In this world, there are many different types of transport, and when someone is completely new to it, they usually only know what they have read online or heard from other people. That was exactly my case. I only knew the theory, a few opinions, and a few ideas in my head.
But the older I get, the more I know that personal experience is priceless.
What groupage actually is
Out of all the job offers that were available in Slovakia at that time, I chose a company that operated in international truck transport, but in the style of groupage. Back then, I did not really know what that meant in practice. Today, I know very well.
Groupage basically means that a truck goes from point A to point B with its main freight from the primary customer, but if there is still free space left, more goods are picked up along the way. Those goods are then unloaded somewhere else, then something else gets loaded, and the cycle continues. On paper, it may sound efficient. In reality, though, it can mean a completely different kind of job than what you imagined at the beginning.
And at that time, I had absolutely no idea what all of that would involve.
The first days and the first chaos
As soon as I arrived in Germany and was supposed to head back, I experienced huge chaos when it came to arranging return loads. From my point of view, this is exactly the kind of system that massively increases mental discomfort and pressure on the driver. When you do not know what comes next, where you will load, where you will unload, and at what times, it takes away your inner peace.
In my opinion, the ideal situation is when the person organising the transport handles the driver as a whole. They know the route, they know where the driver is, and everything is connected in their head. But that was not how this company worked. One person handled export and another handled import. And from my very first experience, I had the feeling that even though these two people were sitting in the same office, they were not really communicating with each other.
There was chaos with loading, chaos with timing, chaos with unloading. And on the way back, more and more stops kept being added where I had to load or unload something. And the whole time, I kept repeating one thing in my head.
I am not a courier in a van. I work with a huge machine in international truck transport.
The first realisation
It was exactly on that return trip that I had enough time to think about whether I wanted to stay in that company or not. I was not completely sure yet, but that was the moment when thoughts started spinning in my head about wanting to do long-distance routes. One loading point and one unloading point. That was what started to make sense to me.
When I came back to the company, I talked to the other drivers as well. And they told me very openly that in this company, I could easily have ten, sometimes even fourteen loading and unloading points in one week. And if I had the option, they said I should rather go somewhere else. I was honestly surprised by how directly they told me that, but they probably knew exactly what they were talking about.
Once I added up all the pros and cons, it became clear to me.
This was not how I wanted to work.
It was not a mistake. It was experience.
At the beginning, I think it is completely normal when a person joins a company and only then finds out in real life that a certain type of transport or the way the company operates simply does not suit them. It is not failure. It is not a mistake. It is experience you need to go through in order to understand what you are really looking for.
And I understood it very quickly.
In the end, I said goodbye to the management in a good way. They were sorry to see me go, and to some extent I was sorry too. But I simply knew that if I wanted to be satisfied, I had to move on.
Because I am not a courier. I am a truck driver in international truck transport.