The Hidden Gears of the Machine: People First at 4 A.M.

Before the sun came up, my team was already moving. While most of the world slept, we were lifting, stacking, sorting, and scanning hundreds—sometimes thousands—of packages on a tight, demanding schedule. I worked for a major logistics company, one most folks could recognize by the color of its trucks and the rhythm of its operations. My role was Preload Supervisor, and I led the early morning crew responsible for loading delivery trucks before dispatch.

At first glance, it was a job about precision, efficiency, and time. But what most people don’t see is the heart behind it—the people making the machine run. These were young parents, retirees picking up extra hours, college students grinding through tuition, and career part-timers holding everything together at home. To me, they weren’t just labor. They were people. And I made it a priority to treat them that way.

Each morning, I made my rounds—not just to check scan rates or trailer fill levels, but to check on them. “How’s the baby doing?” “Was your mom’s surgery OK?” “You still on for that job interview next week?” These weren’t distractions from productivity. They drove productivity.

But not everyone saw it that way. My leadership often questioned this approach. “Why do you care?” “They’re just moving boxes.” “They’ll be gone in six months anyway.” That kind of thinking lit a fire in me—not the good kind. I’d been in high-pressure environments before, and I knew the power of loyalty. When someone knows they matter, they show up differently. They fight through the rough mornings. They think twice about calling out. They don’t want to let the team down.

You can’t measure that on a performance board or a scan log. But it matters. And over time, it builds a culture where people give their best—not because they’re afraid to lose the job, but because they believe in the people next to them.

Eventually, the disconnect between my values and theirs grew too wide. I couldn’t keep asking people to give their best for a system that didn’t care about them beyond what they could produce. So I left.

Leadership is about more than logistics. It’s about people. You don’t have to sacrifice performance to care about the humans doing the work—you actually enhance it. That was true at 0400 in the back of a trailer, and it’s true now wherever I lead.