In 1978, a young man named Mike Shanks started a moving business in the north end of Seattle. It was just him and a truck — a pretty small operation. Things were going great. Then one afternoon, he was pulled over and cited for moving without a permit. The investigators who cited him were part of a special unit tasked with enforcing utilities and transportation regulations. Mike calls them the furniture police. To legally be a mover, Mike needed a license. Otherwise, he'd face fines — and even potentially jail time. But soon he'd learn that getting that license was nearly impossible. Mike is the kind of guy who just can't back down from a fight. This run-in with the law would set him on a decade-long crusade against Washington's furniture moving industry, the furniture police, and the regulations themselves. It would turn him into a notorious semi-celebrity, bring him to courtrooms across the state, lead him to change his legal name to 'Mike The Mover,' and send him into the furthest depths of Washington's industrial regulations. The fight was personal. But it drew Mike into a much larger battle, too: An economic battle about regulation, and who it's supposed to protect. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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You know how back in the day, people used to take last names based on their professions?
All the time.
You had the brewers, the bakers, the Masons, a lot of smiths.
The other day, we met the modern equivalent.
All right, so, Mike, sorry, mover.
I don't know how I refer to you.
Move, or my mother even called me mover at birth.
She named him Michael Patrick Shanks.
But now hes, yeah, hes a mover, and everyone calls him mover.
Its his legal last name.
He showed us his drivers license.
Thats m o V, as in Victor.
E r.
Mover, as in mover.
Mover.
Mike started a moving business in Seattle in the late 1970s, and one day in 1987, he had an encounter that would change his life.
Mike and another guy spent the morning hauling furniture in boxes down flights of stairs, loading their trucks, and then they headed to the customer's new place.
On the way, they stopped for lunch at the burger joint.
As we were pulling into the parking lot, I noticed there was an unmarked car behind me with reds and blues flashing in the windshield.