FROM HAIKU, MAUI

Lessons from My Gold-plated Move

Humility, Forgiveness to Monster Movers' Imperfections

Introduction

HAIKU, Maui, Mar 31 - At first, I was going to wait a day or two before writing about what happened on my moving day Mar 16.  First, because I was too busy doing to be able to write about it.  Second, because I wanted to be sure that my emotions had subsided so I could write about it dispassionately. 

It's been two weeks since then.  Yet it feels like two years.  So much has happened since.  Yet I want to revisit that story because i think it will be important for all of you, regardless of whether or not you ever have to move overseas.  More than just a practical experience in managing stress, what happened on Mar 16 was a lesson in humility and forgiveness in the face of human imperfections.  That is the real reason why this story is timeless...

Great Start

I chose my moving company carefully from among more than a dozen who had given me quotes to move my stuff from Scottsdale to Maui.  It was mostly because of a person I was dealing with, a very nice lady by the name of May.  I had a chuckle over her company's name: Monster Movers.  Thought they could use a new marketing manager.  For, that was actually its trade name. The real name was North American Movers Inc. of Woodland Hills, CA, a part of North American Van Lines, a reputable national moving company.

I was quoted about $8,000, including packing and crating.  I thought that was pretty reasonable, especially for an overseas move.  I remember paying as much if not more when we moved from back east to Arizona in the early 1980s. 

My good feelings about the company were reinforced when the driver and two men arrived right on time around 8AM on Mar 16 in their green truck. 

They went about their business quietly and efficiently, as you can see from these photos.  For a while, I played piano for them,  They hummed and sang along.  I had my first doubts when the driver asked me if I had a pair of pliers.

"What happened to the ones in the kitchen?" I replied.

"We'd already packed them."

Hm... a moving company driver has no pliers on his truck?  But I didn't say anything.  I just went to my next door neighbor and borrowed a pair.

The driver ahd also asked me earlier if I would mind paying him $500 in cash so that he could pay the men on the spot.  I didn't mind.  But I started walking to the bank to get the cash, I realized I still had that much left over from the weekend garage sale.  When I returned to the house, the driver had a worried look on his face.

"Come with me," he motioned me toward his "green monster" (truck). "Let me show you something."

He proceeded to point to some lines that were painted inside the truck.  At first, I didn't understand why I would care about stuff like that. "That's your business," I said.  "Why are you showing me that.  I have a fixed price quote.  What do I care how many cubic feet my stuff takes up?"

Well, it turns out, it wasn't really a fixed price.  It was a fixed price based on the number and type of items I had specified.  If the number of items increased, so would the price.

As it turns out, even before they loaded the piano and some other smaller items on the truck, the number of estimated cubic feet was already nearly three times that which that nice lady May had estimated. 

"But I didn't change any of my items," I protested.  "Why is it taking up that much more space?  What good is your computer estimating program and your estimator if it blows the estimate by that much?"

The driver just kept shrugging and shrinking into the ground.  He had no answers.  When we walked back to the kitchen, he showed me his "spreadsheet", written on a 2' x 3' sheet of packing paper.  $22,000 read the bottom line. 

"What?!!!" I said with a triple exclamation mark when I saw that figure.  "But I was quoted $8,000."

More shrugging and shrinking.

I got on the phone to the moving company's HQ in California.  May was nowhere to be found.  After a while, a Natalie called me back.  She said she was the operations manager, or some such thing.  She confirmed the new price of $22,000. 

"There is nothing we can do about it," she said.  "The price is set by the (sea) shipping company.  And Matson is the only company that operates between mainland and the Islands.  They set the price per square foot."

"But your company is the one who gave me the original estimate of $8,000," I said. "I did not change the number of items on my list.  What kind of a business are you running when you can blow your estimate by nearly a factor of three?"

She would not budge.  It turns out that while the movers were doing such a great job packing, they were taking the stuff out of all of my cabinet drawers.  As a result, the number of boxes had more than tripled as compared to the original estimate. 

"Where is May, the person who gave me the estimate?" I asked.  "She never told me anything about removing the stuff out of the drawers.  How was I supposed to know that?"

"She is in talking to the owner right now."

My first impulse was to tell Natalie, "get my stuff off your truck and get ready for a hefty lawsuit."  For, Monster Movers were 100% in the wrong.  They low-balled the estimate and then sprung a surprise quote on me after most of the stuff was already on the truck.  They never advised me of the fact that the contents of the cabinet drawers would have to be packed and accounted for separately.  So I was 100% in the right from the legal standpoint.  But being 100% in the right would still not get me moved to Maui on time, as planned.

So I asked to speak to the owner myself. 

After a while, he picked up the phone.  He said his name was Adi Peretz, and that he was the general manager, not the owner.  Adi was very apologetic. 

"If every one of my moves was like this one," he lamented, "I would not want to be in this kind of business.  I hate to see what we are doing to you right now.  But our hands are tied.  Matson set the rates.  The best I can do is offer to do it for $20,000. That would be virtually at cost.  We'd make maybe $200-$300 on the move."

If I asked them to unload the truck. I'd have to get more quotes.  Maybe I'd end up saving a thousand or two.  Or maybe it would cost that much more.  Either way, I'd have to delay my move, including my prepaid airline ticket, the signing of the documents for my new place, etc.  And then I'd probably end up with a $10,000 to $15,000 legal bill, before I can start collecting on any damages from the California Monsters.  But important than any of that, I'd be ACCUMULATING NEW KARMA at the very time in my life when I am trying to get rid of all the old karma.  THAT was the deciding factor.

I considered all of that during about 30 seconds of silence on the phone.  "Okay, let's do it for $20,000," I agreed.

Over the next hour or so, I still had to go through some more hassle with the driver who did not have the tools to disassemble the piano, and the Monster Movers front office who weren't equipped to handle such a large transaction on a credit card.  I had evidently blown their credit limit.  Once again, Adi apologize profusely.  Sheepishly, he asked me if I would write them a personal check for 50% of the fee - something their driver specifically stated  they would not accept (personal checks).

Despite all these additional glitches and irritations, once I made a decision, I felt a sense of relief.  I had let go of trying to be the judge of right and wrong.  "The world is perfect as it is," I remember as a shaman preaching to others.  "All you need to do is change your vantage point.  Once you align yourself with the forces of the universe and the will of the Creator, you will realize that the only thing 'wrong' was imposing your ego on the situation."

It was an amazing experience of humility and forgiveness. The Monster people were 100% wrong.  And I had forgiven them without regrets.  I even joked around with the three men while we were waiting for the owner to call me back on the latest credit card hassle.

Lessons Learned

Later, after the truck had gone, I asked myself what lessons had I learned from all this.  I shared my thoughts in an email with Chandra and Star, my new astral sister and brother:

Hi, Star, my astral brother.  Hope you’re doing well.  I am enclosing a note below I had sent to a friend of mine that describes what happened today at my place with my movers.  I would like you to read it carefully, and then ask Chandra as well as your spirit guides:

1.   If I am really meant to move to Maui, as I believe I was and Chandra and you confirmed it several times, why did this thing with the movers happen, especially as I have always been most generous with anyone I know and love?

2.   What lessons am I supposed to learn from this hardship?

Sorry I couldn’t “talk” earlier.  I had a major hassle with the movers.  So I am still trying to figure out what lesson I am supposed to learn from it.  Here’s a short version...

They billed me $22,000 after the truck was loaded with my stuff.  The owner of the company and I argued for a while about why’s and wherefore’s and eventually settled for $20,000.  So you could say this will be a “gold-plated move.”   Which pretty well wipes out any hopes of additional Peru trips.  Maybe that was a sign?  I have been asking for one, you know. 

Up until now, everything to do with my move to Maui has been amazingly smooth.  In fact, just this morning I was telling that to a friend of mine who came over while the movers were packing the stuff. “Knock on wood,” I added and did knock.  “Maybe it was plastic,” another friend later told me when she heard what happened. :-)

When I talked to that friend, I was merely expressing my almost childish happiness and gratefulness to the Creator for having made it so easy for me to move to Maui.  But I can see how that could have been interpreted as boastfulness.  Maybe that was a lesson I was also supposed to learn?  Not to talk about my good fortunes to others - for fear of being perceived boastful.

Furthermore, I still don’t have a pick-up of my car confirmed, which was scheduled for tomorrow.  So I may have to leave the keys with my next door neighbors when I fly out on Wed morning.

I spent the evening before and after the Despacho trying to figure out what sort of a message the Spirits are trying to give me with this moving hassles that have suddenly cropped up.  At first, I thought they were testing me to make sure I am really not attached to any material things, like money, for example.  But they already knew that, I thought.

So my next best guess, besides the Peruvian angle, was that they were trying to teach me forgiveness.  Yes, I was upset with the moving company for a while.  And yes, it was probably the worst business experience of my entire life.  But in the end, after I understood the owner’s point of view, as inexcusable as it was from a western business standpoint, I laughed and joked with both the men and the owner.  And I blew my forgiveness into the Despacho as well. 

The flames of my final Arizona Despacho were huge.  They just slurped up all my love and forgiveness that had gone into it.

The next day, when the car transportation company called me around 2PM to tell me they'd be picking up my car before 5PM, I breathed a final sigh of relieve.  Not just because I would not have to bother my neighbors with car delivery after I leave. Because I knew that was the sign the Creator and the spirits have accepted my contrition and forgivingness to the California Monster Movers, and that I'd be back on track again with respect to the rest of my move.

Indeed, everything went as smoothly as silk after that.  You also saw what a beautiful welcome the island of Maui and the Creator had laid for me when I arrived (Aloha from Maui!, Mar 2009).

And when Chiquitita (Elizabeth) sent me that inadvertent email the night after I had arrived here, it was the second confirmation that I was back in alignment with the Creator and the universe.  Elizabeth thought she had made a terrible error, that I would get upset, and that she would now lose me forever.  Instead, she won me forever. 

For, that email was no mistake.  It was a result of my telepathing to her (also inadvertently) that I was missing her. And the Creator saw to it that she got the message in the form of "wrong" key that he/she had made her press.  Which ended being perhaps the "best mistake of her life."

Furthermore, as my daughter Tanja Anne pointed out from London, now that Elizabeth is moving in with me (on Apr 8), my "gold plated move" was indeed another confirmation that I should NOT be extending my trip to Peru (from three to seven weeks, as I had been contemplating).  I had asked the Creator and the spirits to give me guidance on that question about a week or so before my move.  And they did - in the form of Monster Movers. 

Thank you, God. Sulpaiki (Quechua for 'thank you'). Gracias. Hvala. Spasibo. Danke. Grazie...

Final Pictures from Arizona...

And now, for posterity, here are some final pictures of my Scottsdale place after the movers were done...

...starting with my "office" and my campground "bedroom" for the last two nights in Arizona.

And that's all she wrote from Arizona after 28 years there...

CLICK HERE or on title to read 2012: Toward a New Breed of Man

CLICK HERE to go to Arizona 2009 TOC

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