Why Your Supply Chain People Are Crying in the Shower

By: Laura Thomas

It was around 3:00 a.m. on Halloween night when I was finally able to remove my fake eyelashes, pull out my black hair extensions, and step into the shower. My high school best friend and I had planned on being back at his apartment hours earlier, but our arrangements were thwarted when, as we were making our way through the gridlock of 1:00 a.m. downtown Hollywood, CA traffic, we saw a valet driver get hit by a car (which then sped off). Any of my friends will tell you I am AWFUL with injuries; I typically get queasy at the sight of blood, but something happened to me that night when I heard him land on the hood of the BMW. Within seconds, my friend and I had this man’s broken body lying on a strip of grass and I attended to his lacerations while softly reassuring him that an ambulance was just around the corner. There I was, a college student/cocktail waitress with no medical training who would normally faint upon seeing these wounds, who was now giving orders to strangers with the authority of a 20 year ER doctor and keeping the victim calm while the first ambulance wove its way through the cluttered mass of LA showoffs bumping their systems, oblivious to our small team of accidental medical experts who were now picking pieces of windshield out of this man’s forearms.

My adrenaline was finally subsiding as I stepped into my friend’s shower and I, at last, allowed myself to let my lungs fill entirely with air. It was only then that the tears began cascading down my face.

Ask any mom who has ever lifted an entire car off her pinned toddler or anyone in a dangerous job who has had to run a 40 yard dash in seven seconds to save their colleague from being hurt or worse… if this is a real thing and they will all tell you it is. But will they tell you that in the moment, stepping up and doing what is needed of us to save lives… doesn’t usually allow you the luxury of time to process what is happening, and it sometimes takes hours, days, months and even years to catch your breath enough to let the adrenaline wear off, and to let the trauma of the moment sink in.

Fast forward about two decades, and my Halloween nights typically now consist of forcing my kids to pose for photos on the front porch and then negotiating my way out of black licorice and into Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. My trips to Hollywood now are infrequent and always during the day. I spend years without thinking of that painful evening when I stepped up and did what needed to be done because someone’s life was on the line; however, the imprint of that night never left me, nor did its lesson for me regarding the importance of pushing past my lack of comfort and being okay with delayed personal response.

In the three years since the pandemic began, my life has been a series of these insane moments. Most of these memories are cast against the backdrop of a world in turmoil, with everyone suffering some degree of loss. One of my most remarkable and formative recollections of this time was being with a team of drivers from my company in Northern California completing an instrument installation which was turning an empty building into a makeshift lab which my client had hired us to attend. Two full truckloads of devices and much sweat from our six man team, along with many from my clients’ company, turned the space into a full-blown Covid Testing facility within 48 hours of our arrival. This would be the first of many of these install projects for this client but this one had an energy which felt… different. There were raging wildfires in the Bay Area and despite arriving onsite at 6:00 a.m., four hours into the installation, the sky was still dark red with ash violently whipping around us like some kind of eerie apocalyptic snow globe. The sun never shone that day; the sky remained hauntingly dark as we toiled away, taking furious inventory of each crate as it was opened, and being sure to take copious notes as this was our opportunity to learn what needed to be done better at origin to smooth the process, and to iron out any challenges which arose (and would surely do so again). We were scared and we were tired: their team and our team worked in tandem like a hastily choreographed dance, but we were doing what needed to be done to save lives, And we saved so many.

From the moment of this first installation, we knew we were part of something important. Our Ops people slept in their cars. One of our drivers from SEA moved to San Diego Monday through Friday to service the multiple clients I had who were shipping Covid tests, test instruments, vaccine trial supplies, and more tests. Mr. Rogers said that in the time of great fear and strife, look for the helpers. There will always be people stepping up to do what is needed. As I have looked around these last three years at the ways my clients have been stepping up, the ways my team members (from Drivers to Ops Team Members to our Analysts to our Executive Team) have been willing to do WHATEVER was needed in that moment, I will always be full of wonder and pride for the way we all set aside our fear and sacrificed whatever we had to because that’s what was needed of us.

Supply Chain issues were widely reported on throughout the pandemic and they ranged from mild inconveniences to life-threatening situations. In the past six months, I have watched Supply Chain teams who were once highly regarded as the lifeblood of an organization, be reduced to the fall guys by people who know better. Shipping Teams showed up and braved the early days of the pandemic, sleeping separately from spouses for fear of transmitting a deadly disease while many others were at home learning to make a sourdough loaf from a starter and arguing about whether or not Carole Baskin killed her husband. Transportation Teams were emailing with me and our Ops Team past midnight, to get a testing facility functioning twelve hours sooner in hopes of saving even one single life. Supply Chain meltdown happened for a long series of reasons (which have and will be debated in our industry for decades to come) but the truth still stands.

During the pandemic, your Supply Chain team felt most of the same emotions as you did. The world didn’t stop for them, and in many ways, especially for my Biotech accounts, the problems and the pain were amplified. Personally, within the last three years, I lost my second mom to Alzheimer’s, my best friend’s fiancé died of Covid three weeks before their wedding, and I’ve lost a cousin to addiction. I’ve worked fourteen hour days and I’ve flown enough miles to earn top status with two different airlines. I’ve coached new reps at work, I’ve celebrated the sales milestones of veteran reps. I’ve cheered on the success of my clients who have gotten billion dollar grants; I’ve become despondent that my clients have laid off hundreds of people on their work force within days of the announcement of the “end” of the pandemic. For the last three years, your Supply Chain people and I have been to hell and back. And while I know everyone’s experience has varied wildly, and some people can shake off the pain and stress with more ease, for me… and (I suspect) many others, the fourteen hour shifts have turned back to eight hours, there are a few minutes each day to catch my breath and take in the reality of having made it out alive and I am finally taking a moment to step into the shower. But it’s not pretty. And it’s not easy. And it’s not convenient… to finally let this moment catch up with me and let all of the emotions I hadn’t had the luxury of experiencing… rush in.  And this is why I … and many of the people on your Supply Chain Team… are crying in the shower.