If any of you are in the transportation industry like I am, you will know the last three weeks have been nuts. I am an operations manager and there is not one person I know in my chosen field of work that likes the holidays. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas and what it means and all that but it is heck at work.

First off, many, or should I say most drivers, want home. Many, or should I say ALL, customers have more product they need you to move to their destinations. You can’t force drivers to work or they quit so you tell the customers no, you just don’t have the drivers to help so they yell at you. You have calls and emails from people you have not heard from all year asking if you can help. Those are easy to handle, no we don’t, thanks for calling.

Secondly, you have weather. Snowstorms that delay trucks which means they don’t get unloaded and can’t pick up their next load. More unhappy customers. Add the bitter cold we have had for last two weeks which are heck on the trucks. One day last week we had 10% of our trucks in shops because they wouldn’t start, or all the alarms were going off telling drivers to stop immediately.

Thirdly, you have drivers that tell you yes, I will be back to work on Tuesday after Christmas so you tell customers you have trucks for them then the drivers disappear. More unhappy customers. Some of the drivers will show up Wednesday, others won’t answer the phone until January. Of course with the national driver shortage and the government forcing electronic logs, which forces drivers to drive when they are tired, which is another story, there is not much we can do to reprimand the drivers. They will just quit and go work for someone else.

Of course, those same drivers will be the ones complaining this week that they don’t have a paycheck or they are going to quit unless we get their miles up. Seriously, you just disappeared for a week and want me to jump through hoops for you? But, it’s what we have to do in this industry to make everyone as happy as we can.

And by nature, I am not a people pleasing person. I am a get the job done person while trying to meet the needs of customers and drivers. Not everyone is happy, but I do my best.

So basically I disappeared from the social media world and just took time to decompress. Come home and veg.

Friday was the first day I felt normal. Well, as normal as I think of normal because I am not normal.

With all that being said, I think life is back to being life and maybe now I can start to read posts and write again.