The Dehumanization of Transportation

I’m the last person in the world to have any credibility in an argument about uber-technological advances, unbelievable artificial intelligent capabilities, cloning, robotics, or getting to Mars. I’m the last person in the world to not have a cell phone. I own the majority interest in a software development company but use my computer to park sticky-notes. I’ve never used an ATM machine, an alarm clock, or even a wristwatch but I’m never without cash, I always know what time it is, and I’m never late for an appointment. Prior to Covid, I’d never gone through the drive thru window at a bank. As an aside, because of that when I started my company I hand carried my deposits to the teller’s cage, uncovered my “Deposit-only” stamp from the cardboard tent next to the window, made my deposit, and actually communicated with the tellers. Over time, I got to know several of them and had the opportunity to watch them work. As my company grew and I needed young, smart, responsible folks to assist in my company’s growth, I let them know I was hiring. I ended up hiring five wonderful employees from that bank who collectively have been employed by me for 120 years. The bank manager called and complained saying, “you’ve got to quit hiring my best people”. My response was “you’ve got to start paying them better and allow them some vertical opportunity within your bank or you’ll never keep good people”.

The operative words in that opening paragraph are “actually communicated with”.

Today I have a controlling interest in five very successful companies. All five are positive growth companies without debt. We have no employee turnover to speak of and, over 36 years, we’ve never had a workers’ comp claim. We’ve never sued anyone, nor has anyone successfully sued us. We’ve never been successfully hacked nor compromised although in today’s world attempts are made almost daily. We handle over 1,000 inbound calls per workday and a real person answers every call. Hold time is not an issue in that our real person directs the inbound call to the appropriate person with the appropriate company or program. If immediate attention by them isn’t possible we take a call back number and that person is called back. I do not screen my calls at all. If someone calls for me by name or title, the next voice they get is mine if I’m available. If not, I get a call back number and call it as soon as possible, almost always within an hour. My people are trained not to screen in any way. They do not ask if the person is a member or even what the call is about – if they ask for me, they get me. When you don’t have a cell phone, you can’t hide behind it. When you don’t have a computer, you can’t hide behind that either. My secretary gets my emails, prints them off, and puts them in my inbox. I pretend they’re a FAX and if I want to respond, I hand write my response and give it back to her to send. I do not respond to all my emails.

What I’ve just described is unheard of in today’s business world, but I believe it gives our companies a tremendous competitive advantage. We spend millions of dollars advertising to get people to call us and then we don’t answer the phone??? – that makes zero sense. Once again, the operative word here is COMMUNICATION. That word implies a conversation between at least two people. An email or an automated or robotic response mechanism does not qualify as a communication in my book.

I wrote my “take” on artificial intelligence and published it in our newsletter. Below is a reiteration of that comment:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an oxymoron.

I’m certainly no computer science specialist, but I recall when the first computers were built, and the technology was referred to as binary. The computer cards were programmed with long streams of zeros and ones which to me suggests a series of “two choices”, i.e., yes/no, right/wrong, left/right, etc., along a portion of programming. As Yogi Berra is credited with, “when you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

To some extent the human mind is designed similarly with a few major exceptions. Our senses – seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting are the primary human functions that filter data. Just with those five basic senses we homo sapiens deal with billions of data bytes every nanosecond and yes, even when we sleep. Added to that the abilities to learn, remember, and reason, and to enjoy emotions, intuition, passion, and morals, love, hate, sadness, happiness, and grief, we realize that human intelligence will never be rivalled by artificial intelligence, which is still not much more than X’s and O’s, zeroes and ones.

We need to all remember that when the human element is compromised, sometimes it’s difficult to put that genie back in the box.

Another example of the “old-school” mentality that I believe is worth retaining, you’re holding in your hands. We still spend the money to actually print and publish our quarterly newsletters. We still spend the money to send each of you at least one copy via snail mail. Although we do post this electronically to our website where you can pull it, we provide this as an additional option or redundancy not as your only avenue to hear our thoughts. Although we have regular contributors outside of NASTC we have not outsourced or sold our rights to anyone outside our vendor partners. By the way, we think that this form of printed COMMUNICATION makes our newsletter one of the most read in our industry.

One of our most valuable assets is our membership list. We protect your identity as a group as best we can. We do not publish our members list in any form even to our members, nor do we decal or identify your trucks and drivers as NASTC affiliates. However, this doesn’t prevent you from telling others in the industry about us or referring us to potential companies that might profit from NASTC membership.

One other example of our strong opinion about old fashioned COMMUNICATION centers around our advocacy presence in Washington. We have a real and very talented man in Washington, Dr. Jim Edwards.  He will be participating in several breakout sessions and panel discussions at our Annual Conference. Also, he has written a book titled “To Invent is Divine” that will be included in your conference package. Join us at the conference, take the opportunity to COMMUNICATE with Jim, and he will sign your book! Jim has been with us for well over a decade, we talk almost daily, and we’re constantly communicating with folks inside the beltway with FMCSA, Congress, and a variety of agencies like, the EPA, the Small Business Administration, OSHA, and others. Our advocacy efforts have been forthcoming for over 25 years, and we have spent the money to represent full-truckload, small, rural based, family companies in Washington – whether they are NASTC members or not. Once again, your COMMUICATION is very valuable to us in these efforts. However, if you want a great example of poor communication try getting to anyone in Washington, the phone company, your cable provider, or now, even a freight broker.

With all these high browed systems using AI, robotics, and advanced technology, WHERE IS the “just in case” button and how can you get it fixed when it’s broken?

Be sure and listen to one of our next Podcasts entitled “More Tech, More Problems” for more on this topic.