“I started working at a used bookstore and fell in love with the place — it’s a temple, a sanctuary. The name Bookstore Movers is because [I’m] saving up to buy Capitol Hill Books when the owner retires. But working at a bookstore isn’t always as intellectually engaging as you might hope. You cannot be world-weary and having an existential crisis when you are carrying 100 boxes. I’ve never known someone to do a full 10-hour day of moving and be depressed. You have a very clear, tangible sense of what you’ve accomplished. You took one apartment full of stuff and emptied it. And then you filled a new one and helped people start a new chapter in their life.”
“We are right there in the epicenter of an already stressful situation. You’re there at the beginning of a new job or a breakup of a marriage or when someone is moving in with their partner. You see the kids in a divorce upset because they’ll never see the dog again. There are no right words there — you just try to be a comforting presence. You have to be the one thing going according to plan.”
