Dear Transportation Industry: I Fucking Hate You

I've been in sales now over 3 years. I've worked hard, I make more volumes of calls than my peers, I've gained insight and skills from the successful people around me, and I've always been service and relationship-focused. Through developing long-term friendships with clients I've been tought is the path to long-term success and an easier workload and lifestyle.

Unfortunately, that does not apply in some industries, particularly the Transportation (Trucking, Logistics, Shipping) Industry. I now know why my Dad was in such a bad mood when he got home from work, which is why I did everything I could to avoid him. I would never in my life recommend anyone to work in this industry. Here is why:

1. Sales has never been a glamorous or well-respected position, but being a brokerage in this industry is basically the bottom feeder and considered to be very undeserving of respect by all other entities involved in the shipping process
2. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong
3. Everyone is a moron. Literally. Most people do not have any type of college education, let alone a large percentage barely speak the English Language. Truckers, dispatchers, customers, warehouse people....morons, all of 'em.
4. No one works in this industry because they want to.
5. Sales in this industry really isn't even sales
6. There is no loyalty, no relationships that can't go completely sour with one shipment.
7. Completely unprofessional, customers swear at you, you're expected to swear at customers, no respect for co-workers, it's a joke
8. Carriers are dicks: instead of being a valued reseller of a service and being a large part of a trucking company's revenue...they constantly find ways to screw over their brokers/customers and make a buck any way they can. They have teams of people dedicated for making up bogus reasons to charge more money.
9. People want everything now. New Jersey to California overnight? :laugh: It will cost you $7000...what? that's ridiculous? So are you...

10. One final beef I have, and I wouldn't generalize this judgment to the entire industry, but just my company: terrible management

Upper management were all fired from other trucking companies...so now they run mine :-)

Lower management, i.e. my supervisor: 23 years old, less than a year of real world work experience let alone management experience, constantly bugs me and stands over my shoulder, doesn't let me call in sick or take vacation days, asks me to work saturdays, gives my personal cellphone number out to clients, and has caused me to lose my top client on multiple occassions. If I have a brief, friendly conversation with a female co-worker he will come talk to me right after and ask me if I'm "hitting that". Despite my response of "no, just saying hi to a friend" he then feels the responsibility to tell my co-workers that I am in fact "hitting that" (For you lawyers out there, I believe this may fall under the classification of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace....I know I'm right, thank you, I'm an expert on this kinda thing, explanation following in a future blog entry).

Eventually I went crazy. We call it having a "tweak day" as this industry is so fucked up that everyone goes a little psycho once in a while. After my supervisor had asked me for literally the 7th time "do you have any loads today?" I decided to blow my top. Conversation:

Me: "Is there something I'm doing wrong?"
Supervisor: "....no"
Me: "Are you sure, you seem to be worried about my performance, are my numbers not where they need to be?"
Supervisor: "....no, you're fine"
Me: "There must be something wrong, why don't we go to your boss' office and meet with him about it, because I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong..."
Supervisor: "nothing's wrong, you're fine, don't worry"
Me: "Well then if nothing's wrong and I'm doing fine, why don't you get off my back"
Supervisor: "Well what am I supposed to do? I'm your supervisor, I have to manage you..."
Me: "What are you supposed to do? I don't know, why don't you go fuck yourself?"
Supervisor: "...."

3 months previous to this event I had requested from his boss to be assigned to a new supervisor, and he said I would be "fine". It only got worse and I lost my sanity to the point where my supervisor made me have to swear at him. Either way, I had a nice little chat with my boss's boss, he tried to bitch me out, I held my ground, and then he informed me that to punish me he would assign me to a new supervisor. I faked a dissapointed-sounding :sigh: and accepted my "punishment".

Now I have a manager who is much older, knows what he's doing, actually helps me win business, and doesn't harass me constantly, let alone tell my co-workers who I'm "hitting" or not. Life is ok, but transportation still sucks. No future, no money, just an abyss of pointless chaos and stupidity.