Someone is waiting. That is the whole job, if I am honest. A vendor, a warehouse, a client who already told their own customer a date. The clock is not a metaphor. It is Tuesday, and the box is not there.
I have sat in that chair for more than fifteen years - at Canon, and before that wherever the order had to leave the building. I live in Haarlem. I do this work in Polish and English. I stay calm when others panic, because panic does not move a backorder.
What the work actually is
People like to talk about supply chains as if they were diagrams. On the desk it is smaller than that. An order comes in. Something is missing, late, damaged, or promised twice. You write to the vendor. You wait. You write again. You tell the truth to the person who is waiting, before they have to ask.
That last part is the one most people skip. They wait until they have a perfect update. The client does not need perfect. They need a human who owns the outcome.
I kept the boring things accurate: quotes, contracts, RMAs, the Excel that nobody loves and everybody needs. I talked to Accounts so a vendor actually got paid. I scheduled the visits, including the ones to Poland, because some conversations do not belong in a thread. None of that is glamorous. All of it is how an order moves.
Vendors are people too
A vendor is not a portal. They have a bad week. They overpromised. They are honest, or they are not. You find out which, and you work with what is true. I don’t shout. I don’t hide the delay in nicer language. I ask what can still leave, and when, and I write that down so the next person is not starting from zero.
When the date slips, I call the client. Email is fine until it isn’t. People don’t want to be processed. They want to know if they should change their own plan today.
What I refuse
I refuse the update that says “we are looking into it” for three days. I refuse to let a case sit because it is uncomfortable. I refuse fake numbers about how fast we are. If it is late, it is late. Then we fix the next step.
This isn’t a trend piece. The clock does not care what year it is. Customer service is hard here too, because the person waiting cannot see your screen. They only see whether you came back.
The first week with a client is the same muscle, just earlier — I wrote about starting with a person. When the line breaks, it becomes troubleshooting without a script. And yes, this work is part of how a relationship still earns money. More about me is on kozdrach.com.
How can I help you today?
I won’t sell you a poem. Customer service is hard. If you want someone who stays calm when it gets loud, and still treats the person like a person — write to info@kozdrach.com. I am in Haarlem. I reply.
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