Anyone in Logistics? Freight/Truck Driving/Warehousing/Drayage? (1 Viewer)

[Terpman22]

I work for a 3rd party brokerage and the overall market has been "wild" to say the least these past 3 years. I'm sure there are some people on here in the field, since I believe like 10% of the entire economy is based on the transporting of goods. What do you do in this field? How long have you been doing it? Any sharing of info would be cool. No matter what, the field is ....stressful to say the least. Working as a broker its just nonstop stress, harassment and some rewards haha. Being in the field has given me insight on "when" inflation is about to happen, which we all saw like 2/3 years back leading up to how its affecting everything in today's goods' prices.

Feel free to share anything here!

 

[Timmay]

I was a broker for a 3rd party about 15 years ago. I actually loved the job besides the calls at any time of day/night and technically no days off. It never failed, any vacation day, something always came up, even when I was able to grow my business and had a couple people working under me, I would have calls/issues. I always felt bad on weekends and holidays and at the end of the day it was my "business" that I would feel the need to take care of the bigger things or any customer interaction. I loved the interaction between the customers and drivers. And really that job led me to my career I have now. I jumped to a company that I dealt with as a broker (on the customer side) and grew from there.

It truly is amazing what truckers do. I wish I got more involved in the heavy haul loads, I feel like that was where the money was. My best money maker was some smaller machinery type stuff that went to tradeshows 3-4 times a month. I still hate the thought of moving produce.

 

[Terpman22]

I was a broker for a 3rd party about 15 years ago. I actually loved the job besides the calls at any time of day/night and technically no days off. It never failed, any vacation day, something always came up, even when I was able to grow my business and had a couple people working under me, I would have calls/issues. I always felt bad on weekends and holidays and at the end of the day it was my "business" that I would feel the need to take care of the bigger things or any customer interaction. I loved the interaction between the customers and drivers. And really that job led me to my career I have now. I jumped to a company that I dealt with as a broker (on the customer side) and grew from there.

It truly is amazing what truckers do. I wish I got more involved in the heavy haul loads, I feel like that was where the money was. My best money maker was some smaller machinery type stuff that went to tradeshows 3-4 times a month. I still hate the thought of moving produce.

Yeah man! Cool of you to advance your career, and man, don't get me started on the "nonstop "update please?" emails. I'm on the west coast so my calls start coming in, no lie before 4 Am on most days. Its a bit of a pain in the ***. Wife also works with me, at home, and she is on the ops/customer side, so I'm often told to STFU (politely) while I'm losing my mind on some truck driver or venting about a rep that has no idea how anything works.

Won't touch produce no f'ing thanks.

 

[Senor Schmutzig]

Bumping as this thread sounds interesting if there is more content.

*** I am not involved in Logistics but am interested. Trying to get my 18 y.o. son to look at Logistics/Supply Chain as a major when he goes to college next year.

 

[Jayrod]

I have a friend that is a freight broker.

My conversations with him led to me starting this thread.

 

[mr. furley]

@Tip Top

 

[Terpman22]

I have a friend that is a freight broker.

My conversations with him led to me starting this thread.

It's a challenging gig. But its also a gig if you learn enough, you find out why supply chain exists the way it does. It's almost impossible to "learn everything" from how hard the truckers work, to how complicated warehouses and be (they are the devil fyi) to how demanding and lol absolutely not loyal customers can and will always be. Shopping around and quoting the same stuff "every single day" sometimes becomes monotonous and annoying, but its the way it is, with a market that changes literally daily in some way. My gig I specifically work on LTL/Partial stuff which is a little more a niche side of the business vs full trucks. A lot of math problems and figuring out exactly what % or linear feet a particular quote or load takes up of a full truck, then also pricing that out competitively to win the business. The last 2 years or so I have focused on the drayage side (ocean containers) and this side is MUCH more lucrative, as a single quote can get you many many sales/loads. That stuff is extremely complicated and less people know about this than the normal stuff. So I like that, less competition, per se, but is a bit harder.

Going back to your thread, with the way I saw ocean rates out of control and literally no capacity for a lot of ports the past 2 years, you could "see inflation coming" as the rates across the board for containers and then trickling down to truck lanes were records. The first Q of this year, probably something to do with the crazy fed rates have really cooled most crazy rates/capacity issues down a bit. Which sucks for my gig, b/c less business, etc. But the ocean market is starting to pick up again this year, and its summer time. Fed just said they probably won't raise rates again, so hoping for a decent summer to go into the holidays. But we shall see!

 

[Gawain]

I manage a wine and spirits distribution center. Have about 110 people in three locations across Central & Western NY.
Been in Supply Chain and Operations after transitioning out of law 10+ years ago now.

 

[drunken slob]

@Terpman22, the company I work for does a lot of LTL. I am one of two people that coordinate our shipments.
What are the most common problems you encounter (in general)?
I'm asking because if there's anything I can learn from you, I believe, that info will make me better at dealing with moving units. Thanks

 

[massraider]

https://theloadstar.com/warning-to-forwarders-a-perfect-storm-on-the-horizon-for-us-supply-chains/

UPS may go on strike, and Yellow Trucking may go insolvent

 

[supermike80]

Been in logistics/ transportation for over 35 years now. In almost all arenas. LTL, dedicated contract carriage, private fleets. Flatbed trucking, bulk chemical distribution, automotive shuttles. Plus at the beginning of my career I was an an analyst(now called a supply chain engineer). So I have touched a lotttttt of this industry. It's been very good to me. Never an issue getting employment, and now that I am 56, I still have lots of opportunities in the marketplace. Trucking is obviously very challenging and constantly changing....but it's pretty darn cool.....Course I don't know much else except restaurant work.

 

[NutterButter]

my girlfriend wants to become a dispatcher. she really has no idea what its gonna take but she heard you can work from home so naturally she's interested. i don't expect anything to come of it.

 

[NajehHejan]

I have a question maybe some of you experts could help with. My company imports goods from China. UPS bills in Hong Kong dollars and charges us 6% on top of that to do the currency conversion to US dollars. It’s basically theft because they use the conversion rate at time of shipment. UPS said that if our company that paid the bills was set up in China and paid in HKD, there’d be no 6% currency conversion fee. I assumed it would be a Herculean effort to set up a dummy corp or domicile in China for the purpose of avoiding these extra fees, but I have no idea. Thoughts?

 

[Orange&Blue]

I have a question maybe some of you experts could help with. My company imports goods from China. UPS bills in Hong Kong dollars and charges us 6% on top of that to do the currency conversion to US dollars. It’s basically theft because they use the conversion rate at time of shipment. UPS said that if our company that paid the bills was set up in China and paid in HKD, there’d be no 6% currency conversion fee. I assumed it would be a Herculean effort to set up a dummy corp or domicile in China for the purpose of avoiding these extra fees, but I have no idea. Thoughts?

stop importing from China?

stop using UPS?

 

[CletiusMaximus]

I have a question maybe some of you experts could help with. My company imports goods from China. UPS bills in Hong Kong dollars and charges us 6% on top of that to do the currency conversion to US dollars. It’s basically theft because they use the conversion rate at time of shipment. UPS said that if our company that paid the bills was set up in China and paid in HKD, there’d be no 6% currency conversion fee. I assumed it would be a Herculean effort to set up a dummy corp or domicile in China for the purpose of avoiding these extra fees, but I have no idea. Thoughts?

This seems like a problem that probably has a relatively easy solution if you can just find the right professional to help you. Probably a lawyer but there may be others who could help. Maybe all you need is a banking relationship in HK so you can transact in HK dollars. Failing that, it is not hard to set up an office in China, or at least wasn’t about 20 years ago.