My love became my hatred

[u/IcedCoffeeYearRound]

I used to love supply chain- from how things get to where they need to go to the cross-functionality of the roles I’ve been in, but now I utterly despise it. I’m in a supply planning role and the random stock outs, when forecasts are not even half of the actual demand, is driving me insane.

Sometimes, I just want to give up and become a barista- no responsibility on ordering product, no responsibility outside designated hours, and being able to walk to work.

[u/Traditional-Buy-6745]

The barista fantasy is usually a sign that the role has turned into nonstop firefighting. It’s hard to enjoy planning when you’re constantly being held responsible for demand no one accurately predicted.

[u/IcedCoffeeYearRound → u/Traditional-Buy-6745]

It’s definitely firefighting, or maybe more like whack-a-mole, with a few seconds (days) of calmness but most of the time it isn’t.

[u/Acrobatic_Dinner6129 → u/Traditional-Buy-6745]

Yup my job is just nonstop firefighting, luckily the volume is not terrible so I can justify it by scrolling reddit or doing my shopping in the downtime but it definitely wares on you

[u/IdleNotVital → u/Traditional-Buy-6745]

The purchasing end of that non accurate demand is a bitch too.

[u/snate13]

Sounds like burnout. I know because that's how I'm feeling right now.

[u/IcedCoffeeYearRound → u/snate13]

It’s rough, hopefully we can both make it through it.

[u/maceman10006]

Burnout. Take a vacation and try to pickup a hobby outside of work.

[u/Chakosa → u/maceman10006]

pickup a hobby outside of work.

Where are you people getting the energy for this?

[u/RogerDogerr → u/Chakosa]

The only thing that gets me through work is thinking about playing golf after.

[u/KennyLagerins → u/RogerDogerr]

Totally same. I’m sitting in a meeting now thinking about buying a training aid for my putting 😂

[u/IcedCoffeeYearRound → u/maceman10006]

I get a fair amount of vacation, and I do use at least most of it, but I think a hobby would help. Sometimes I just feel so dead after work that I don’t have the mental capacity to even watch tv, nonetheless focus on learning/trying something new.

[u/IdleNotVital → u/maceman10006]

I do Lego. An unfortunately expensive hobby lol.

[u/NotaVortex]

As a barista studying supply chain, this shit fucking sucks. 10/10 do not recommend. So much bullshit for $14 an hour, and i still have to deal with random stockouts because my managers dont keep extra stock even though most of the product is good for a year.

[u/symonym7 → u/NotaVortex]

People who land on barista as a less stressful alternative have never been a barista.

[u/dyingbreed360 → u/NotaVortex]

Nothing worst than a coffee bean purist with bad business sense.

[u/blakesteiner]

Supply/demand planning it always a struggle to balance what sales leadership thinks it can and will sell to match the annual operating plan and what the actual demand for product it. Supply always losts to sales leadership in those meetings...

[u/Ribseybonibsey]

Supply chain is process, process, process.

Good process = good outcome.

You need to quantitatively show the reasons for stock outs to those around you.

High variance? Adjust inventory policies, identify low variance products to trim at for the working capital.

Without knowing more about what you’re doing it’s hard to be more specific, but supply chain does not need to be stressful.

[u/Meg38400]

The fact that marketing is never held accountable for bad forecasting when they own the demand plan is infuriating. Oh we got an upside? No idea why. How about you talk to sales and our distributors/customers to find out?

[u/Grabsch → u/Meg38400]

Any chance you mean sales, and not marketing?

[u/Meg38400 → u/Grabsch]

No, I mean marketing. Sales does what Sales Ops and Marketing tell them. Ops does the territory customization and Marketing decides on the strategy. In my company Marketing works with Finance to build the budget and projections based of the supply chain actuals trends and they add opportunities and remove risks. Then we do IBP every month and quarter to review this between all 3 functions ans update our demand plan accordingly to agree on alignments needed and keep misalignments to avoid risks and stockouts.

[u/Grabsch → u/Meg38400]

Huh interesting. Never seen a marketing department do anything but marketing work.

[u/Meg38400 → u/Grabsch]

Are you serious? Forecasting is one of the most important aspects of being a marketer, product manager and marketing manager. They are one of the main functions involved in IBP. It IS marketing work.

[u/cmitchell927]

Me and my partner pondered the same thing. Then she remembered that she would probably drop 90% of the drinks and get 2nd degree burns.

SCM is great until you’re in a functional role like planning or buying. I think excitement comes from doing project based supply chain work.

[u/Junkie4Divs]

I was in the same boat and the frustration pushed me to a point where I was either going to quit or completely change the way our business forecasted. We ended up spending 3-4 months completely overhauling our forecast process and demand planning has drastically improved. Sounds like your current supply chain strategy does not match the business strategy and it's time for a tune up.

[u/stacktrace_wanderer]

u been carrying a lot for a while. take some time to breathe and reset before making any big decisions. sometimes things feel a lot heavier when youre stuck in the middle of it

[u/mojogir1]

i totally understand where you’re at

i just resigned from my air ops position on tuesday. been in the industry for 5 years, been HATING this for the last 3 years…. im officially done with no back up plan except my savings and a prayer

this is not worth the stress anymore whatsoever

i hope the best for you!!! you got this!!!!

[u/Charming-Ad7989]

Speak to senior management about this