Hello dear readers!

Welcome back to my favorite readers—great to have you back!

I’ve got some fun stuff for you in this issue, including a dive into the demise of one of our country’s largest trucking companies, a look at pretending to work, and a full roundup of the things I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, and thinking about.

Here we go!

Industry Highlights: The Sinking of the Yellow Submarine

Last year, the Yellow Corporation was the fourth-largest trucking company in the US, bringing in around $5.2 billion in revenue.

This week, the century-old company is bankrupt, with 30,000 of its workers on the streets.

How can this possibly happen considering all of Yellow’s competitors seem to be thriving—especially since the company was lent $700 million in US pandemic relief just three years ago?

There’s a lot of finger pointing going on. Some analysts told The New York Times that Yellow’s senior executives struggled to determine when to charge more, resulting in less revenue per shipment than its rivals. Others place the blame squarely on the trucker’s Union, of which Yellow employed some 22,000 members.

Yellow CEO Darren Hawkins said the International Brotherhood of Teamsters obstructed management’s efforts to make the company more competitive.

This is a disturbing accusation that has a lot of shipping companies tugging their collars over union influence—especially given how much force unions have recently shown.

Last month, UPS executives capitulated to Teamsters’ demands for better wages after the 340,000 employee-strong union threatened to strike on August 1. Around the same time, FedEx pilots rejected a 30 percent pay hike proposal (though federal law prevents them from striking).

Rutgers University assistant professor of labor studies Todd Vachon told The Wall Street Journal that many companies with workforces looking to unionize—like Amazon— could point to Yellow as a cautionary tale.

The winners of Yellow’s downfall are clearly its competitors like ABF Freight and Old Dominion Freightline, who’ve seen an uptick in business since Yellow began its tailspin in July. The losers will be the workers—Yellow’s 30,000-employee layoff is the largest at a single company since Boeing in 2020—and the customers.

Experts said now that Yellow’s trucks are off the road, delivery costs are likely to increase. Freight transport adviser Mike Regan told The Wall Street Journal that many carriers pushed back signing shipping contracts with customers until Yellow’s demise was inevitable, and these new agreements are now coming with “stunning” general rate increases.

The volatility of the shipping industry has come to the forefront of business since the pandemic, and while things have somewhat stabilized, Yellow’s bankruptcy is an indicator that there’s no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to logistics. This uncertainty is yet another issue that supply chain professionals are contending with—in an ever-increasing list of challenges.

The Future of Work: The Theater of Work

Shakespeare once wrote that all the world’s a stage and we are merely players—and it turns out that’s very true in the workplace.

According to a new Slack State of Work report, employees spend a third of their time on work that gives the appearance of productivity rather than output that produces results.

This “productivity theater” is when employees spend time doing things so their bosses can see them working. It might look like responding immediately in Slack threads or attending meetings where your presence isn’t required to signal your importance.

Performative work has been around for ages—ever stay late at the office until your boss went home?—but it’s taken on a new shape since the pandemic and advent of more flexible work from home options. Since the boss can’t “see” you working, there’s a paranoia surrounding your productivity, so you make attempts to look busy for their benefit. A Microsoft report found 85 percent of leaders aren’t confident their employees are being adequately productive.

I’d argue it’s not just paranoia. US worker productivity has declined for five straight quarters—the first time it’s ever done this since the government began tracking nonfarm productivity in 1947.

And while many workers are praising their employers’ willingness to be more flexible with work hours and location, it’s really hurting our psychological ability to stay focused and productive.

S. Thomas Carmichael, the chair of the neurology department at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine told The Wall Street Journal that the pandemic greatly affected workers’ muscle memory in terms of getting things done—in both home-office and open-office settings.

Cornell University professor of organizational behavior Vanessa Bohns said it’s going to take some time to get our brains back into shape after several years of flexible work.

“We have to habituate ourselves to all those distractions all over again in order to get any good work done,” she said.

So what’s the best way to become more productive?

There are certainly ways both employers and workers can do their part.

As Isabel Berwick from The Financial Times writes, bosses can look at fostering trust amongst their team by employing strong Core Values and “walking the talk.” She also points out that workplace tech and automation might also help—with the caveat that it will take a time investment to effectively implement.

Behavioral design expert and bestselling author Nir Eyal writes that the best way for managers to improve employee distraction and performative work isn’t to monitor more, but to open dialogues with employees about distraction, schedule-sync with them, be more mindful about meetings, and—most importantly—set a good example by walking your talk.

But perhaps the best remedy for lowered productivity? Carmichael told the WSJ that you need to make yourself work from the office more often.

A tough pill to swallow for those who love working from home, but it’s the reality many companies are facing.

And lest you think the push to return to the office is a flash in the pan, I present you this article with no commentary:

Even Zoom Is Calling Employees Back to the Office

The Supply Aside: What I’m Reading, Watching, Listening to, and Thinking About Re: Supply Chain, Work, and Beyond

📕 Read - The Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovits

Merit is a sham. Wow, what an opening line for a book! In The Meritocracy Trap: How America’s Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite, Daniel Markovits really calls out a lot of American Dream principles upon which many Americans build their lives. It’s incredibly well-researched—the book includes at least 30 pages of figures and statistics and over 100 pages of endnotes and references. I just heard Markovits on Michael Smerconish this week, and I’m going to get my kids to listen to it—especially in light of the interesting things going on in higher education at the moment.

What Else I’m Reading:

• TSMC to build $11 Billion German Plant With Other Chipmakers—Yahoo! Finance— This Taiwan microchip behemoth isn’t interested in handing all of its chips to China should that day (almost inevitably come). It’s making sure that won’t happen with moves like this.

•  Need to Hire Workers in a Hot Job Market? Let Them Do Some Remote Work—The Wall Street Journal—Employees offering flexible work options are hiring at a faster pace than those requiring full-time office attendance.

•  “How F–ing Brain Dead Are All My Employees?—Barstool Sports—Speaking of getting your butts back to the office, newly re-throned Barstool Sports owner Dave Portnoy had some choice words for his staff on his first day back on the job. Looks like Portnoy is solidly in the 85 percent of bosses paranoid about productivity.

📺 Watch - Arnold

If you thought you knew everything about Arnold Schwarzenegger because you’ve seen Pumping Iron a hundred times, think again. This incredible three-part series on Netflix takes a wonderful peek into the life of the Austrian superstar who’s basically dominated every arena he’s ever set foot in. As someone who grew up watching Arnold, I never thought of his career in these three segments, but it’s a fascinating overview of his story. He’s pretty candid throughout the entire doc, especially when he describes the bitter rivalry with his arch nemesis and the other legendary action hero, Sylvester Stallone. Two geezers that have kept each other going.

👂 Listen - Money Talks Podcast

To most in the business world, Jamie Dimon is an icon. Well, maybe. However, he’s not only the boss of 300,000 people across more than 60 countries, but he’s the only CEO of a major bank to have been in his role since before the financial crisis. But as this Money Talks podcast episode from The Economist reveals, Dimon’s enthusiasm to talk policy indicates he might be leaning toward the political realm for his next move. An informative interview with fantastic insights about the recession, China, and what’s next for the US.

💡 Think - Higher Education and Disparity

After being reminded of Daniel Markovits’s book, I started thinking about elite higher education institutions in our country. Consider this: There are exactly the same number of “elite” institutions today than there were in 1900—and the number of spots in these elite universities is only about as 2x what it was then. The population has grown 330%. Wrap your head around that.

I think that speaks to a much larger issue of the growing inequality and the resulting polarization. A CEO made about 20x what a production worker made in 1960. Today, a CEO makes about 300x. When Rockefeller took over Chase Manhattan in 1960, he made 50x what the average bank teller earned. Today, our friend and current CEO of JPMC, Jamie Dimon, makes about a 1000x more than a bank teller.

I’m not in any way advocating that socialism is the answer—but investing in education and providing more opportunities for the middle class would go a long way in leveling the playing field. This nouveau-Gilded Age isn’t going to improve without a concerted effort.

Of course, all of that’s easier said than done.

Charts of the Week

Quotes of the Week

Tweets of the Week

Finally...

Thanks so much for reading. I’d love to know what you think about this issue and how I can make it more useful to you.

If you have suggestions or topics you’re interested in seeing me address, shoot me an email at [email protected]!

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Happy reading this weekend!

-- Naseem