Don't drink the Kool-aid

Jeremy uses this phrase a lot. He keeps saying he "doesn't drink the Kool-aid". I assume that means kind of following along with things without thinking for yourself and believing what people tell you. Well, I just read an article in the post paper talking about how they have automated things for moves and DITY moves are now PPMs or something like that. The article mentioned not having to do paperwork, etc. and don't you believe it! Don't drink the kool-aid of this article! :-) The military LOVES paperwork and you better make sure you have some before you do any kind of move. We came really close to a disaster during our recent move but thanks to my husband not trusting people and double checking things, we were saved from losing thousands of dollars. We gave ourselves 3 solid days with a 26 foot Uhaul truck to make this move on post. We were told we'd make money moving on post because there was no adequate housing available when we moved here. We were told we were good, go ahead and move. So we spent the first day (in the middle of a thunderstorm too) trying to move the first load. To make money, you have to weigh all your goods and at our rank we are allowed 18,000 lbs. for in town moving and 13,000 for a true PCS. Luckily we have a ton of junk and some of it including food storage is extraordinarily heavy so we were pretty sure we could at least hit 15,000. The more weight you move, the more money you make up to the limits allowed. We didn't make much progress the first day--people from work kept calling my husband, and the terrible storm nearly halted everything. We didn't want much outside help either, knowing we were going to make some good money and that doesn't seem fair. But we managed to get the first truck loaded, weighed, unloaded, and reloaded and we stopped for the day. The next morning, my husband gets it in his head that he needs to go to Transportation. Just one of those impressions I guess (probably cause he doesn't drink the Kool-aid). He goes in and finds out there is a piece of paper we need BEFORE we weigh anything or we get no credit for it. The poor guy in front of Jer had just finished a full move and was told he would get NOTHING unless he reloaded a truck and reweighed it, etc. So of course it takes until nearly 4pm this day to get this paper in the which NOTHING could be done. We were told the way to solve the lost truck weight was to weigh the same load twice and luckily this worked out perfectly with the weight being equal to what we lost but we had to leave time in between the weighings or it wouldn't have been believable. So we weighed the second load Friday night and again Sat. morning. In the meantime, not much is getting done and now our 3 day plan is down to 1 and we all have to speak Sunday and we are having problems with the new Comcast, not Charter internet. Anyway, in the end we ended up just short of 18,000 lbs. which means we made a decent bit of money and thank goodness because we are going through it like water. So it was late Saturday night, we still couldn't get the internet to work anywhere but in our bedroom closet on the ate-up laptop and so me, Nick and Jr. take turns doing our talks in the closet and then of course the printer eats all the paper and jams up so bad we can't use it, but who cares--it had no ink anyway! The boys are wondering why we don't just call Bro. Holman and beg for mercy to speak the following week but I think it's important to show the kids you do what you said you'll do if it's at all possible. Jer printed up the talks at work the next morning and finishes his by hand and I was so exhausted from the past 3 days, I wasn't even nervous. Not that this has anything to do with this post but I just want to remember that day. Anyway, I just had to post about this for anyone we may know that is new to the Army, and unfamiliar with the way the military works. If you ever hear you don't need any paperwork--don't drink the Kool-aid!