Sometimes two businesses work together so much that they become intertwined to the point where even employees don’t know what each one does.

The family-run trucking company in this story was like that with a client whom they served for over 50 years. They had their share of ups and downs over the years, but they always provided this other company with great services that they could rely on.

Until a new corporate representative came in at that company and messed everything up, he started micromanaging how the trucking company did their jobs to the point where they finally snapped back, saying that they wouldn’t be changing the way they operate.

The corporate rep got upset and said that maybe they should quit using this trucking company, so the management of the trucking company agreed and said that they would fire them as a customer.

Long story short, the arrogant corporate rep burned a 50-year relationship between the companies down, and the fallout was massive. Check out the full story here:

“You should fire us!” “Ok.”

My family runs a small trucking company. Depending on where you are in the world, you might call us a P&D company, a Final Mile company, a White Glove company.

This is an important industry.

Basically we handle the kind of stuff that you might buy to have delivered to your home or business, that’s too big for someone like UPS to deliver, but not big enough for a tractor trailer to haul, and/or stuff that actually needs to be brought into the home and set up, like furniture, appliances, etc.

A lot of what we’ve hauled over the years is stuff going to small stores that can’t take delivery by large truck, construction sites where large trucks can’t get in and out, neighborhoods and apartment complexes.

Let’s see what kind of issues this company ran into.

We don’t work for the people buying the stuff, we work for the people selling or shipping it, but as we tend to see the same business owners a lot, we’ve developed great relationships with them over the years.

We don’t get rich, but we’ve been pretty comfortable over the years. Our one major stressor has been a long-time shipper who has – or rather, had – become increasingly demanding as time went on.

Wow, that is a very long-term customer.

Now when I say ‘long-time’ I mean it. We made our first delivery for them over fifty years ago.

Our company has been doing business with them longer than any of their current employees or management staff have been there.

That is too funny, but not that surprising.

There was one point, not too long ago, where the retired guy who came in a few hours a day to sweep our warehouse because he was bored sitting home, literally knew more about this shipper’s systems than their senior field rep who was supposed to be ‘supervising’ our operations.

We have been a small, but vital part of their network, for so long that almost no one there really realized how much we did for them.

Now this is how business relationships should be.

We’ve seen field reps come and go. Some have been great, some have been a little challenging, but most have – once they realized what was going on – largely left us alone to do our jobs.

One even called when he took over our area to ask who we were, because his predecessor had no notes on us at all, because they’d never had to visit.

All good things come to an end.

We’ve just been (mostly) quietly plugging along, taking care of their customers, in some cases for generations.

Well… the latest rep… was a genuinely unpleasant person. He was arrogant, abrasive, casually insulted our employees… honestly it’s not worth getting into the minutiae here.

You can’t always get along with everyone.

He wasn’t someone we wanted to work with. But I’m able to put on a happy face and get along with about anyone, when needs must, so onward we strode.

As I said earlier, the shipper had been getting more and more demanding as time went on.

You would think that things would get easier over time. But that is not always the case.

Systems had been getting harder to navigate, inventory had been getting harder to track, phone trees had grown into Banyan nightmares, more and more layers of bureaucracy had been added, and with every change they’d grown less agile, slower, more difficult to deal with.

One day the field rep called because he didn’t like how we’d answered an email.

Oh come on, are they really going to make a big deal about an email?

Not that we hadn’t answered it, just that he didn’t like the manner in which it had been answered. After decades of dealing with this shipper, being micromanaged to that level was not something that we were interested in.

The manager here who was dealing directly with him tried to defuse the situation, but it kept getting worse until the field rep said, “If you aren’t happy with the way things are going, maybe you should just quit.”

Really? They want to throw a 50+ year vendor out the window?

Oh.

Ok then.

We started running the numbers, looked at all our other business, decided that we could, indeed, go on without them, and then I called the field rep to have a frank conversation with him.

Truly, the end of an era for both of these companies.

And then I wrote a short, polite, direct letter to our customer of over fifty years telling them that we were firing them.

We didn’t just pull the plug. We gave them a full 60 days’ notice, so they’d have time to get something worked out.

And… they didn’t.

We’ve always been here for them. They’ve never had to worry about it.

It isn’t easy to replace a company like this that is so fully integrated into your systems.

They had someone they thought was going to be a replacement, but… well… as of today most of their customers in this area haven’t had deliveries in a week.

Some, longer than that. Many don’t know when they’ll get their next shipment.

He certainly doesn’t deserve a job.

That field rep might still have a job when all is said and done… but it’s not our problem anymore.

Our phone keeps ringing, people looking for their freight from that shipper. “Sorry, you’ll have to call them…”

It is sometimes unbelievable how someone can burn a bridge and think that there won’t be any fallout. Both of these companies had a good thing going when this one guy just tossed it all away.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a firm who was fed up with a client denying they’d asked for changes, so they simply stopped following up with them.

Check out what the people in the comments have to say about this story.

Now that is a clever saying. I like it.

I agree. This guy needs to take the fall.

It is shocking how often this type of thing happens.

Why would you ever treat a critical vendor poorly?

Yes, make sure it is clear whose fault this is.

It is always amazing when someone brand new comes into a situation and thinks that they need to change the way things are done. If this guy had just left well enough alone, the business relationship could have gone on for many more decades to come.

Instead, he blew up a very profitable business arrangement and caused everyone a whole lot of extra work. Hopefully, he also got fired for his stupidity.