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I've read that the disposable packaging is actually reused/recycled so it may not be so wasteful. Tablets can be a pain to use, I agree. If the software is stable and with good/simple UI, I'd say the benefits (syncing/automatic plan generation/auditing/inventory) outweigh the inconveniences. As for the wall protectors, I'd say those are also filling the role of giving homeowners peace of mind. Sure I'd appreciate the ding in the wall getting patched (are you going to match the paint exactly as well?), but I'd prefer avoiding any scratch or ding all-together. Can't say too much about the number of people they have, perhaps their methodology is to do more work in parallel to increase their throughput.

Thanks for your reply. I agree it's easy to judge unfairly from a few-minute video. I do wish I could have sat in a corner the whole day judging instead :)

We had to do the peace of mind thing a few times with certain clients. We would just roll our eyes and bump the bill. One client one time asked the lead that day if we could all bring in chairs one at a time to avoid scraping a narrow door frame, instead of a perfectly safe two-chair carry technique he just saw me execute but understandably looked a little risky. As he was asking the lead he must have sensed something cause he quickly turned around and caught me making a face. He made a point of giving everyone a big tip in private that day except me.

I can sorta understand him - at a certain level of income and value (monetary or otherwise) of the furniture your increased wage might have been trivial compared to even a slight reduction in the risk of damage.

I used to work as a stagehand for one of the major event companies (mostly big name concerts) before I started my professional career. Not the same as moving obviously, but can definitely relate to your description of an infinitely variable 3D Tetris. It was also great fun, you got to see lots of great concerts for free, meet a lot of cool people (sorry Lenny Kravitz for that time I ran into you with my bike!) and a fair bit of running around and lifting meant a decent workout as well. It was dirty, sweaty, didn't pay much, and the hours were terrible at times. I think my worst (in terms of hours) weekend was coming in on Friday early afternoon, and leaving again right around midnight Saturday. We did get breaks of course but I had a two hour commute at the time so if I'd gone home in between packing up one show and unpacking another I would've slept for only four hours or so. I ended up sleeping on some old carpet rolls in the catacombs under the arena. It wasn't comfortable and I wouldn't do it today, but man I had fun doing that stuff back then. Only did it for about a year and it was hard work, but still kinda miss it.

Say, I wonder if, for a moving company, there's a niche software product for entering in a count of boxes of various sizes and getting back an optimal stacking plan. I suspect not, since experienced employees already seem quite good at using most of the space, so the gains would likely be minimal.

Cat algorithm: If I fits, I sits. (That is packing estimated by volume). It's not an easy problem, and some of the closest approximations we've come up with involve ... well, lots of virtual cats in virtual boxes.

It’s not as simple as just volume though, it’s also about weight distribution and the order in which the various bits are needed etc. Trusses are packed last, so they can be unpacked and built first; instruments and costumes are packed first. Typically things are also packed into different designated trucks because some things really can’t be lost (one of a kind instruments for instance) whereas others are more easily replaced (lights, trusses, amps, etc.)

Before a tour is initiated, experienced tour managers and roadies will work out plans and schedules for all theses things. My first gig as a stage hand was working a Destiny’s Child concert. The way I got the job is I was at a concert the weekend before, saw the stage hands and roadies working and though “that seems fun” so he next day I called the event company that managed it all. They gave me the number for the manager of all major events, who said I could come in the following day. I figured for an interview, but he meant to work. I signed some papers, got a 30 min or so rundown of what I was going to do and who was to be my primary contact for assistance, and then I was given a schedule and detailed instructions. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing walking into it, but at the end of the night as we were tearing everything down and packing it up for the next stop on the tour, I realized not once had I stopped to wonder what the hell I was supposed to do. It was the most well oiled operation I’ve ever seen, and his goes for all the major events I worked – particularly the American shows were stringent beyond belief. There was never a doubt as to what had to be done, and when. Roles were clear, assignments were handed out and schematics of everything were available. Everything was marked with colors, letters, and numbers and there was a legend you had to memorize before things came in. There was always a system so you could tell what part goes into which box and into which truck and in what order. All of this was prepared long before a tour started, nothing happened Just In Time, it’s pretty much all AOT. (Except for a few artist rider requirements, like Ozzy Osborne requiring something like 20 bars of moisturizing hand soap.)

I’d say if there’s a program to be written that compiles these packing manifests, schedules, and instructions, it’s a constraints solver. It’s all prepared ahead of time, and honestly most of the job anyway is figuring out all those constraints in the first place. The actual compilation isn’t that tricky, it mostly comes down to experience and a bit of trial and error – i.e. is this thing gonna fit there if we also put that there, and will they move when on a bumpy road or on a flight?

I honestly think it’s one of those few jobs that aren’t really helped much by technology, but mostly by experience. I mostly worked shows that had already been planned, but did a few sessions with managers that tried to work out how to pack the show. Those were mostly a waiting game to see what the current plan was, test it and then evaluate. Testing meant packing up a show, and then unpacking and building it back up. It was timed, and we noted things that were trickier than they had to be. If there ever was an issue where you thought “they’ll figure it out on the road” or “it’s someone else’s problem” you knew to flag it, and then they had to reconsider and they did. I have heard horror stories of bad managers, but I always worked with good ones that took the time to listen and care to fix things. In the end, a minute aged is a minute earned, and venues and workers are expensive so tours really wants things to be as efficient as possible.

Speaking about the theatrical and rock concert industry...

In some ways the cases are standardized around being a quarter, third or half the width of a semi trailer inside width in some dimensions. So once its in a case its usually okay.

Typically the cases are packed in layers based on depth and with, so if you have a set of thirds cases, they will go in a layer, if you have a cases with some odd depth, they will tend to go together. The weight of things is taken into account as well, heavy stuff tends to get packed towards the sides, near load bars (metal bars that keep the load from shifting) or the front sometimes. There are sometimes considerations for how it gets from the truck to the ground, because sometimes you get somewhere and theres no dock, or your in a smaller truck with a gate. So forklifing things is common.

What goes into each case is a complicated subject. Some cases are just full of all cables of some type, or full of lights or speakers. Sometimes a case will be built around being a kit for something, or around "this is everything that goes to Greenroom x". And you have an assortment of special cases, TVs, stuff like that.

You also sometimes have to consider who opens and sets up whats in a case, so rigging gear will need to be kept separate from audio gear, since those may be setup by different teams or different unions, even if that gear goes together when the show is setup.

Odd sized cases and loose stuff is often packed on top or "rides on top" of larger roadcases in the truck. Often this stuff is moved from the truck onto cases before its moved into the building, since pushing a case with some extras on top is not as hard as carrying the stuff all the way in. Sometimes carts are used, not as often as I would have hoped.

In many venues the people who move the cases from the show area (arena floor, stage, etc) are a separate team or separate union. If you start out in IATSE, the stagehands union in the US and Canada, you will often start by pushing boxes and generally doing physical work.

But at the end of the day the truck is loaded by weight, so theres often tons of volume left over when the truck is "full" as its now at its max weight.

This is apparently a larger company. While the software may help, I suspect that it still relies heavily on the expertise of the agent. Japanese do enjoy the exactness that comes from computer software and this may also help with inventory management and making sure the correct number of boxes are always available in the warehouse. Again these are logistics issues larger companies would run into that smaller companies wouldn't necessarily run into.

I used to work as a stagehand for one of the major event companies

ex-lampie here, good to see I am not the only one. I went in IT to have better working hours and less stress, that was a rude surprise.

Hah, I hear ya buddy! :o)

My hours are better these days, but man the stress...

That was a super neat read, thanks.

It also reminded me of a weird life moment for me. I was moving once, and I was watching the senior moving guy dictating how the boxes should be arranged in the truck, and I said "wow, you must be amazing at Tetris," and he replied, "you know, everyone tells me that. What the hell is Tetris?"

Funny, I moved furniture at a warehouse for about 3 years from 2001-2003 and it was by far the worst job I've ever had (by an order of magnitude) but, it made me who I am today. This is basically what I did (step 6 is comedy gold):

https://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Lumper

The sheer brutality of doing something you don't really want to do, for up to 9 or 10 hours a day, sometimes 6 or 7 days a week, causes physiological changes in the body. For example, by the end of it (something like 500 moves) I was completely flat-footed (my arches fully recovered eventually) and no longer distinguished between hot or cold weather. A 110 degree day didn't really feel any different than a 10 degree day, I just wore different layers. I could pick up an overstuffed chair and haul it up several flights of stairs, but felt a tremendous indignation if I had to bend over to pick up a stuffed animal.

For a while I came up with what felt like one new invention a day that would alleviate much of the physical labor and danger from the job. Pretty much everyone just scoffed at them though, because moving furniture is generally a job you walk on to, not a job that you improve or automate.

So this video was very refreshing to me, to see some of the most basic techniques, like padding the entryway to prevent damage, actually being applied.

Japanese apartments are a tighter fit than you'd find in most US homes and apartments. The guys are careful, but that wall protection is there often to allow for intentional rubbing on the way in and out. I really appreciated that attention to detail.

Edit: also remembered, some of the protection is also noise abatement for the neighbors. Soft padding to absorb the noise.

Edit edit: also notice the moving guys aren't wearing their shoes inside. They are taking them off upon entry, carrying stuff (sometimes really heavy stuff) and putting their shoes back on when removing stuff. That's the part that shocked me.

>also notice the moving guys aren't wearing their shoes inside. They are taking them off upon entry, carrying stuff (sometimes really heavy stuff) and putting their shoes back on when removing stuff. That's the part that shocked me.

I've worked granite installation. Some customers demanded we take off our shoes. It's terrifying carrying a piece of stone with someone that weighs several hundred pounds with nothing but socks on. It's also fun trying to get your shoes off while holding said piece of stone. Normally, we'd put it down on the steel toes if we neesed to. Can't do that while you're taking your shoes off. I hated those customers.

The difference is that the Japanese guys are doing this without being asked. Removing shoes on entry is just the way it is done, regardless of the task apparently.

Yup we worked in a bunch of old colonials and attics and other ridiculous tight spaces that could compete I think. Also count the fact that American housing might be bigger, but so is all our stuff! There were a few times where a whole team of experienced guys could not for the life us figure out how a piece of furniture got into a room or how to get it back out.

The difference is that we would pad up the furniture itself if need be before humping it out, rather than the walls. We'd always eventually pad up the furniture but it's easier to do it on the truck. There are also techniques for literally using your fingers/hands/arms as padding between the wall and the piece you're moving. You can also always have a third guy holding some cardboard or padding against a wall or doorframe too for a tight squeeze. I didn't consider the cultural differences with the noise or shoes though, thanks for that!

Nice. I love the contrast you provide. Both approaches are optimizing for two different things - the way the methodology evolves around those ideals is interesting!

All their "priceless" stuff

Lovely attitude for someone handling other peoples' belongings.

You may have skipped over the word "professional" without pause. It doesn't have much meaning nowadays so I don't blame you. Attitude has nothing to do with getting the job done as if it were my own belongings. As long as I'm getting paid that is! And hopes for a good tip didn't hurt either. :)

>Best job I ever had, lots of skill involved.

The neighbor across the street from my wife's parents was a mover. That job requires a mastery of physics and geometry, the strength of a weightlifter, and the endurance of a marathoner.