>Most of the negativity I portray here is to counter the
>rose-colored view some claim the industry is all about.
I trust you are not talking about me. As you know, I write stories about our experiences on the road and publish them on the Internet (see "Writings" link in my signature). As you also know, Diane and I are thrilled to have left our white collar carrers behind for the expediting careers we enjoy today. That does not mean bad things do not happen to us. But in this business as in most others, attitude is everything. Bad things happen to us as they happen to every other expediter, but we try to not let it get us down when they do.
It is simply not true that I write only about the good parts of expediting. I write about it all. But unlike some, I don't magnify it to a gross miscarriage of justice if a load cancels. I don't believe my carrier's dispatchers play favorites. And I cannot quote a single statement from any recruiter at any carrier that we talked to that would count as a lie. In other words, the world is not out to get us, and the bad things that happen to us are not other people's fault.
That is not to say that we have not been hurt by unfair dispatch actions. We have. It is not to say that recruiters have not lied to others. They may well have (can't say from personal experience or one-side-of-the-story reports). It is not to say that we have not been stranded for days at at time by a load we accepted in good faith only to have it cancel out from under us. We have.
The difference in the joy we find in expediting and the gloom some others find is simply a difference in attitude. The circumstances are the same. The response to them differs.
There are of course times when the bad things that happen to us are indeed other people's fault - as in the numerous vendor failures we encountered when we built our truck - but when such things happen, we look first for a solution and a way to get us back on track. When people let us down or industry developments rise that are not in our favor, we do not cite it as evidence that the deck is stacked against us. We accept it as part of the game, adapt, and move on to achieve our previously-set goals.
Regarding the rose-colored view, I invite you to read a piece I wrote for people researching the indsutry, "Introduction to Expediting."
http://www.expeditersonline.com/downloads/introduction.pdf
It is a fair and balanced introduction to the trade. Topics discussed include: Spending weeks away from home; responsibility to do your own bookeeping, taxes, etc.; the possibility that you may live to regret your decision to become an expediter; the need to maintain a positive attitude even when having bad days; the need to have the self discipline to keep up with your truck maintenance and business paperwork before running off for tourist fun; the fact that trucking is one of the nation's most dangerous professions and that traffic accidents, injuries at loading docks and street crime are an ongoing risk; compliance burdens; privacy invasions that come from having your truck searched; 24/7 working hours; the uncertainty of not knowing where your next load will take you; problems with delivering loads in remote areas (getting back); having meals, laundry, and showers interrupted by immediate load offers and ASAP pickups; waiting for loads in severe weather conditions; parking challenges; relationship challenges (teams); the human-failure risks fleet owners and drivers take when they get involved with each other; the possibility that you might go bankrupt; unpredictability of income; performance requirements; dealing with unpleasant situations and/or people at loading docks; the fact that some consider the work to be hard; and the importance of research and preparation before jumping in.
Rose-colored view? I don't think so.
Consider further the most recent story I posted on my web site, "Redwoods and Rhododendrons."
http://successfulexpediters.com/Madsen/MadsenStory008c.htm
It is a story about the interest we take in our work and a joyous Diane I had in a glorious park while waiting for freight. In and of itself, it would be a rose-colored story. But there is more.
The story also talks about a long-slow 55 mph drive up I-5 (a bad thing); a brief moment of tension brought to the loading dock by the consignees; irregular sleep hours; doing a generator oil change in a truck stop parking lot; the inability to do it sooner because of a busy schedule or bad weather; being careful to minimize the risk of being run over by the truck parked next to me as I worked on the generator; the difficulty of having a civil conversation in the noisy truck stop parking lot; more irregular sleep hours (going to bed before sunset); being ready to haul freight but finding none to haul; worry on Thursday about being stranded in Seattle over a weekend; the desire to go to a park but the uncertainty about being able to drive a truck there (truck route, weight restrictions, etc.); keeping a wary eye out for commercial-vehicle or truck-parking restrictions; the need to protect your personal information and business data when both of us are away from the truck, in case the truck is towed, stolen, or burns; the need to maintain constant contact with dispatch when you are away from the truck (cell phone signal issues); the fact that our day in the park was a forced second-choice since our first choice (freight to haul) was not possible; more irregular sleep; receiving a good load offer that tied the truck up for a day only to have it cancel the next day, reducing the previous day to wasted, non-compensated in-sevice day (my exact words were, "We did our part. Why couldn't dispatch do theirs? We have suffered an injustice. This isn't fair. Someone owes us something more than dry run pay! Grrrrrrr!!!!!"); anxiety about parking tickets; anxiety caused by seeing a local cop parked behind our truck; spending nights in parking lots; the need to deadhead to another city; the fact that our less-than-seventy-five status from the canceled load put us ahead of other trucks who had more waiting time than us (bad news for them); and the uncertainty about the results your load acceptance and deadhead strategies may produce.
Yes, we had a joyous time waiting for freight in Seattle, but I did not write about the joy only. I believe you will find that in most of the stories I write; a balanced accounting of the good and the bad, written by someone who has a positive attitude. While you may have more experiences to report than me, mine are as real and valid as yours.
If you believe I write only about the positive aspects of expediting, there is little I can do about that inaccurate perception. The words are clearly there. If you don't see them when you read my stuff, that's on you, not me.
My approach is more honest than yours, Tennesseahawk. You serve no one by telling only half the story. If you enjoy your work but keep the good to yourself and talk only about the bad, you are telling half-truths about expediting. Half-truths serve no one well.
As expediters in the field, it is not our job to manipulate the expectations of people who are researching the industry. It is our job to tell the whole truth about the whole story and share the facts so they can form realistic expectations of their own.
People vary widely in their abilities. What is realistic some is unrealistic for others. People considering a career change into expediting and ask questions about it are mostly strangers to us. There is no way we can know what is realistic for them and what is not. The best we can do for them is to share our experiences, accurately, fairly, and fully; encourage them to do good research, encourage them to read multiple views from multiple expediters, and let them figure out the rest for themselves.
