A boring insight into a not-as-boring-as-u-think trade

Everytime I tell people that I'm in the shipping or logistics industry, people would give me an obligatory "Oh" and a couple of nods. The image that this industry has given, is one that is not only boring, but creates jobs undertaken by people who probably took up an engineering degree but didn't pass with a second upper and couldn't secure themselves with a high flier position in a big ass multinational company. Or usually, most workers in shipping don't even require a degree or diploma. After all, it's an ancient industry that exists from many many years ago.

True enough. The shipping industry is old. Very old. In fact, our little island was reformed from a little fishing village to a country that it is now through this trade. While I do not deny that there are certain positions that are extremely boring, like processing of bills and such, there are also interesting aspects of working in one of the world's oldest trade.

In case I have not mentioned this, I am a very lucky person. Or rather, i choose to think that I am very fortunate. I have landed myself in this industry since graduating from poly and had been exposed to the fanciful side of shipping.

1) One of the responsibilities I handled while working for a giant shipping company was to manage the vessel capacity of our local exports heading across the Pacific Ocean to North and South America. Everyday, I would look at our bookings and if we need more space on the vessel due to overwhelming volume, I would refer to the asia regional office and try to con them of sparing us more space.

"Do not give the space to cargo heading for Hong Kong or Taiwan. Our cargo brings in more revenue. "

When the vessel is full and there are urgent cargo, my customer service officers would come to me asking me for help. Sometimes I love being in such a position. Where people have to beg me. Hehe. Even when these booking girls try to intimidate me with their big ass accounts, they had to ask me with a pleading tone.

"Eh, Adrenaline, this cargo belongs to big-ass-account-that-we-cannot-afford-to-lose leh. Can help or not har?"

We had a wonderful system where I could draw reports on the imports and exports into and out of USA. You can tell how well our economy is doing year by year just based on these reports. One reason why I do not believe the newspapers when they indicate that our economy is improving. This is one thing that i love about being in this trade - you know first hand, reasons for prices going up and why we are constantly paying more for our basic needs while our pay remain constant. And you also know the papers are lying.

2) After getting my degree, I landed myself in a smaller shipping organization overlooking regional ports. I got to understand how shipping costs are derived, and was exposed to managing inventory across several ports. I understood why we had to sell at cost or even at a loss. I learnt so much about the dark sides of shipping - the smuggling, the bribery and why Asia is still viewed as a very corrupted continent. Because we really are.

3) When I found my way into a local logistics firm, I got to look at invoices of merchandisers and got to know the kind of profits they are making. I learnt about the reasons for fluctuating prices for FMCG.

So despite what some people think, the shipping industry isn't as boring as it portrays. But guess I won't be talking about it anymore since I'll be leaving this trade soon. Hopefully =)