Oh, the hand mike. That one. Gotcha. Hi, everybody. Welcome. Thank you for coming out tonight. Hope we are providing refuge from the heat but also some intellectual stimulation in the form of an excellent book, the long haul. I read the book with completely wrapped fascination. Theres so much in here. But i wanted to start at the beginning. And you talk in the book about how youve got trucking as a young man, that basically bear basically out of high school. It was a century close to the other entrance. Thats what i did summers between college, i worked as a local mover. I had always been sort of bewitched like trucks. I really like the work. I liked working with machines. I liked working with trucks. In the household i grew up with, my father couldnt distinguish of the business end of a screwdriver from another thing. Actually working with machinery was a new and really exciting thing to do. Thats how i started. With apologies, you are not that big and yet you clearly are very strong and effective. How did you end up becoming a bedbug or . A bedbug is a movie. Truckers have all these nicknames. Where this whole slaying. A bedbug is a movement i have just mr. Hall is a suicide jockey. Unlike animal holler is a chicken choker. As you can see most of these things are kind of majority of. So eight bedbugger is pejorative. What was your question, scott . How come i think of movers as big burly guys are coming and can lift the armoire with one hand. Yet, so i wasnt a big guy and that was part of my baptism into becoming a movie. I was the smallest kid in my class in ninth grade so i had like a collapsed just like tedy roosevelt. I was this little insecure little guy and i had known these movers for years because of these connections. I wasnt sure i would do this work. Moving quercus about leverage. Its about working smart. As i read, part about proving yourself to these guys. You came in knowing nothing and they were expecting nothing and yet you managed to earn the trust of the guys. So big guys dont really do that well as movers. The first day i started which was, start with the guy 72 guy, the people like that are not really built to be moving about furniture in the heat. So the best mover is like 52 with a napoleon complex so yohe wont let anyone out work camp. I was right there. That was perfect for me. You and i had a colloquy as the introducer mentioned. I wrote a book about anxiety. I suffer from it pretty acutely and you and i that a colloquy just between the two of us on email about it. I made some notes. Ive had some experience of driving through the rockies on a small jeep, pretty maneuverable g. That was quite stressful in of itself. That was a you . That was me cutting in front of you. [laughing] i have some statistics. You drove or you drive i think rightly across the rockies 50foot threefoot long 73,000pound trailer through the rockies on a 6. 7 downgrade through rain and slush. I think this would cost me to pass out and then i would just die, but even you said, you write in your introduction made i will be crushed by my truck at the bottom of the field that maybe it wont. I role, which suggests kind of a devil may care attitude. You talk about how youre going to a section of the rockies that has claimed more lives than you feel comfortable thinking about. And then you say i am one blown their hair hose away from of living. And you go on to talk about other dangers. Why do you do this . When you put it that way, i havent the foggiest idea. Its not devil may care so much as their sort of unequivocal execution required to be a trucker and to be a mover. When you buy the movers to bring your grand piano up to the third floor, which he felt was a really good idea, the guys that show up, we have to do that. We cant see wow, this is a hard job, i dont want to do this. Cant do that. If i need to cross ice 70 from denver to the west coast, ive got to do that. I 70. Its the opposite of devil may care. Im terrified in the rain. That sentiment what to think about next time you drive ambassador and you look up, this guy looks like some kind of hes probably terrified. If you smart he is. To talk about all the calculations you are making about how far away the next offramp for runaway trucks and what your speed is that what the weather is and what the guy behind you is doing. I want to transition to talk about one of the things to me most interesting about your book is you have a sustained kind of cultural anthropology of the subculture of trucking, and in particular interested in this taxonomy of the status hierarchy of truckers. Theres this peculiar phenomenon whereby, and id like you to talk a little bit about this, as a bedbugger you are probably at the top of earnings pinnacle of longhaul truckers. You are probably at the pinnacle of technical skills, given what you have to do not just with the offtrack step in terms of packing and moving, but backing, obviously the threat of life and death driving through the rockies in a rainstorm. Theres also the threat of your personal liability as you are backing into a driveway in aspen, colorado, are greenwich connecticut. Theres this inverse status hierarchy where the bedbugger is have the highest level of skills and Committee Case ice level of income but there looked down upon by all the other longhaul truckers. The entire apparatus associate with that. You are last to get served at the truck stop your talk about that. What is at and how does that feel . Are there any im not sure theres going to be universal dilapidation that the bedbuggers of the best drivers. We like to think that we are because we routinely put trucks in where trucks are not supposed to go, and is probably the residences or sometimes you might have trouble driving or riding a lundmark to these places i went to being ring the big truck into. In the. Although i dont want to i into the trucker myth, i do buy into the fact that im very skillful driver and i can put in where i need to put into. Thats a lot of fun. Theres the whole second part of this which is we dont, movers are bedbuggers. We dont call from terminal to terminal and stay rent on the interstates. We go into communities. We go into towns. We go off the road. We go to where the moves are going and that means residences. That means where lot off the highway a lot. Think its an entirely different perspective of the kind of america that i see, and the kind of america that i have what you call cultural anthropology. I think somebody my call opinionated or judgmental. I want to get back to the america that you see. What is the nature of the content of what you call the longhaul freight hauling cowboy . You say, you mentioned this but you dont describe to the myth, and in the book you talk about how it means you dont wear a cowboy hat or peterbilt built or whatever. What is the myth and what is it that the longhaul truckers look down on your . Some of it is money, thats for sure. If you are hauling, if youre a first year hauler for a freight hauling company that you might see on the highway like swift or schneider painted these Big Companies these guys are making 30,000 a year maybe, maybe less. A longhaul mover at the top of the game, all i do, i just move Corporate Executives and we do whats called highend corporate relocation. I can make 250,000 a year i make ten times how much money these guys make. Thats a friction point. Then to take another skill set, ive got to be able to deal with these families, navigate the transition to a new home. That takes a certain skill set and then have to put all the stuff in the truck without destroying it, and thats always hard. You describe as threedimensional tetris. So i loaded the truck right up to the roof all the way. Ill make like 25 different tiers in there, try not to break it. And the other guys who are jealous or envious of income you able to make, why dont they do it . They literally cant you are combining diplomacy and human relations dealing with these affluent and sometimes, many times, like pardon my french, ass calls who are out, who just see you as dirt or see you as someone they can impose, get their cost different by imposing liability on you. But my question is, is that why other longhaul freight truckers are afraid to venture into this, they just dont have the skill set to deal with the aspen, colorado, ceo is moving his, you talk and beginning about the guy moving the ming dynasty vase. Ching dynasty gravestones. Im not sure, maybe thats part of it. You can get treated pretty disrespectfully without moving which people. [laughing] you get paid better for it. I think i love driver dont want to do that kind of work, loading and unloading the truck. Thats the first thing anybody ever since at a truck stop coffee count is you guys have to load or unload trucks . Yes, thats right we do. On the other hand, i dont have to drive 200,000 miles a year and i dont go from, say, new jersey to san jose once a week, four weeks a month, 52 weeks a year doing 3000 miles a week. That is hard work. Its different work and i certainly dont want to denigrate the work that any other truckers do. Im guessing our work is different, and because its different its paid better. You cant just walk into a moving company and say i want to be a mover. Youve got to know what you are doing. So i started at 17 and greenwich, connecticut, and thats what put me here but theres not a lot of guys that just do high yen to corporate relocations. How many months a year to get right . Right now i do a long season, almost 50 50 of all interesting moving is done in june, july and august. The business is cyclical, seasonal. Your book tour is screwing up your so annoyed at the office in connecticut. In fact, just before a walk and i got a call from my boss, a man named will joyce was in the book and we changed some names and situation in the book but actually hes a real person and thats his real name. He called me and he said when are you back again . I told him like six times. But i will be back driving on june 30. And you will drive through i will drive until september, october. Because the weather is better . Why of that high season . Because families. Families wait until the kids get out of school which is a jew, and then they can transition in the know and i can put they kids in a new school in september to everybody who has a choice is moving in the summer. Back to the anthropology of the america that you see. I was fascinated, yet these digressions about books, for instance, and we in a bookstore. Youve seen over time through the devaluation of books as objects to move. What are some of the other observations you have made our conclusions you have drawn about America Today based on your experience moving these members of a certain class, but you are very good on the cultural anthropology and revealing what these things me mean. So architecture has changed immensely. The way houses are being built now, especially where i am, i do a lot of work in colorado, southern california, in seattle. I read some statistic somewhere, houses are about 35 bigger than it were a generation ago, which i have no doubt be leaving. Basements are all finished for extra space. Theres no longer a formal dining room and a formal living room, which goes out onto the kitchen. Everything is open plan with the big island. Books are gone. I mean, i used to do, any household would have 50, 100 book cartons and now you might have two or one. Not in this group. Good. Because we get paid by the weight and beloved book gardens. We get to see the books that you have as were packing them, which is also very interesting. So we Pay Attention to those kinds of things. Obviously i knew this at some level, but reading your book, you seem very like an upstanding citizen very respectful. When you are being moved they are looking at everything that you have an judging you, and making, deducing conclusions about your life. What are the weirdest things youve learned or seen in your moving experience . Judging. So lets put it this way. If im coming into your house and say you not do anything because of a sense i will pack all the boxes and then we always come in and theres like three boxes packed here if we doing a whole move, its a fullscale life inspection at everything and the back of the file cabinet, anything down in the basement, everything you thought that you either got rid of all forgot about, we are going to see that, and we might draw certain conclusions about that. Perhaps occasionally some judgment, but its sort of an intimate and merciless exposure to your life. I dont would ask for that, and i dont want to get any voyeuristic pleasure from it. Sometimes i get some voyeuristic pleasure from that. As i recall you at some practical advice about what to put in your lingerie drawer. Yes. So another thing having to change in american households, so often now we have a gun safe under the bed and we have the erotica stuff in the nightstand drawer. Now, if i have to go in and fact this kind of stuff, just personal preference, i which is as cindy put the erotica stuff in the gun safe and the guns in the nightstand like the rest of america. Thats where these things belong. You do suggest something to put in the lingerie drawer to keep people like you out. Thats right. Sometimes, depending on my labor requirements and so forth, i might be required to pick up some spot labor here and there, and they are not always what we require. So you want to take the expired oxycontin out of the medicine cabinet, and if youre going to leave your lingerie and stuff in the nightstand, and i recommend that you have plastic snakes are loaded mousetraps and that will impress the movers which is always a good idea. Get some respect right off the bat. You talk in the book about so many different specific jobs that you have. What are the most challenging ones you said from a technical point of view or the ones that were most interesting to me were both technically challenging and challenging in terms of the diplomacy . Theres one of forgetting the details now, but where you got, i think the truck got stuck a little ways down, it was a steep grade, talked about that story. This was one of my first jobs and i was told that a customer that he needed to get the trailer down into his driveway, and i didnt really think i could do it but but i was 21 ae time. Basically i got my Truck Drivers license a couple days after my 21st birthday, which was when i was allowed to do that. Just going to digress for a minute but that says a lot about the movie industry in general, and the Trucking Industry which is i wasnt bringing a whole lot of, lets use i was bringing all the wisdom of a 21yearold to this job. These industries will take anybody who is willing to do the work. Consequently they took me, and i ended up getting my truck stuck down there, and it was his tractor trailer stuck between two trees. This is in richmond and i had to hire a tow truck operator, i paid almost 2000 to extract the out of this driveway and went to cut down 12 trees to get me out. This is that somebody whos going to be sending a nice review back to the company about his movers. So that was really that was my inexperience and got into that place. Going back to the beginning, you are a High School Student when you started doing this. I think you dropped a pianist resealing or something . My first day. I didnt drop a piano to the ceiling and i have not yet. Although i did drop a piano down a set of stairs but thats in the book. Wasnt my fault. [laughing] three words movers live by, right . How did you get these guys to respect you . You screwed something up on the first time rent. The first day i worked, i did so many things. What it did was i fell through the sheet rock and an addict. You fell through the ceiling. I didnt realize it was me. I did know that she rock between addicts you couldnt stand on. I felt onto the master bed which was very nice. And then i broke a whole bunch of meters by yanking a door. The final thing at the end of that day was my boss would, to take me off the job and go collapse some cards into the dumpster which is about my skill level, he told me to park his car in the corner on this really hot day and i forgot to turn the car off and in the ac on so the car burned up. Those were the three things on her first day. I went in at the end of the day and had a boss my timecard and told him that, even though we had all gone to the same church and i know this guy since unsecured, i was going to tender my resignation. He gave the card back to me and told i had to be at work the next morning. So i started getting a little better after that. Probably most beginners fall through the roof and overheat the car. So par for the course. The crew was there interesting to see what was going to happen the next day. [laughing] i was reading some of your reviews and you got a very favorable overall one in the times which is terrific, talk about what a great storyteller you are and when you to some of the other things that ive highlighted. One of the things she expressed as a disappointment in the book was, and i relate to this because she said, you just mentioned there in the thickly in passing that at one point you got fed up and you left been bugging for 20 years. Then you say, i think is a series of bad decisions and other circumstances lead you back in, if im reading right, probably from age 3151 was the gap. If you feel comfortable talking about, why did you leave . What did you do in the 20th and what brought you back, and do you regret it . Any of it . Yes. So yes, she did say she was a little disappointed. Are you said you was displayed. In the review she called it a literary crime, which is a crime ive always wanted to commit my life so i was very gratified. Nonprosecutable. Nonprosecutable. I fact used it as a driver, the first when i was 21. That was about ten years and that was with north american van lines. Youve probably seen the red, white and blue trucks. Then what happened was, the reason i started doing this are one of the reasons was to try to save some money, put some money away and have my own business, which worked out that way. So actually i get married. I moved to nantucket island massachusetts. Took the money i had saved from driving all those years and want a retail or a textile import business and i was importing those really nice fisherman sweater some island. Thats what i did for a long time and ended up getting into the kind of textiles. That was 20 years on nantucket. And then did you miss the road while you were there . No, i didnt. I didnt miss the road. So the second step was after my wife and i separated and i moved out to colorado, sort of starting all over again and i didnt have any clue about how to start all over again at the age of 49. So i did what a lot of drivers do because i still had my commercial drivers license. So what i did and what a lot of drivers do is when he gets a little bit too hot in the kitchen, you just get another job with another Trucking Company and you turn on the motor and go, then you dont have to deal with it. Thats what happened if thats what i did. Ive been doing that since 2008. What do you think about when youre driving . How do you keep from falling asleep and going crazy with your own thoughts . What did you think about . Are you thinking about anything or are you in a situation when youre driving through the rockies, youre focusing entirely on the technical things you need to be doing in that moment . You driving on a straightaway on route 66 or whatever through the middle of the country, whats going through your head then . Well, first thing is i like driving i 83 nebraska where theres nothing happening. What makes people, a lot of people really bored ied is fine for me. I read a lot when im not driving at night, then during the day i have an audiobook cabinet that probably needs a 12 step program. Depending on the book, maybe youve all had this experience, when you get to where youre going and just like ten minutes left on the book and you just stay in the driveway. I do that. So theres that. Then concentrated on driving itself, its not that boring really. If i was going to say anything out there to people who drive cars is, first thing in america, everybody a pretty good drivers, pretty generous, pretty well behaved as a whole. Its not like lycos nigeria or something. If youre driving, just to the you dont need to make a stamatiou spill your drink participant the kids in the back seat or work on a relationship with the person in the passengers seat, which is probably the biggest activity that people having cars is talking with her husband or wife trying to work something out. You can tell by the body language. Thats the other thing. I can see everything. [laughing] everything you folks are doing, im way up high. Whats the most amazing thing youve seen, or appalling, or maybe they are the same . I saw a guy reading a book. Really reading a book, like he had it on this doing real and he was just turning the pages, looking up, turning the page. Mustve been a really good book. Was he driving straight . Straightish. Do you ever get lonely . A lot of these trips are crosscountry and youre by yourself. Do you get lonely and how do you combat that . Especially now. Youve all these restrictions about how we can try. I can only drive 11 hours a day. I start early. I am not a morning person by any means but usually my day starts around four. I would get up and get something to eat. 4 a. M. . Yes. How do you do that if youre not a morning person . Discipline, scott. Or maybe you are a really latenight person and it still part of the night. I will have my trip inspection. My day is done at three, 2 45 3 00 in the afternoon. Im not allowed to drive anymore even if i want to. So theres that. Thats the hard part right there where i am parking in some truckstop and ive got ten hours before i can start all over again. The restaurants are pretty much gone in truck stops now. Its all subways so you cant do anything to eat. It used to be a lot of guys would talk on the cb or they would hang around the coffee counter. Now the trucks are so comfortable and theyre big. Ive got a walk in slavery. It has a double bed, a bunk above, a microwave oven and a refrigerator, a generator for air conditioning and heat. A lot of the guys just get into their jammies at 5 00 and watch tv. Sounds pretty cozy actually. Its better in the sleeper than anywhere. I had a question, what was i going to say . How do you keep from falling asleep, or is that not a problem . It is sometimes. On a hot afternoon in the senate, duncan eyes start to get a little heavy, that kind of thing. Its easy for me because ive got the double bed in the back with the cb foster ptech and the 600 count sheets with the hospital corridor stuck in and a feather duvet. I just pull over and turn on the condition and take a 12 minute nap, no problem. Its harder for thei for the ca. The police dont bother you . They know that the truck driver is resting . Ive never been bothered. How can we dont describe didnt miss . Youve got freedom. Your kind on the open highway, sometimes heading west towards the frontier. Nothing to tie you down except the job. What is it about the myth that a lot of your compatriots espouse that any nature . Partial i do subscribe to the myth. Thats part of it. Whenever i cross the mississippi at st. Louis or driving east in Eastern Washington through the vineyards and seeing the cascades, its pretty amazing. So i do subscribe to part of the myth. The part of the myth i guess i dont really buy is, so heres either judgment or cultural anthropology keeping on your point of view here its a lowpaid, low status job so, therefore, i seen this and places, when youre lowpaid and those that you create a myth invented to make a more livable and i think thats what Truck Drivers do. I think thats what urban rappers do. I think thats what southern rebels do. Thats why. Magazine editors and do it, too. I want to ask one more question before we can open up to questions of the audience. This is a broad question and maybe a number of responses to it. Again this is going back to you are seeing people as they really live. Because you are moving their set and use the stuff thats buried deep in the drawers because you have to pack it. Is there a gap between how, you are mostly because of the business you in your most was looking at fairly affluent corporate people, but whats the most glaring thing about the gap between how they present themselves to the world to anyone who wouldnt know because i dont know whats in the lingerie drawer or in the gun safe or in the kitchen cabinet, and the reality of how their lives are organized and what are you able to deduce something about that . Wow. This is your opportunity to Say Something really profound. I know. I wish i had been warned. Let me sort of circumlocution it. It. I think what ac when i move wih these types of people is, im not quite sure that they understand how much the stuff that they have drives them crazy, and about having multiple residences driving crazy and about how just continuing this cycle of purchase in storage and purchase and storage, and then eradication fn purchase and storage. It does work for some people so im not making a blanket thing, but in many cases im not quite sure with the master and the slave is when it comes to acquisition. Its really good, and i try not to bring in a judgment about the editor like i do. But what i do, i do remember that in my own life and all of the movers that i work with them own life for most of my guys i work with, the moving industry is like the landscaping industry or the house clean industry. Were talking about a nonenglish speaking subculture. My movers pour it on a first name basis with a payday loan guy, they dont want this life. They dont want all that stuff. Movers, even if they dont know it, movers are buddhists. And they have learned that the movers . They understand the transitory nature of objects pick since theyre the guys who throw it away, they dont get attached to that. Why dont we open up to questions from the audience . You have a tame trucker here, so if you have anything you ever wanted to know. I will ask you one question what people are you are obviously a more literate trucker and the average trucker. Theres class and status issues. Do you feel like you belong to the fraternity of truckers, or are you truly a lone wolf and youre looking at all this, not only the people you are moving, but the people youre driving alongside or talking to on the cb radio as kind of something apart from what you are doing, or from you . No. I am one of the guys. Theres no way to avoid it. Because it actually, the moving work is a total meritocracy because you either do the work or you dont do the work and nobody cares what color you are a nobody cares what language you speak. If you ca lift your end of the piano then you either. I can do that. The other part of it is, if its 4 00 in the morning and its freezing out and ive got a road flare and im calling underneath the trailer unfreeze the brakes, im in there. This isnt a game. Thank you so much. Can you hear me . I have a couple of questions. You talk about your movers. Where do you pick them up . They are not writing with you in the truck. How much do you have to know about auto mechanics . Do you get trained for that . And i gather now you dont really hang around with other truckers say dont exchange all of the interesting sort of guy talk i think of it as in cafes and stuff like that. Im sure youre not, i hope not, spending an evening in the bar. So those are all my questions. Site get my movers, i have a little black book were of god the names of professional oncall movers who are available on a moments notice anywhere. And then i have a regular crew in certain, the covenant with friends seven terminals around the country and that weve got crews from there. Occasionally one i get stuck when not going to know somebody. No, i dont hate around with the regular truckers because actually theres not a lot of hanging around think that anymore with the restaurants being gone and the trucks being more comfortable. Its much more solitary than it used to be. But i will have a burger and a beer if i can find a place to park. Mechanics, not so much. As i say in the book, im a bedbugger, not a motive. I can change the oil. I make sure i get good fuel. I can unfreeze the brakes in the morning with a flair, but no, im not particularly adapt at that. But a class a diesel engine, these big truck shall see, they will go for a million miles without any maintenance. In between i want to insert this one. What are the three most harrowing moments you had as a trucker, either in terms of dealing with mad people are being moved or literally on the road where you had a whether incident or a jacked up or Something Like that . Its hills, hills, and hills. Always. I think it might imagine this peer when youre on the road when she truck, got a big deal you have to assume he is terrified. Shooshould we get out of the . You should definitely get out of the way. If these on your tail on a hill, then you really want to get out of his way because it might mean theres something wrong. It might mean hes just a predator with an 80,000pound weapon, and, indeed, the case do you want to take that on. Have you ever had to go up one of those a runaway truck ramp . I never have. I hope i dont. That means break failure. Tanks for really interesting presentation. I enjoyed just all the different kinds of observations you have made about your job. And i say i enjoyed it a lot even though he wasnt exactly what i expected. I wasnt aware of the distinction between the bedbugger and the sort of hierarchical or level. I can kind of hoping there was more on what the freight, the typical freight driver as you say, not very highly paid and relatively low respect. Wondering if you are able to give me some impression of how that life has changed for the others that are not at your level, maybe changed between the first chapter, your first stand as a driver and the second one or just in general over time. You have a pretty long perspective from when you were 20 years old to now. Im assuming it is got tougher in many respects, but maybe not, i dont look at what you think . The trucks are a lot more comfortably or. Thats a big difference for a lot of drivers. The money is probably the same or slightly less than was in the 1980s in terms of purchasing power. We are always hearing about a shortage of Truck Drivers, which ive heard from since 1980. The money never goes up. I dont know. Theres huge turnover in the business, and the freight hauling part of the business. Those Big Companies i mentioned, 85, 95 annual turnover. Why is that . Because i think they think theyre going to make a lot of money and then find out that they are not. The one to go in there and leave, they dont come back. But theres this huge, whats the word . Trickle down from people who are getting downsized and other businesses in this country who look to trucking as the next possibility. And another change which by the way which is a nice one is usea lot of husbandandwife teams now. That makes, thats really nice. Wherever theres women, men tend to behave better. And in a truck stop thats a welcome change. Thats all real interesting. Maybe not the best job in the world for the average trucker, but it hasnt gotten worse is what you are saying really. I dont suppose its gotten worse. I dont think we have much more time left anyway. I think the driverless trucks are here sooner than you think. That was my next question, whats that going to do to you and your industry . Has anyone seen the Youtube Video with audio, the anheuserbusch truck that was fully automatic and they drove across hoover dam and the driver is in the back seat in the sleeper reading a magazine . Thats whats coming. Is that a good thing because you can be in the back reading a magazine or set a transition phase for your not being in the back reading a magazine, you are out of work . I think the whole idea is to get the human driver out of the supply chain eventually. Will bedbuggers be the last to go because you cant automate or it would be a Chinny Chin Chin to automate the packaging you do. And tell they perfect the Matter Energy transport and starr was, like in star trek, right . We have to carry that stuff out of the house. Are you working on that . [laughing] have you noticed in the last 30 years a vast difference in the bottom of family members . You talked today as it it was in the middle of the 50s. I think in the middle of the 50s because of the change in our technology, and so many families are working at home. I mean, we moved when we were told to move. We just werent given a choice to if you want a better job you with. I would think to the point you could see it in certain neighborhoods, in the summertime every of the house was for sale, for obvious reasons, but not now. You rarely come you live in certain communities and you rarely know if anybody is moving. I imagine the volume is reflected in your business. Different now. Its slightly less, still its 40 million americans every year. That number doesnt seem to change. Of that, 2 million of those who hire an interstate land lines to do that work, but youre right. You dont see, ibm used to stand for ive been moved, remember . That corporate moving thing is this but somewhat but it is being replaced by telecommuting Electronic Service workers and Computer People who now have the opportunity to live wherever they want. Exactly. So they are moving. Perk we have been living since we moved across the bering land bridge. I wonder who that mover was. Are these things working at all anymore . Okay. I identify with your career. I was a furniture mover as my first job. I got my class a license when i was 18. When you could. Im older than you are, then they changed the rules. What i noticed, and i went in and, of trucking, along the way and data phd and thinking back to trucking when i retired, but what i found is that in 198 198i was paid the same amount of money in 2011. Literally the same amount or inflation . No. 15 an hour both times. It used to be that trucking was competitive with the phd actually. But then, now you are poor, the truckers are now poor and not even middle class. They used to be able to make 70,000 a year. So are the phds. Thats true, too. Thats an issue. Many of which kind of phd you have. Anyway, did you have comments on, its a poverty profession now, not middle class. Even if you work all the time. And so were the men when i first started when i was 16, the guys who worked for a local moving company, they were middleclass manual laborers and they could own a home in the town of the didnt and they could have a regular sort of middleclass life. What do you call it, poverty poverty profession. That were getting more and more poverty profession all the time. This is another one, delegates completely eliminated by computers and then we will have what you call it when you dont have a profession and you are poor . Unemployment. Yeah, i agree with you completely. I just want to thank you again for coming out and talking about your career. I have two questions for you actually. Number one is, did you write this book on the road . And number two, do you like what you do . Do you like doing this . Does it feel like a chapter you . Of course it feels like a job to you, but do you like doing this, being in this line of work . Good questions, thank you. I didnt ride on the road. What it did have was an audio cassette recorder, it was big when i started and it got smaller and i was always making tapes, either driving or at the end of the day or sometimes surreptitiously recording conversations, and those begin to accumulate and that quite a few of those. And about six should go i decided to those transcribed, and thats what form the basis of the book. To the second question, yeah, theres a lot about the work that i love doing. What i really love is working with families and helping them do a transition to a new home, if they want to be openminded enough to let us help them do that, rather than the suspicious or hostile because were actually on their side. I recommend this book as a very practical thing to read, if you are planning to move. Because it will tell you all the things that you should and should that do if you want someone like finn, i mean he will move you well no matter what, but you want to say and do the right things and treat them with the proper respect and you will get a better result. The best way to move by the way i to get rid of everything d pack a suitcase. He says this repeatedly in the book. Next. In the highend corporate moving, do you work primarily with the business offices are with the people being moved, or both . Depends on how high end it is. I moved this hollywood guy, well, he was a new york guy. He was in law and order and law and order got cancels we had to move back to beverly hills. Within it was just his personal assistant. I never actually met him or his family, so that happen sometimes. But usually its the families. I have a niece and her husband who are being relocated from columbus, ohio, to the boston area some going to center your book. Good. Thank you. Next. I have one question that it wanted to ask you that relates directly to the book. Because if something that never has been resolved in my mind. The fellow that came to you and said nobody likes me, member him . And the never hurt you try to give him advice but it never really crystallized, the idea wasnt finished. How did he work out . Did he stay or leave, or what happened with his personality and his pain . Thanks that. Youre right about everything. That particular scene in the book didnt resolve itself because there wasnt any resolution really. The point of china make with this particular guy who was lacking any sort of social lubrication skills was that trucking attracts these kinds of guys. They are out there, the people that just cant really fit in anywhere else, and theres a subset of those guys. Certainly not all of them but he was an example, sort of an archetype of that. No, he is still there. He still works for the company. Hes fine and he is still scaring people. Thats what he said. I seem to scare everybody. Big giant truck driver missing his two front teeth walk into some of his house in connecticut avenue to move them somewhere else. A useful guide have on you came from time to time. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Next. So im also one of those people who you say is licensed to drive a truck and have phd. So my question is can you hear me . The sober one, okay. Can you hear me . Yes. A professional question. Im not a driver, im a professor so its different. But when you drive downhill in a snowstorm and her truck is loaded and its heavy, how do you stop the truck . I slow it down. Theres two things. You want to be properly geared. In fact, the introduction to my book actually goes into exact details about how you do that. So unusual in fifth gear. I have a 13 speed transmission or im in fifth gear which gives me a range between 2328 miles an hour. Then i have a thing called a jacob break. Did you have a jake brake when youre driving . Exhaust brake. Same thing. Exhaust brake keeps it down and then the rpms keep it down but you cannot get the break every once in a while and thats where it gets scary, right . When you hit the brakes. You talk about how the engine itself is the break. Thats the exhaust. Thank you. Thank you. Next. I dont know if you cover this in the book, but i just wanted tend to bring the mic about a little bit . I dont know if you touched on this in the book, but i have a personal experience that id like to share with you. Lets do it. When i moved i had been to some orientation and the a lot of, there were a lot of movers there. I picked one, anyway, they came to my house and i was alone, and you can see im a senior citizen, and they were doing what they were doing. And they told me that the next day i should wait a while and come in. I would have a surprise. I sure did. What happened was, i told them that i was having some closet work done, and they should come a little later. Anyway, they disregarded what i told them. They said they had a schedule. I really dont recall here but when i got into that apartment, all of my close were lying on the couch, because there was no bar to put the clothing on in the closet. And then there were a whole bunch of boxes stashed up in a bedroom. And the women who were there, they apologized to me. They said they were sorry and, you know, they apologized. Well anyway, when she came to see me, i told her i wasnt going to pay, that was 4000, because of because of what i have seen. Well, she said she was going to sue me, and they did deliver some. Anyway, i told this story to my soninlaw, who happens to be a very smart businessman. He couldnt stand it when he heard what they did to me. He hired a lawyer to represent me. I told, i had a few notes in a book, showed it to the lawyer. He said he didnt know what he could do because i had signed a contract. Well, the upshot was, he discussed this with the other, with the movers attorney, and he came back and told me that the best he could do was she was, i could just pay her the 4000, dollars, she wasnt going to charge me for her lawyer and whatnot, but i had to sign an agreement that i would never tell whats that amylase list . Theres some angies list. That i would never tell them about what happened. What i found after i was unpacking, they left behind a lot of stuff. It was garden stuff, they left stuff behind. Some stuff was stolen, some personal items of mine. And i guess i just want to tell anybody if this happens, take pictures. Maybe if i had pictures of this mess it wouldnt have happened. Have you heard things like this . Whats your response to all this. Was my response is that moving Horror Stories happen every day and im always very chastened when here about them. You know, i try not to do anything really bad. Sometimes accidents will happen. Sometimes the fact that your movie something increases your risk profile. But there is a criminal element out there in the industry that makes the rest of us look bad. Okay. I guess i wanted to just warn everybody. Thank you. Last question. I had two questions initially. The first one was about where you wrote the book. But second one is why you wrote the book and wasnt more of an attention of an autobiography of your life or biographical approach to the people and experience while you are moving other people. Like why did you write this book . So thanks. The first thing about that he recently literary treatment of the american truck expense was overdue. I had been looking for myself. I really had not been able to find anything like that. It is sort of a mystic, iconic piece of americana that should be covered. Those are two reasons. One of them is i developed a nice collection of opinions over the years that i needed to discharge. I think the last one is, i think theres something to say, i think its a series book. I think theyre something to say about the importance of the how and why people get attached to certain things that i wanted to say. It does lead you, you come away with an appreciation for the way of detachment from objects and possessions and let the oco. In closing, you want to tell the story about, piquant but hosting about the polygamist. A polygamist is one mans polygamist is another mans regular guy, right . [laughing] so where this gentleman came from which was bangladesh, i dont think they call themselves polygamist day. I think they just call them neighbors, right . I dont know. This story, this man come he been trained as a doctor in bangladesh and moved to the United States and he couldnt practice as a doctor, so he worked driving a taxi for five years and then worked for another five years to get his american nd. He was ten years living in the bronx, and his dream was to move out west where the wide open spaces are because he is some one of the cities with like 20 Million People at something. So he moved to this corner of arizona where the sld s people are like in moderat modern, becs going to start bringing his wife over from bangladesh and figured he would be totally invisible in the middle of this community and he could be a doctor as well. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]