Coming soon · Book Profile
The Long Haul
A veteran long-haul mover recounts a lifetime hauling household goods across America, revealing the craft, hierarchy, and hidden humanity of a misunderstood trade.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
The Long Haul is Finn Murphy's vivid, wry memoir of decades spent as a 'bedbugger'—a long-haul furniture mover at the top of a game most people never think about. From his first bloody, disastrous day at Callahan Bros. to $250,000-a-year executive relocations for the ultra-rich, Murphy takes readers inside the truck cab, the cargo hold, and the living rooms of America. He demolishes the cowboy myth of trucking, exposes the class and racial dynamics of service work, and shows how loading a moving van is equal parts engineering, physical endurance, and psychology. Along the way he meets rebels, drifters, tyrants, and grieving families, learning that the real work of a mover is helping people navigate the emotional upheaval of moving. It's a book about labor, dignity, self-mastery, and finding meaning in work society disdains.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A reader curious about hidden trades and hard-won craft who wants to understand the real work behind ordinary services—and how a person finds dignity and mastery in disdained labor.
- The problem
- People misunderstand and dismiss the skilled, grueling work of long-haul moving and the subculture that performs it. They feel disconnected from the meaning of work, unsure what it takes to truly master a craft or hold to one's own standards.
- The plan
- Ride along to see the actual work—loading tiers, packing, driving mountain passes.
- Drop the myths and the ego and learn what real skill and self-reliance look like.
- Treat people—shippers and helpers alike—with respect and shared humanity.
- Hold to your own standards regardless of pressure, and own your mistakes.
- Value connections over possessions and find meaning in helping others navigate change.
- The payoff
- A richer understanding of hidden labor and craft mastery. · Greater empathy for service workers and less attachment to mere stuff. · A model for self-reliance, calm competence, and living by one's own standards.
See our guide
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Additional reading
- Traffic Safety and the Driver · Leonard Evans
The author's previous 1991 book on the topic. The current book is presented as a successor that builds on the earlier work but places more focus on safety policy and includes new research.
- Vested Outsourcing: Five Rules that Will Transform Outsourcing · Kate Vitasek
The book's chapter on outsourcing is co-authored by Vitasek and is built entirely around her 'Vested' model. It is presented as the future of outsourcing, advocating for a shift from transactional, cost-based relationships to collaborative, outcome-based partnerships that create shared value.
- World Class Warehousing and Material Handling · Edward H. Frazelle
Frazelle is cited for establishing key operational rules of thumb and metrics discussed in the book, such as the principle that warehouse productivity and safety decline exponentially once storage occupancy exceeds a critical threshold (around 86%).
- The Balanced Scorecard · Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton
The book recommends the Balanced Scorecard as a key framework for performance management. It explains how this model helps managers measure performance across multiple perspectives (financial, customer, internal processes, and learning/growth) to align warehouse activities with broader company strategy.
- Auditing Warehouse Performance · Kenneth B. Ackerman
Ackerman is cited for his work on performance measurement and warehouse audits. The book's recommendation to measure reliability, flexibility, cost, and asset utilization aligns with Ackerman's frameworks for evaluating warehouse effectiveness.
- High Output Management · Andrew S. Grove
Written by the 'father of OKRs,' this book is cited as the leadership bible that details the management philosophy from which the OKR system originated at Intel.
- How Google Works · Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg
Provides an insider's view on how Google uses OKRs to institutionalize its 'think big' ethos and manage its innovative culture at scale.
- Work Rules! · Laszlo Bock
Written by Google's former head of People Operations, it offers insights into how goal-setting and data-driven HR practices create a high-performance workplace.
- Good to Great · Jim Collins
The concept of 'Big Hairy Audacious Goals' (BHAGs) is presented as a direct parallel to aspirational or 'stretch' OKRs.
- The Practice of Management · Peter Drucker
This book introduced 'Management by Objectives' (MBOs), the system that Andy Grove adapted and evolved into OKRs.