My daddy always said, "Nothin's ever easy." I'm pretty sure he was an optimist. He also used to say when things were darkest, "Oh, don't worry. Things go along like this for a while, and then ... they get worse." Of course, he also would come out with, "Things are never so bad they couldn't be worse."
Everything he used to say applies to moving house. Here's a report from recent days:
My new supervisor hadn't used the correct form to communicate to my company's US HR department that I'd accepted her job offer. So nothing happened at that end until, hopefully, last week when the form got submitted.
Of course, that form just mobilizes a bunch of vendors to do the actual work.
One vendor does nothing except compute how much money I'm going to get for the move. I should get money for a house hunting trip (which we're not actually doing); interim living expenses for lodging and per diem for food etc in the new location before we select and move into a new house; closing costs for a new house, if we buy one; help selling our house here (if we had one). It's not completely obvious to me how they compute all this, but maybe next week they'll be kind enough to let me know so we can figure out a budget for this thing. Used to be you just turned in receipts and they paid you. Now evidently they tell you what they think it should cost and you have to live with it.
Also my company will mobilize a realtor to help us with house-hunting -- or helping us find a place to rent. Will be nice to get that person's name. I'm anxious about what we'll find in Houston. The prices look fabulous, but you know what they say: location, location, location. I'm worried that all the places that look so good are (a) in a flood plain; (b) twenty minutes from downtown on the weekends and two hours during rush hour; (c) directly under the flight path from Bush Int'l Airport; (d) next to the busiest street in the area. All those are "don't think about showing us" factors in our list of requirements.
On this end packers and movers are lined up for second week of August. Our landlord's inspection date is scheduled for after we're all moved out and had the place cleaned. Turns out there's ANOTHER vendor (UK this time) that does nothing but attend these checkout sessions and battle with the landlord on how much security deposit he's allowed to keep. I won't mind having someone help me with that.
The UK relocation firm sent me a nice email saying they'd take care of cancelling electricity, gas, water. They also warned that UK utilities are notorious for messing up all such service close-outs and that we could expect to be getting bills months after the move. (Since we pay by direct debit out of our UK bank account ... good luck, guys, because those debit instructions go away when I do.) I sent our relocation guy all the account info, addresses, etc for the utility companies.
The UK reloc guy also gave me a nice list of other things to cancel. That's where my headaches started this morning.
Post Office (Royal Mail): website - redirect your mail to overseas location -- $100 PER PERSON for six months! Grrr. But, what else yah gonna do? So I go through the website. Grinding of teeth #1: "Building Number" is a required field for 'send to' address. No such thing in US. My office building number in US is now "0". Grinding #2: pay-by-credit-card screen won't take AmEx. Takes MasterCard. Grinding #3: I enter correct information ( I swear to god) three times. Three times told information incorrect. Fourth time told: "You'll have to do this by mail or go to post office. We value your security and you fouled up three times." Or words to that affect. OK, I'll print the form and go to office down the street on Monday. Grinding teeth #4 or maybe #8, I lost count: Nope, printer is out of ink.
OK, move to Sky satellite TV vendor. Try to login to website. Won't accept userid. Note to myself dated July 2006 in document in which I keep all password and userid info: "F'd up site. Had to recreate userid." Looks like it happened again. But unable to even create new userid this time because it doesn't believe me when I tell it what bank account I'm paying them from.
OK, move to AOL for broadband and long distance telephone service. Can't shut that off online. Must call them.
OK, move to British Telecoms for telephone line. Can't shut that off online. Must call them.
OK, move to TV License (Unbelievably I have to PAY British government more than $250per year to have a color TV in my house. Apparently they use that to fund British Broadcasting Company (BBC) programming. Sort of like PBS in the US with a forced tax to pay for it. Only in UK.) Oh, any you can't cancel that online. Must fill out a form this time. Can't do that, printer still out of ink.
Now getting to the real meat of why I'm so frustrated. We have to sell our beautiful red over ivory Jaguar X-Type 3.0L Sport car. I scratched the heck out of the back bumper in June, but we got that repaired while we were in US. Then, yesterday, on her first solo trip in the car after receiving her UK driving license, Wife scrapes all the paint off the passenger side door trying to park the car. Hard to sell a car like that. I would've killed Wife, but she was suicidal anyway and I figured she might spare me the effort if I was patient, but no such luck, ... and I've calmed down (slightly) now.
I'll never move again, if I get through this without killing myself or someone else first. But then, things are never so bad they couldn't be worse ... as I'll probably find out tomorrow.
1 comment:
Just know that AOL will keep you on the phone for an inordinate amount of time while they try to sell you various services. As I remember it, they kept placating me by claiming that their computer was experiencing slow response time. "Just like AOL," I replied. Because you can't spell a**hole without AOL.
Just remember to breathe.
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