La Mudanza

We're moving house. Well, specifically we're moving from flat to house, from Buenos Aires to Lima,  

According to the google and people in bars, Moving House is one of the most stressful things you can experience, which I maintain is a pile of crap. Death, new job, booking flights online... they're more stressful without even thinking about it.

That said, I'm not saying it isn't a monumental pain. You never mention to a mate that you're moving and have them reply: Oh, packing boxes and sorting through piles of important time consuming crap? Count me in! Dust particles behind your retina? Love it. When do you want me there? How's 0830 for you?

Fortunately, Katie's work saved us the most of the hassle by sending strong men with their own boxes to do all the work for us, which was excellent, as even without doing the heavy lifting I am as tired as I have been for a long long time typing this.

But it's cathartic.

So now about everything we own is in boxes in the van below. The furniture goes tomorrow...

.. and so when the strong men left, they left a handful of industrial sized toys - such as giant bubble wrap - that the girls thought would be cracking to play with... We wrapped Maia in it and played house pinball. Quite fun really. For the three of us, anyway. Maia's cries of delight/terror were muffled.

And they also left a series of murder weapons that we found Maia sizing up, possibly in revenge for House Pinball. Nice touch, Men.

Yup. That's a stanley knife, a tape cutter... and a saw.

Fletes You Can Trust

Following La Mudanza, I have to plug Saturnino, Emma's regular flete guy:

But hey, I must introduce you to my usual flete guy, Saturnino.

Saturnino, 15 4175 5635, best fletero in the world. He can even drive, get out of the car, lift a finger to help, carry chairs on his head up flights of stairs. Imagine! And only charges 40 pesos p/hr.

Get in touch.

La Mudanza (Complete Story)

I should have written the full story, but wrote Flete Culture instead, and couldn't be bothered... Here it is, as much so I have a record as your entertainment, if you have a spare 15 minutes.

LA MUDANZA, HISTORIA COMPLETA.

The school, namely Julio, the admin guy, insisted on organised the flete for our moving day, I don't know why, and they booked it for a Saturday, the day before we flew to New Zealand.

Flete arrived at 7, the usual crowd. The peon broke 3 of the first 4 things he picked up, including a plant pot, picking the plant up by the leaves. Chauffeur stayed in the car. Maestro elected himself Lift Master, supervising the pressing of buttons '8' and 'PB' (ground floor). Tough job.

After 5 hours of carrying boxes and packing the van (me doing everything...), we arrived at our new flat.

As I arrived by bike, and the flete pulled up, were greeted by Hugo, the guy in charge of the building, wagging his finger 'no, no, no' style.

- What do you guys think you're doing? he asked.

- Moving, obviously, what's it to you? I said.

- Two things to me, he replied. 1. This building requires 24 hours notice for any furniture moving. 2. This building has a policy that no mudanza is done on a Saturday or Sunday in order not to disturb residents at the weekend.

- Right. Shit. What sensible policies. The school didn't call you? Julio?

- Who's Julio?

- An unemployed dead person. Never mind. So, what do you suggest we do?

- Pack up, come back on Monday.

I called the school, and the idiot who insisted we moved on a Saturday had indeed never called the building. Sorry, is that inconvenient? Apparently it's standard policy, no mudanza at the weekend... Tool.

So, I explained that by Monday we would be in New Zealand, and the flete guys said they had another job that afternoon.

I eventually talked Hugo into letting us 'quickly' get cracking and get moving. Angry, as his shift ended at 1pm, and it was now 1245, he said, reluctanctly: Alright, quickly. I didn't mention that we were awaiting another flete from San Isidro, where we were inheriting for the year Emma and Ollie's beautiful furniture (Em's a designer) for the year. They're in India while Ollie writes his second book, storage is expensive, we get their groovy stuff: win win.

So we started moving boxes. Even the maestro actually carried a couple of things. The driver stood around doing fuck all, and, from what I could hear, slagging off me with Hugo.

After about an hour, we'd maybe only moved 10% of the stuff! Man you can fit a lot of crap into a flete. At this point, Hugo threw his toys again, realising that his weekend was going to start at about 6pm. Fair enough, he was fuming, and said enough's enough, pack up the flete, you're coming back on Monday, I've got a family to see, you're disturbing the guests...

So, after Katie, pregnant and smiling, talked him round, I called the school and made Julio agree to pay his overtime. Which Julio agreed to. I think he correctly registered my tone, and that if he didn't agree, I would kill him.

So, back to world's most stressful situation. I re-started carrying boxes and furniture past and increasingly angry and aggressive Hugo, who was standing in the foyer glaring at me as I walked passed, bitching with the driver.

About 5 minutes later, with Hugo calmed to the point of being only extremely angry, the unalmost forgotten and previously unmentioned San Telmo flete arrived with Emma's furniture.

It is hard to describe quite how mental our man Hugo went at this point.

Added to the mix was the San Telmo chauffeur, who was one of the biggest pricks I have ever met, and the worst type of greasy, untrustworthy Argentine 'pelotudo' you could ever meet.

We'd spoken to Emma, and the price agreed was $180 for the job. All in, stairs, carrying, waiting time, whatever... He got out the flete, saw a bit of tension, spoke to Hugo, walked up to me and said:

- Te explico... I got $180 for picking this stuff up... on a Saturday... I want another $180 before one thing leaves that van. And for anything that needs to go up the stairs, I want $10 per floor per piece of furniture.

There were 8 large pieces of furniture, and we are on the 12th floor. 120 x 8!! Just to move the furniture! The whole job was meant to be $200 inc tip.

At this point, the other chauffeur finally shows his face. He was in on this cut. Si, señor, that's the standard charge, You're not from here, that's the deal... $12/floor/piece... Nice of you to join us, I said.

Anyway, I figured: Agree to everything, promise whatever they come up with, get the furniture in, then negotiate.

Which is what we did. I sent the San Telmo guy away fuming, playing the dumb foreigner and saying - Oh, sorry, I thought your said $12/piece to my floor, not per floor... I would never have agreed to per floor... etc etc He didn't like his own game!

Outsourced all other bills to Julio, which as far as I know is where they still are, went upstairs, it was about 630pm, opened a litre bottle of Stella and drank myself into an early night.

Que dia...

La Mudanza, and Flete Culture

Moving house... I've never subscribed to the three most stressful things in life mantra: divorce, illness, moving house. I'd take any if those (well, as long as the illness was bad enough to keep me from work, but not bad enough to stop me playing sport) over booking flights online, filling out an insurance form or doing anything technical over the phone regarding a modem.

Or so I thought...

We moved the day before flying to New Zealand, Saturday December 19th. Our San Isidro flat was boxed up and ready to go, New Zealand clothes packed separately, Martinez flat ready to move in to. Arrival of furniture co ordinated from San Telmo from our wonderful and much missed friends Emma and Ollie, who were about to move to India so Ollie could write his follow up book to the excellent Viva)

Moving in his country is made easier and more difficult by Flete Culture.

Fletes can be booked as easily as taxis, charge around $150/hour ($50US/hr), and in spite of the variety of companies, families and van shaped, every single one is staffed by the same three following colourful characters: the chauffeur, the maestro, and the peon. Let me introduce you:

The chaufeur

Through sheer hard work avoidance, made his way through the ranks to the driver's seat, and there he shall remain throughout the mudanza. His physical shape reveals his aptitude for this sitting role, and the sweat that stains his t-shirt was worked up many years ago.

Cigarette smoke will be seen, football commmentary will be heard, but you will not see his face until he presents you with a bill. His time is well spent in the van inventing different ways to inflate the preagreed price, but more on that later.

The maestro

Looking like a cheap clone of the chauffuer, and displaying a spookily similar joy of the profession and physical condition, el maestro is resigned to his fate as number 2: his chain smoked cigarettes are stubbed out with tango-esque melancholy, like a prisoner marking time on a cell wall. His bitterness will be taken out on...

The peon

A third of the age of the two stooges, your peon, when not dropping boxes, can be spotted wearing a tracksuit and playing tinny reggaeton music from his cell phone next to you on a bus. In spite of being the most intelligent and articulate of the bunch, he will be quite spectaculary at his job. You name a skill needed, he won't have it. Often comes will an idiosyncratic method of carrying heavy things. Literal translation? The 'pawn'.

It follows that if you want to move house, you'll need a flete. However, if you actually want to move, as in move your things, you must do most of the hard yards yourself. Your peon should never and in no way be trusted to do anything more complex than move boxes around within the van, as he will prove capable of breaking anything.

It would seem that, so pitifully cheap are the hourly rates - $5 US/hr for the peon - profit must be gained through a number of simple but effective scams. These range of the sneaky to the blatant, but used effectively can turn a $130 pesos job into a monthly wage for a small family.

The most common are as follows:

1. Time travel: the clocks starts from pick up A to drop off B. By simply appling rule 3, and allowing for some 'time travel', an extra hour can be found in the day.

2. Steering. Between pick up A and drop off B, even if this distance is sometimes no more than a few blocks, steering of fletes is notoriously difficult, meaning that chauffeurs often get lost en route. Expect a call, questioning your poor directions. Oh, Martinez? I though you said 'Bolivia'.

3. Lying. I know nothing, absolutely nothing, about this so callled 'agreed price' you made with... who was it? My office, I don't even have an office. Listen, I'll explain how this works...

4. Weights and Measures. Generally, to carry furniture too big for the lift up the stairs has a charge of $12. Or is that $12/floor. Or is that $12/floor/person/piece of furniture, with additional charges for weight and/or hot weather?

5. No Reason At All Tax. A discretional 10-15% may be added to your bill by the chauffeur at the end of the day. Why? Well, for No Reason At All, of course...

Flete Culture. No you know.