The Man's Message
Established 2003 | "Tetritus fortis sine gym"
Friday, May 17, 2024
Movers of the Moment
When it comes to moving house, you want the best in business by your side. Enter the two most recent recipients of the Gold Liftie, Eliot Mireylees and Anthony Perry.
Over the last fortnight, these two stalwarts have extended themselves with deft insight, hard work, and efficient communication to make the transition into Nelson Street life as smooth as it could possibly be. You have ensured the depot walls haven't been rammed, found better systems for equipment and traffic control and have stopped Richie turning grey. Thank you so much.
Jack Tandy is seeking you out in order to reward you appropriately.
We need to do better
“Being an almost entirely male-dominated company I think right now is a really important time for us to be talking with each other about the epidemic of male violence. I’d like to think that we hold ourselves and each other accountable if someone says something out of line about women, but this especially needs to be the case right now.
So far in 2024, a woman is murdered every 4 days, often at the hands of an intimate partner. 1 in 5 women over the age of 15 have experienced sexual violence. In the last few weeks I personally have heard anecdotes from friends and acquaintances of a noticeable increase in intimidating and predatory behaviour from strangers towards women, queer people, and gender non-conforming people.
You may not think that this is you or anyone you would be associated with, but odds are with the amount of men employed here it would certainly be some of the people we work with. And that’s why it’s important to be talking with one another and questioning ourselves over our behaviour towards and our respect shown to women.
If someone you’re working with says something out of line, whether as their idea of a “joke” or expresses a view that is misogynistic, I urge you to call it out, or at least question them, “Why do you think or believe that? Why do you find that funny?“. Even more important is if the person you’re working with is a bit younger - don’t let them think that misogynistic attitudes or jokes that they carried through high school are okay in the real world (or anywhere). Show them the right way.
Man With A Van is most likely the biggest network of men in our lives, we have well over 100 staff here and the onus is on us to have these conversations with one another. Just as important is holding these conversations with the men in our personal lives, our family, friends et cetera.
I’d also encourage you to check in with the women in your life, how do they feel right now? Do you know what some of their experiences have been with misogyny and male violence? Is there anything you can learn from them on how you can make women feel more safe? Are there things that you’ve done in the past or continue to do that make women feel unsafe? Men’s violence is a men’s issue. We need to do better.” - Henry Osborne
Abbotsford Stretch Club
Now that the gym is back up and running, Coach Driz is continuing to run free stretch club classes every Thursday morning 7 - 8am in the Abbotsford Depot.
This is an excellent initiative to improve awareness of your body's strengths and limitations. Come down, join in and breath into your core.
The Gym is open
You are also free to use the gym anytime inside or outside of Stretch Club. Extra mats have been ordered to increase the space. WARNING - If you're over 6ft, please be mindful of the low ceiling when lifting overhead.
Bike Racks
The bike racks have been relocated to fit more bicycles, skateboards, tech decks, and e-scooters whilst opening the walkway to make it a safer journey to your trucks.
Parking Pain
We are now forbidden from parking in the alley behind the Abbotsford depot in the bit that looks just like a car park. Yarra City Council are onto it and will stop at nothing to achieve total compliance.
Health & Safety Representative
A new HSR is needed to work alongside our existing Abbotsford HSR Anthony Perry. Congratulations and thank you to Lance Gannon, Oscar Paterson, and Thom Lidgerwood for making the brave leap forward by nominating themselves last week.
Health and Safety is important and having a representative to act as a go-between to ensure positive action is a must.
The Transport Workers Union are keen to run the election so we will watch this space and wait with bated breath for the imminent victor. More details to follow in the coming days.
The Vibe
The numbers are a little skewed this issue as our email survey system went down temporarily during the depot move. Still, a win's a win, huge turnout on the vibe, great stuff everyone.
The Damage
Damage Reports Submitted - 13
Claims Without Damage Reports - 2
Overall damage numbers eerily remain exactly the same as last issue. The stats were great last issue and they're still great this issue. Nicely done team.
Suggestion Box
Suggestion: Howdy venerable scribe, long time reader, first time writer - recently it has felt like customers have been testing the limits of our customer service skills by adding things to the pack that were simply not on the item list. Now this has always been the case with smaller things (a pot plant, a lamp, some books etc) but lately I’ve done a few jobs where the customer has kept heaping stuff on that has almost doubled the total quantity of items, I’m talking exercise bikes, shelving units and a whole lot of random unboxed/unstackable loose crap. I get that moving is of course stressful and we can forget things until they come up, but could you suggest tips on how we as Masters of the Pack™ can better hold customers accountable for their lack of organisation and prepping, whilst managing their sense of entitlement and potential adverse reaction upon saying no to adding “just one more thing” to the truck?
Response: A ha! Welcome long time reader first time yadiyada. And what a great opening question too. A scenario-based question (the 2nd best type of question*) for the ages, with an answer almost as old as moving itself. And one that has almost as many solutions as ways to swing a cat.
(*a rhetorical question, of course!)
So let's start with the classics, the “So you’ve got a bit more stuff than we expected” routine. Goes a little something like this:
“Great, can we do a walk through the property, and I’ll get you to show us everything you’d like us to move today. I’ve got the item list here (points to iPhone with flat battery), so we’ve got a bit of an idea about what’s happening” (Customer proceeds to wander aimlessly but stressfully though their property, helpfully indicating all the items not going, all muddled up with the ones that are)
“Ok, that seems like a pretty comprehensive list. There are quite a few more items than we expected, including the exercise bikes, shelving units, extra boxes and bags. Now, we’ve only allowed (insert ridiculously short amount of time) to complete this job, but with the extra items you need moved its quite likely to take a bit longer. We’ve also got another job we need to get to by (insert very soon time), so there’s a chance we may not be able to do everything. However, we’re going to do our best. I’m going to give my office a call and see what we can arrange.” [Take out dead iPhone, pretend to make a call to “thosz office dogz”]
“Look, I’ve spoken to the office and let them know that this job is quite a bit bigger than we expected. We think we can get it all done today, but I expect that the job is going to take more like [insert new estimated time plus one hour] and probably cost more like [current price + $1m]. Let me know if you’d like us to do everything, or just focus on the items on your original booking list THAT YOU DISCUSSED WITH OUR OFFICE AND YOU PROMISED THAT WAS EVERYTHING BUT IT CLEARLY WASN’T AND YOU LIED, JACK, YOU LIED.” [close up to mover’s face, slow zoom on mover’s eyes. Camera fade to black ]aaand there you have it, folks. Customer Service 101 MWAV-Style. Guaranteed to work first time, every time.
BUT, you ask, as you should, BUT, what about my last question? The one hidden sneakily at the end of my first paragraph-question? What then? Aha! Good try. Got you covered. This one’s a bit more technical, but I can tell by the grammar and the use of an “s” in “organisation” that you’re likely a pre-Y2k mover (gosh, we’re a dying breed!). So I’ve got a bit more of a technical answer coming your way.
A: Give. Fair. Warning. Many parents swear by a warning system to get tots to move from place to place, try a 5 or 10 minute countdown. (Source: Toddler tip of the day). Same thing goes with your toddler customer. Goes a little sumthin like this…
“Hey, Jack! Look we’re coming up towards full shortly (gestures towards half empty truck with offsider idly folding blankets incorrectly), and I can see there are still a few items we need to get into the truck. I reckon we’ve got room for the [insert one whitegood, one lounge area item] and a couple of those bag-boxes you’ve got parked in the hallway”.
[10 minutes later, cue mover] “Hey mate, as I mentioned earlier, we’re close to being done here. We might need you to show us the key items you definitely have to have at the new place. I can probably fit that mattress if I jam it up against the bbq, but then we’re pretty much full” (waves again at gaping, unfilled truck)
[5 minutes later, as per TTOTD]
“OK, so that’s pretty much done. Are you ok to take the tramp, the water fountain and the triple bunks? Great! We’ll pop the last of those boxes in the top here, and then wrap it up. “Sorry?” “Yep, I can fit the broom handle, but probably not the broom head”. “Nah”. “Nup, oaaar, yeah, nah, ok, we can get that reception desk, then that’s prolly it, yeah?”
[finish off next 90 minutes of moving as expected].
If you have an idea to make MWAV a better place to work, write a completely anonymous suggestion at tinyurl.com/mwavanon
Gig Guide
No gigs this fortnight.
If you would like to promote your event to the MWAV masses send your details to managers@manwithavan.com.au