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Staring into the Crystal Ball.

© Mark Morrison

I have two sons, James and Sean. When old enough, they joined me at work in the summer. I always thought it would be a good for them to see how the family bread was earned. I also thought it would be enlightening for them to see me in a work scenario; how I was the same person they knew, with subtle differences. The interaction with diverse people, the hard physical labor, and the money they earned would all be positive additions to their growth as young men. James worked with me through high school, into college, and has moved on into his career specific workplace. Sean, the younger, has joined me again this summer, and as I write this is packing his bag for a trip to Texas that begins tomorrow.

I'm sure there are times they have hated working for their father. (I know I did.) But it is a common time we will all never forget, and will have stories shared only between us for many family reunions to come.

The point of this piece? Sean asked me the other day during a move if the industry had changed much. I said no, that as long as american culture and architecture predisposed us to live as we do, someone would always pull up out front, and move the "stuff" from old house to new. Oh, materials had changed, equipment had changed, home sizes had changed, but the basics were unchanged from the teamster era of post civil war.

Sean then had this "out of the box" thought: What if people had no need to move any more; if the definiton of work changed, and "work" was no longer a place outside the home. Would the moving industry be impacted?

Now, I know the internal problems the moving industry has and is facing. The inability to attract new people (and retain them), the shrinking margins, the changing cultural makeup of the workforce, the decade old deregulation that has splintered the industry, the lowered quality levels, the increasingly "static" market, etc,etc. It makes for a siege mentality, but did not address Sean's basic question: How will this industtry respond to exterior social changes, as the world turns? Would moving change much? I said yes, quite loudly, but much more than the moving indusry would be changed. Relocation changes that drastic would just be following radical social and cultural shifts.

I would be interested in what you , the reader, think about future changes,. How will this internet, this digital age, this movement out of the industrial age affect us? How will our home/ work parameters be changed? How will the moving industry be affected?

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