Somewhere along the way someone, somewhere dropped, or should I say lowered the bar. The industry’s priorities appeared to have been tampered with. This brings the next question. What are the industry’s priorities?
I am sure we have many. Make a good living. Always be a productive member of society. Maintain and service a loyal clientele whether they are corporate accounts, affiliates, consumers, charities, or a combination of all, the list goes on. Maintaining lifelong working and friendly relationships with staff is always a good sign in any endeavor.
Today it seems all we discuss is who stiffed who. One guy can’t get a part for a vehicle so new they haven’t even made its first payment yet. Then you have Harvey the hater who has decided to donate all his free time to blasting the NLA. Then we can’t discuss dysfunction without Norm “know it all”. Norms loves mentioning how everyone who received a government bailout is lower than pond scum.
He loves reading of fellow operators’ trials and tribulations and always ends it with, “I guess their handouts ran out”. I have a pretty good gut feeling that all the Norm’s out there tried yet failed to get a bail out. Why, you wonder? Just a theory that these people never got a paper cut from a Form 1120, but what do I know?
The louder these noise makers are, the more I wonder. What brought them here. It makes you think was their previous business successful, will their post transportation operation be any better. Is it the lights, the cars and stars, what is the attraction. Why some soar and many fail.
The one quality I realize you must possess is to be subservient. Likely in any hospitality industry that would be the assumed rule. Being subservient is also the kiss a death to many because they will bow down to nobody. I have seen mood-based millions lost through my many years. Whether a bus or sedan. Regardless of the type of job or account, at the end of the day we are service providers.
Just recently I was emailed by a client. He is a nice guy. You can always judge an operator in my line of work by how many complaints they receive. I don’t recall ever taking a complainer with him. He is otherwise your routine off the shelf operator who thinks the Sprinter is the eighth wonder of the world. In fact, I believe that is all he runs now.
The reason he emailed me is that he had a few items he wanted to chat about. My system is simple. Regardless of how we communicate, we set up a morning time with a 15-minute window. It works since I am third shift dispatch, and my AMs are everyone else’s PM’s. They then text me in that window. I clear my slate. Then call them and we discuss the matter at hand.
Something was off this time. I was slow and just watching TV while expecting his “all clear” but he never texted or called. I attributed it to him being busy and moved on.
I get to work that night, turn on my phone and sure enough there was a text from him waiting. I open it up and there it was.
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