Scratch Beginnings_ Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream - Adam W. Shepard [60]
And I didn’t mind. How could I? As long as he was pulling his own weight, I didn’t care what he was doing. I did mention once or twice that it was incredible that he could drink beer and still be capable of being such a beast, but all he could say was that he was so used to it that it didn’t phase him anymore. Besides, by his own admission, he wasn’t even one of the better movers at the company. Among the history of Fast Company that he would offer from time to time, he told me who the big dogs at the company were: “JB, Jody, Mike, Derrick. Dem da beasts uh da company. Can’t nobody move like dem.”
As impressed as I was with Shaun’s strength and efficiency, I could only imagine what it would be like to work with one of those other four guys—guys who would pick up a sofa, throw it on their back, and carry it to the front door, and then come back out for the next piece. I was hoping that one day I would get the chance to see them in action, but it was a long shot. Even with “the heart of a lion,” it was enough of a challenge for me to carry my end of a washing machine with Shaun, so how was I ever going to be respectable enough to go on a move with those guys?
In the meantime, Shaun was teaching me the ropes, how to use the box dolly, the four-wheeler, and “Big Red” to my advantage, saving my back from lifting every piece. He also taught me Fast Company’s unique way of wrapping furniture. Most other moving companies carried the piece out and wrapped a pad around it on the truck, but not us. All leather and wood and any other piece that was scratchable or breakable was covered with a pad and then shrink wrapped to the piece. Shrink wrap, in all of its universal glory, has infinite uses. In addition to using it for wrapping furniture, we were using it to keep our pants up, as door handles on the truck, and to keep the side view mirrors from blowing in the wind when a bolt fell off. We could use it for anything. It was miraculous. It’s the new duct tape. Sometimes, though, shrink-wrapping the furniture was just as hard, if not harder, than carrying the piece out the door. We would have these big, industrial-sized rolls of shrink wrap that we would wind around every crevice of the piece, a dizzying chore, ensuring that the pad stayed on until we ripped the shrink wrap off at the customer’s new house. While it was somewhat time consuming, it was well worth the additional minute spent per piece as it made the piece easier to transport, and it made it easier for us to stack in the truck. And the customers felt more comfortable knowing that we weren’t going to scratch their furniture. There was plenty more damage that we could do (like tripping and dropping mirrors or crashing into walls), but scratching the furniture was something that we were able to avoid.
The differences between Shaun and I positively worked in our favor every day, in every way. He would come into the office and demand that we be put on the better moves. With his aggressive style, we would find ourselves heading to Mount Pleasant (the posh area east of the Cooper River) nearly every day. If we weren’t on a good move, then he would talk to Curtis or his boss, Jill, and get it switched. “Naw, naw. This here ain’t gonna work, boss lady. We’ll take that one, though,” he would say. Best of all, he wouldn’t back down until he was satisfied. We were always in the shop at least a half hour before all of the other small timers, so we pretty much got the pick of any small job that we wanted. By the time they got there, we would be long gone. The guys that really cared in the first place were going out on bigger moves anyway and didn’t pay any attention to Shaun and me.
Our differences also worked to our advantage on the moves. I was sociable and cordial, quizzing customers on where they were from, what they did for a living, and the like. For the