Employee Profile
AndreBrooks
Logistics Specialist
Andre started on the loading dock at Evermark’s Northern Kentucky distribution center and now coordinates outbound freight, working with carriers, drivers, and the people on the floor to get product where it needs to go. He describes the job as mostly phone calls, problem-solving, and relationships nobody outside the building ever sees.
The Organization
Evermark Brands
A global consumer goods company headquartered in Cincinnati, designing, manufacturing, and distributing products for the home, workplace, and outdoors.
The Conversation
Inside the Work
What does your work actually look like on a normal day?
Most people hear “logistics” and kind of check out. Basically I make sure stuff gets where it’s supposed to go, when it’s supposed to get there. I’m on the outbound side, so I’m working with carriers, scheduling pickups, tracking loads. And something always comes up. A truck’s running late, a driver’s out of hours, a customer moves their delivery window. It’s a lot of phone calls and a lot of figuring it out as you go. I like that, honestly. No two days are the same.
How did you end up doing this?
I came in through a temp agency, working the dock. Second shift, loading trailers. I wasn’t thinking career, I just needed something steady after my son was born. But I was always the guy asking why a load was built a certain way, why this trailer went before that one. My lead noticed. When a spot opened up in the transportation office, he pretty much told me I was applying. I didn’t think I’d get it.
What does it feel like when the work goes right?
Nobody notices. That’s kind of the job. If I do it right, the product’s on the shelf and nobody ever knows my name. That bugged me a little at first. Now I kind of like it. I’ll be in a store and see our stuff on the shelf and think, I know how that got here. My wife makes fun of me for it.
What part of this job do people never see?
How much of it is relationships. People think it’s all software. The software helps, but when something goes sideways, it comes down to who’s going to pick up the phone for you. There’s a dispatcher in Memphis I’ve worked with for years. Never met her. But if I call her at four o’clock on a Friday needing a truck, she’ll find me a truck. You don’t get that from a system. You earn it.
“If I do it right, the product’s on the shelf and nobody ever knows my name.”
Who do you depend on to do your job well?
The drivers, for sure. People don’t always treat drivers right. They sit at docks for hours, they’re away from home, and they get blamed for stuff that isn’t their fault. I try to remember that, because I’ve stood on the other side of that dock door. And the guys on the floor. If it’s not loaded right, nothing I do matters. I still walk out there and talk to them. I don’t want to be the office guy who never comes outside.
What have you learned that nobody could have taught you?
Knowing when to worry. Early on, every late truck felt like an emergency. I’d be stressing over stuff that was going to work itself out. Now I can pretty much tell which problems are going to fix themselves and which ones I need to jump on right now. Nobody can hand you that. You have to get burned a few times.
What are you proudest of?
Probably that I went from the dock to the office. Nobody in my family really had a desk job. My mom cleaned offices for over twenty years. So the first day I sat down at a desk with my name on it, I took a picture and sent it to her. She still has it on her phone. That, and that people here trust me to handle it when things go wrong.
Who helped you get where you are?
Ray. He was my lead on second shift, he’s retired now. When I got nervous about applying, he told me, “You already know half this job, you just don’t know you know it.” I think about that a lot. And the company paid for me to get my logistics certification, the CLTD. I wouldn’t have done that on my own dime. That opened some doors for me.
What has this work made possible for you and your family?
We bought a house last year. First time for either of us. That’s the big one. My son’s eight, he’s got his own room, a yard, all that. When I started on the dock I was just trying to keep the lights on. Now I’m putting money away for his college. That’s a different way of thinking about your life. I don’t take it for granted.
What would you tell somebody starting on the dock right now?
Pay attention to more than your own job. I could’ve just loaded trailers and gone home, and that would have been fine. But I wanted to know where the trucks were going and why. That’s how I ended up here. And be decent to people. Drivers, temps, whoever. You never know who’s going to help you out down the road.
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