Friday Flashback - Titles Do Not Matter

Flashback Friday to the moment I learned that titles don’t matter nearly as much as getting the job done.

This photo? That’s me… using a pallet jack as a scooter. A light-hearted moment that OSHA would not have approved of. Not exactly the image you expect from someone who was the VP of Sales & Marketing at an e-commerce fulfillment company. The warehouse did not have an Operations Manager and my role quickly extended from VP of Sales & Marketing to VP of Sales, Marketing and Operations.

So when the warehouse needed help - my job description expanded real fast. My first “real” warehouse role came with zero warehouse tech (we printed orders on paper), a team that picked entirely from memory (no locations and no WMS), and processes held together with grit, guesswork, and coffee. We had Bob. The guy that knew where everything was.

Bob being out sick gave me a lesson in why it's important to have systems and processes. A few hundred orders had printed but the typical - "Hey Bob...where is..." couldn't take place. The result after hours of searching a 50,000 square foot warehouse was to put out a $50 reward to whoever found it. (Yes - someone did. No - I don’t want to talk about where it was.)

I spent my days helping build an operation from scratch, trying to create order out of the beautiful chaos that is early-stage fulfillment. And I learned more on that warehouse floor than any executive office ever taught me: leadership means rolling up your sleeves - not hiding behind your title; the best operations come from understanding the work at ground level; and that sometimes, the fastest way to move around a warehouse is, in fact, pallet-jack scootering (I wore a helmet).

Those early days shaped how I lead teams, build systems, and solve problems even now. Because once you’ve chased a missing pallet across a building with no WMS - nothing in supply chain ever scares you again.