But I’m not sure ive got the personality or the intelligence to do it. Any tips on how best I can fulfil my dream?
$$$:
But I’m not sure ive got the personality or the intelligence to do it. Any tips on how best I can fulfil my dream?
Yes, take a course in refrigeration, and have a lobotomy to remove your personality. You’ll be fine.
Get some pointy shoes and an Audi, the rest are just details.
$$$:
But I’m not sure ive got the personality or the intelligence to do it. Any tips on how best I can fulfil my dream?
All you need to be a planner is a heart of stone, a mindless disregard for anyone but yourself and a total ignorance of reality.
yes give up on humanity and treat every truck driver as a complete pig oh and a study in lying helps gd luck 
You need to promise drivers a early Friday, then make them stay out for a 15 and then make em drive in on a Saturday. Oh, and learn how to giggle when they come in crying that you make em work 70hrs a week on salary.
You need to plan them reduced rests to suit you and not the driver.
Learn to switch of the phone after your 8 hour shift, and harass the drivers all day …
$$$:
But I’m not sure ive got the personality or the intelligence to do it. Any tips on how best I can fulfil my dream?
Don’t do it!!! It’s a thankless job where you’ll never do anything right, in my experience you go about your day trying to make the best of a bad situation by trying to cover every job when you have a shortfall of trucks/drivers, which in turn will then get every driver whinging and moaning and going out of there way to make life difficult for you, don’t do it!
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A good planner has a tub of Super Glue, this comes in handy to stick the phone together, as they never pick the damm thing up, when trying to call them.
The pointy shoes and Audi is true .
A ten quid suit from George at Asda, the shirt must hang out from the waist, and do the tie up like a militant school boy.
Ability to kiss ■■■ to customers, and ask drivers where they are, when the tracker can tell you.
What time will you be there, why are you late, and what took you so long , will be the bible buzz words .
With their ■■■■ up, a driver will be told to bend the tacho rules to save the day, have minimum breaks, or even worse .
A good planner will book a ferry, when the driver has told him , he won’t make that booking.
AndieHyde:
Get some pointy shoes and an Audi, the rest are just details.
Very accurate post 
Here is one thing surplus to requirements…
the nodding donkey:
$$$:
But I’m not sure ive got the personality or the intelligence to do it. Any tips on how best I can fulfil my dream?Yes, take a course in refrigeration, and have a lobotomy to remove your personality. You’ll be fine.
Good advice
grow a thick skin, be prepared for flak from both sides, drivers and management, don’t worry you’ll never please both parties.
how much grief you want depends on what kind of ‘planning’ you want to do, multi drop pallets, parcels, or full load work. having done them all , I’d put them in this order for stress
1 ) parcels - usually joe public giving you grief and there’s a lot of them. and its 24/7 .personally I wouldn’t touch that job with a barge pole,
2) pallet distribution - mixing timed dels, tail lift dels, incorrect sizes advised and adding collections into the day, late trunks means delays getting c+d motors out, always somebody on the phone due to 'its lost/late/damaged got to be there 2 hours ago ’ etc . I put 15 years into this job
3) full loads - delays , wrong kit , no kit, wrong trailer, overweight, loads fell off the vehicle, untrained driver, useless driver, overoptimistic management expectations
oh and be prepared for KPI’s , you wont get much praise form anybody when you do good , but ■■■■ up and you’ll never hear the last of it.
If you don`t have a bolshy personality then its no good for you,intelligence is definitely not required as in most cases planners rely on what the computer program tells them,not common sense.
It’s good for the skin on the bum as every firm has its share of bum kissers
Where you are now you could start by wrecking more of the load than the workshops can keep up with 
It’s worked before in one of its many previous incarnations, bloke ended up management 
, caused less damage that way.
tonyj105:
grow a thick skin, be prepared for flak from both sides, drivers and management, don’t worry you’ll never please both parties.
how much grief you want depends on what kind of ‘planning’ you want to do, multi drop pallets, parcels, or full load work. having done them all , I’d put them in this order for stress1 ) parcels - usually joe public giving you grief and there’s a lot of them. and its 24/7 .personally I wouldn’t touch that job with a barge pole,
2) pallet distribution - mixing timed dels, tail lift dels, incorrect sizes advised and adding collections into the day, late trunks means delays getting c+d motors out, always somebody on the phone due to 'its lost/late/damaged got to be there 2 hours ago ’ etc . I put 15 years into this job
3) full loads - delays , wrong kit , no kit, wrong trailer, overweight, loads fell off the vehicle, untrained driver, useless driver, overoptimistic management expectationsoh and be prepared for KPI’s , you wont get much praise form anybody when you do good , but ■■■■ up and you’ll never hear the last of it.
Ah, KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS.
Another way of putting it, everything is your fault because we say it is and we need you to work harder for less money.
My last job as an employee, a new operations manager started Monday morning and as I was mid point in the food chain, I got to meet him around 10am.
Blurted out a load of old management nadgers about productivity and performance being monitored with KPI’s.
Having been there for a while and sick of the place, I used my quite critical position within the company and the fact I had wracked up a lot of holiday entitlement to suggest that if I was expendable, I should go on annual leave as of right now and my KEY PERFORMANCE will be highlighted.
The arrogant ■■■■ agreed and I shook the grinning pillocks hand and went home to mow my lawn, as I had been busy over the weekend and didnt get to it.
8am the next day and smug D head was ringing. " I think I may have been a bit hastey, can you come back and sort out the 99 problems? ( that his ignorance had created )
Sure I said, right after you sign off my $6/hour pay rise.
Only agreed, the spineless gob$hite.
Moral of this tale, If you aspire to managment of any sort. It’s kill or be killed and although I have learnt to smile when I kill those “above” me.
I have a problem with hurting the little guys at the sharp end despite my own KPI’s, do you own dirty work if your such the “Big Boss” and watch the fear in their eyes.
AndieHyde:
Moral of this tale, If you aspire to managment of any sort. It’s kill or be killed and although I have learnt to smile when I kill those “above” me.
It is a well known management tool, known as the smiling assassin. Used it a lot myself during my management days.
Be prepared for drivers, who think about nothing else but themselves, who have never worked in an office environment, some who may be able to barely manage to walk upright and talk at the same, tell you all about how you should be doing your job and how much better they could do it.
Oh, and how easy it is.
It’s a shame because there are some fantastic drivers out there, but they are the ones that just get on with the job, competently and quietly, and subsequently get forgotten about because planners are too busy dealing with the ones that need nurse-maiding through every job.
80/20 rule applies…you’ll spend 80% of your time dealing with 20% of your drivers…
The most important tip I can give to anyone working in a traffic office is this…treat your drivers with respect, even the difficult ones, because at the end of the day, the most valuable asset a transport company has is the drivers. You can have the best kit in the world, but if your drivers are crap/unhappy, your business will suffer.
DonutUK:
It’s a shame because there are some fantastic drivers out there, but they are the ones that just get on with the job, competently and quietly, and subsequently get forgotten about because planners are too busy dealing with the ones that need nurse-maiding through every job.
^
This
Place i sub for as an O/D wont employ anyone without at least 10 years international experience with a proven track record, consequently the TM’s just hand out paperwork knowing full well the job will get done and the truck and load is in safe hands. They have it pretty easy as most problems are ironed out by the drivers themselves without having to ring the office every 10 mins…
Couple of points about planning in general.
The majority of planners/TM’s want an understandably easy life and the job done, so the nasty awkward jobs that need a bit of can do get given to those who just get on and do it, the 20% spoken of above in ■■■■■’s pertinent post.
Very few planners have the guts to be fair with the planning, not just looking after their mates or those who grease their wheels 
and making sure those drivers who deliberately sod about (statutory defect so unable to cover second load etc etc) or sod off home sick get issued another similar full day the next day or the day after until they get the message that everyone deserves a fair crack of the whip.
Yes doing it the easy way means you don’t have wingeing willy’s doing their cry baby routines to get the easy/lucrative days, but if you arn’t careful you can soon loose that 20% of can do’ers to places who will welcome them with open arms and then what you going to do when it’s 100% whiners?
UKtramp:
AndieHyde:
Moral of this tale, If you aspire to managment of any sort. It’s kill or be killed and although I have learnt to smile when I kill those “above” me.It is a well known management tool, known as the smiling assassin. Used it a lot myself during my management days.
While I agree, it is a thing.
You never see a person who has real skin in the game behave in this manner. They will encourage their minions to do the dirty work, but never themselves.
Running my own company for 7 years has taught me to treat employees with respect and encouragment to get the best from them. It’s important because it’s my money that is funding their employment. Ancient wisdom in this case says you will catch more flies with jam as apposed to vinegar.
A work a day planner gets paid no matter what and isnt, by definition “your boss”. They are just another link in the chain, just like the driver they are responsable in asset managment.
When they get all shouty and unreasonable, park the truck up and throw the keys in a field and point out THEIR problem. Watch them climb down from the high horse.
I know, I dont have a morgage to pay so I can take this mavrick approach but I have had to put up with this kind of $#it for most of my life and “bosses” will always use any leverage against you.
Better to die fighting as a free man, than to live a life on your knees as a slave