Probably a bit presumptious of me having been here only five minutes creating a new thread, but here goes…
There’s a few threads on specific companies and one or two on wagons (e.g. the Vanplan) but none where those of us who survived doing removals for any length of time can swap (tall) stories. [note to moderators - feel free to merge if there is one]
I am absolutely sure there are some stories out there so here’s somewhere to put them.
I’ll kick off with a few comments about the job, which let’s face it almost everyone here would have been a part of (if only unwillingly), some may even have been paid to do it.
Dislikes - Hot weather. Stairs you can’t fit a carboard box through without skinning your knuckles. Pianos. Customers who pack their own boxes and fill a tea chest sized box with books (Me to them: “Can you lift that?” Them: “No.” Me: “So how do you expect me to?”). 6th floor flats with broken lifts, or no lifts at all. Rubbish packing tape that won’t stick or won’t hold (lift box, watch contents - usually fragile - hit floor). ■■■■■ MFI/ IKEA chipboard or MDF furniture that seems solid enough when you pick it up but falls apart on the stairs or just as you’re passing the customer (we used to call this rubbish “suppository furniture - you put it up yourself 
). That dreadful sinking feeling when you’re almost buttoned up and about to close the doors (the lorry is almost full anyway) when the customer comes out and says “Oh, there’s just one or two items in the shed…” (usually consisting of 3 wheelbarrows, a greasy BBQ in 7 pieces, 19,426 plastic pots part full of soil, a 6’ x 4’ bird cage with dead rat, a 1:10 scale model railway of the entire Western Region and dad’s well-thumbed collection of gentleman’s magazines)
. Estimators who couldn’t estimate what day it is - “It’s only 900 cube, you’ll be done by 1.00” they say and you get there and it’s filled a 1600 cube wagon and you’ve still got the shed to tackle and it’s 2.30 and you haven’t had morning tea let alone lunch and it’s a 2-hour schlepp across town to where you’re dropping off. Estimators who forget to mention that the flat is on the 4th floor, or the house is down a residential side street with 6’6” barriers both ends. Finding the street where you’re picking up or dropping off has cars nose to tail all down both sides so even if you can get the wagon down there you still have to try lifting the fridge over someone else’s car (we occasionally failed 
spectacularly). Realising some people (irrespective of income or status) live in conditions the RSPCA would prosecute you for if you put your dog in them 
. People who redecorate the inside the week before they move. 
And don’t start me on some of the things you find in, under or behind wardrobes, under beds, or the array of lifeforms found in fridges that are unknown to science…
Likes - getting the last box/ chair/ 16cwt worth of shredded chipboard that was once a wardrobe off the wagon. Tips (some folk could be very generous. Usually the ones with least themselves). Meeting and getting to know people you wouldn’t in the ordinary course of life. Tea (lots of it). Laughs (working with good blokes on your team took much of the grind out of a day). The odd job that looked a nightmare on paper but turned out easy. Customers going out of their way to help. Picking a good agency porter (hint - don’t pick the ones that look like they work out for the sake of big muscles, pick the skinny runt cos he’ll still be going after 10 hours whereas the big boofheads will have thrown in the towel before monrning tea). And being part of a club on the road - you could almost guarantee the crew of another removals company going the other way would always wave as you passed. And last, being able to solve a giant 3-D jigsaw puzzle in your head as you walk round the house for the first time figuring out what items went first/ middle/ last.
Anyone else?
. Glad you got the lorry righted and back home. And cookers! Don’t start me on cookers. It didn’t matter how clean the rest of the hosue was the cooker was guaranteed to be filthy. Yes we had trolleys but you still had to ge the infernal thing on it. We used wadded newspaper but even then you’d lose your grip, go to grab it again and cut your finger on the bottom edge, handily testing your immune system by rubbing in 10 years’ worth of cack.
Loved the Peripherique, and driving an 18 metre A-Frame draw bar around the Arc de Triumph at rush hour is great fun 
