The onset of the great recession sent an urgency of doing something different than packing and moving people. We had a contract with a major moving company in the Washington DC, Northern Va region. For most of the summer we choked on work. It was great if you didn't mind getting up at 4 am every morning, sitting in 2 hours of traffic, packing homes, (in many cases we were used as maids instead of professional packers), and then the two hour trip home. Just to get up and do it all over again. Lots of long hours but the pay was really good. So hard work never killed anyone.
Then the war started. We spent many months packing peoples homes, finding out they were being sent over seas, their household goods going into storage. For a short time we were so busy we couldn't stand it. But there was soon to be a downside to what we were doing. As the war in Iraq really started picking up speed, the economy in the US started taking a major downturn. The housing market crashed, compounding an already shaky economy.
One woman stated she didn't understand how all this could effect our business. Military packs were about 60% of our business, the rest made up of people moving to their own new homes. Well with most of the military in another country, and those in this country basically barred from new homes, our source of income didn't just dry up, work became like the great dust bowl.
When one is faced with a major change in life, you can choose to sit and cry, or you can dig deep inside and see what your made of. Me, I've never had the option to sit and cry about life. Most of my life required me to suck it up and get on with it. Taking stock in our options, Jill and I realized we had two major asset, a cargo van and a computer. Absolutely no money.
Driven by panic and pride the quest was on to find a new way to make a living. Between the two of us we spent days pecking around online trying to find a way to put our meager assets to work. Then we found it. All over this bid board. Very few seemed to be this area. Pets, hardly anyone was bidding on the pets. What an opportunity? How hard can it be to move pets? Now in hindsight man we're were so naive.
So we pushed ahead, we bid on a few pets to go to Florida and back up the coast. I think we took one down and brought back three little pets, two small dogs and a cat. We were driving this huge extended cargo van with three little crates in the back. OMG! did we think we were the bees knees.
That feeling was short lived. We were driving into the cities and spending three hours finding the house. GPS at that time was expensive and NOT something we owned. Fuel was screaming to new highs. The first cat we picked up, Jill came out of the house dripping in blood. But she had the crate, cat in it. I didn't know whether to be horrified or laugh as she described the scene of capturing and crating the cat.
There we were pretending to be professional, it was obvious we so were not. We did all four jobs for almost no money. I think we actually lost money our first two trips out. Two things soon became apparent we loved it, but it was going to stretch our emotions to the very limits. Awsome visions of walking cute little dogs, playing with kitty cats, and seeing the country while doing such a cool job would soon be blown right out of the water.
http://www.preciouspetstransport.com
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