U-Haul, Your Moving Adventure

I've worked for U-Haul longer than any other employer in my life. Starting at a Center up in Portland, within a year I was runing the place and knew the many facets to the Company. One of the deciding factors in my move back to Arcata was the simplicity in getting a job. So now I work for the Gas 4 Less / Arcata Uhaul dealer.

U-Haul has been around for over 60 years. Starting out of his father-in-law's garage, L.S. Shoen built the first fleet of Uhaul trailers and franchised them out to local gas stations for in-town rentals. Slowly he built his empire, sending customers one-way to their destination with a free trailer in exchange for attempting to set up new dealers out-of-state. Within a few years he had indepedant dealers from Portland, Oregon all the way to Portland, Maine.

L.S. Shoen also had a complicated family life, including getting married six different times (twice to the same woman) and having a total of 13 children. UHaul was his legacy to give to his children, intrusting them all with certain percentages of the Company. In the end he left himself less than 3% control when his two middle-aged sons, Mark and Edward "Joe", manipulated the rest of the family in turning control over to them.

When Mark and Joe took over, their first order of business was to strip their father of all retirement and health benefits. They then split the shares in such a way as to cut off the rest of their siblings from voting control. After hiring their college frat buddies, Joe named himself CEO and Chairman of the Board, while Mark retained Vice-President status.

L.S. reunited the rest of his children in attempt to wrestle control of his company back from his sons. When that failed, they attempted litigation. After years in court, the Judge finally decreed that Joe Shoen had acted with malice and awarded the rest of the family over $1 billion in damages to be paid by Uhaul, Mark and Joe, and the Uhaul holding company of Amerco. This caused the Amerco bankruptcy in the late 90s, although Uhaul did come out intact.

A simple blog entry cannot do justice to the amazing story of greed, intimidation, and murder of Mark and especially Joe Shoen on their way into power. And yes, I did throw murder in there, but a transient was convicted of the crimes. As much as I hate my "boss" Joe Shoen, I have to give him credit for a few things, most notably to be a good businessman you have to be cut-throat and unflinching.

A couple times he was planning to come and visit the centers I had been working at, but after finding out so much dirt about our CEO I specifically reqeusted the days off. I'd just read an unflattering portrait of my boss, one of the richest and most corrupt businessman in modern times, and now I'm supposed to suck up to him and kiss his ass? No, I don't think so. If anything, I was going to ask him if he really was going to kill "the Bitch" stepmom that one night he waited in the shadows of her bedroom with a handgun. Or maybe about the time that him and Harry deShong blackmailed a former co-worker at gunpoint in front of his family.

Not to say you shouldn't use Uhaul, after all they are the cheapest and most convenient of all the DIY-movers. Many people have bad experiences with them, most regarding falty equipment, poor customer service, or unhonored reservations. These I won't defend.

I really shouldn't've started this blog about Uhaul, cuz theres so much more to write but laziness on my part means I won't ever finish it. So, oh well...