mom.  She had enough.  They said that they were only here for cable.  She said you need to come home now.  I did.  My manager was gone that Friday.  Did she get my approval?  I left her a voicemail and told her I needed to leave.  I told Corinne what had happened and she said just go.  I didn't tell Frick and what a surprise, she wasn't at her desk.  Idiot.  

The year before, the guy from Time Warner did everything but what did you know, things changed in a year's time and the guy was a little bewildered at my mom.  Well my mom had enough and was overwhelmed. I was too.  I brought him inside and he got cable set up.  He set me up for an appointment to have the landlines set up.  All we had was my cell phone for making calls. I was set up that following Tuesday for someone to come in.  I called Corinne and told her what had happened.  She said I wasn't missing anything.  I left another voicemail for my manager telling her I won't be until later Tuesday morning.  My mom apologized and told me I should go back to work.  I said not happening.  It was a bad move for both of us.  Time Warner had sent someone over to set up the phones earlier that month and my mom had met the person.  She took the bus over while I worked so I understand why she lost it.  I lost it on Frick. She lost it on a Time Warner person.  It was just a bad move.  They banged up a lot of the furniture and we didn't realize it until it was too late to say anything. I did and the manager of the moving company told me off.  I would have thought that using the same moving company would have made it a breeze but the landlord said not all employees are the same and we got a couple of duds.

I had a week off in late September to help sort through some of the mess that we had and to just decompress from the nightmare weeks earlier.  When I came back to work, Corinne told me that Frick was out two of the days that I was gone for separate funerals.  It never ended with her.  Frick decided to start talking to me again which didn't thrill me but I knew it was because she pissed off the others and I really don't want to be at war with anyone.  I just wanted her to show up and even in Covid, she was still taking off but that's a whole other blog post.

Frick had tried to tell me that if Corinne didn't have the month of August off - she didn't, she had a lot of half days and a week off, then this wouldn't have been a problem.  Corinne always showed up and at that time, she had a class reunion which actually proved to be beneficial for her.  She had met a classmate and she shared her unhappiness with where we worked.  His assistant was going to be retiring in about 6 years and he would give her a call.  Six years seems like a long ass time but funny how things worked out.  She was working for another insurance company after she left and her classmate called.  She was able to work at home for the last 8 years until she retired last year.  Her boyfriend and now husband lived in England at the time.  They didn't get much of a chance to see each other so she worked a lot of half days until that last week in August.  We also had other people who could have helped and pitched in while we were gone for that day or two but that would have interrupted their bitch and moan time.  

My sister offered to have my brother in-law fly in from Florida when the day comes that we will move.  They got enough and that's incredibly kind.  My sister will be out of a job or maybe moving onto something better a year from now.  They are transitioning her job or phasing it out because another company took over and that sucks so I know they shouldn't have to waste their money on watching me and Mother Klein lose our shit on each other while we try to go down those winding stairs.  

I have had so many people say this, If you need something, I'll help.  At the end of the day, it's just me and mom doing it on our own.  My mom said we've done it before.  We're also 15 years older and more tired.  It will not be easy but I'll be so thankful if we can find a place.  This place is so hard.  

I would have liked the four family where we looked because it was a quiet street and I could have gone for more walks without people cursing me out or aiming their car at me.

Is it too much to ask to find a place where I can walk and not feel like a human dodgeball?