Logistics at a Crossroads Vol 12 🕳️ What Happens When the Support Disappears?

 

📘 Volume 12: The Admin Still Standing

Logistics at a Crossroads

Not every hero wears a headset or drives a forklift.

Some hold it down from behind the desk.
📅 Managing shift swaps.
📬 Coordinating delivery windows.
🧾 Reconciling paperwork that nobody else wants to touch.

In logistics, we often highlight the visible wins—vessel arrivals, freight moved, on-time percentages. But the quiet force behind all of it?
That’s the admin.

🧩 The Job That Catches Everything

They’re the ones who:

  • Catch errors before they hit the warehouse

  • Track orders while managing meeting requests

  • Fill in when dispatch isn’t backfilled

  • Translate chaos into process

They’re not just assistants. They’re the operational glue.

🕳️ What Happens When the Support Disappears?

In Volume 11, we talked about the disappearing dispatcher—roles that get quietly eliminated, never replaced, and leave holes no one officially owns.

Guess who picks up the pieces?
The admin team.
The logistics coordinator.

The office manager who now wears five hats, without the pay bump.

🤝 The Executive Link

Behind every efficient executive is someone who’s making it look easy:
Booking travel. Prepping reports. Shifting priorities in real time.

But too often, admins are seen as “support,” not strategy.
And when we ignore their insight—we pay for it in inefficiencies, miscommunication, and burnout across teams.

💡 If You're in Leadership, Ask:

  • Are you giving your admin team a seat at the table?

  • Do they have the tools to work smarter, not just harder?

  • Are you acknowledging the load they carry—even when it’s silent?

Logistics doesn’t run on machines alone.
It runs on people.
And some of the strongest ones are still standing behind the desk—quietly holding the line.

📍Volume 12 is based on Episode 12 of the Holding the Line podcast: "The Admin Still Standing."

🎧 Listen now on Buzzsprout, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

#LogisticsAtACrossroads #Volume12 #AdministrativeProfessionals #OfficeOperations #WomenInLogistics #HoldingTheLine

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