That is a fair characterization.
And I don't think it's a characterization that is unique to you. I think it fits a lot of people who have been at one carrier their entire career, and have learned to work within the carrier's system to be successful. They aren't really motivated to learn the details of other carriers an view them in a light that would reflect negatively on their current carrier, since they've been successful at what they've been doing. It's virtually impossible to be objective about the details when you've only got the one frame of reference, especially when that frame, and it's success, engenders a certain loyalty.
It is also worth noting that until FedEX Custom Critical changed their system in ways that undermined our business (thus prompting us to leave), we continually spoke with many expediters and many different carriers. None of them were able to show that we could have done better there than with FCC.
Yeah, there's got to be a motivator to leave. Leaving just for the sake of leaving doesn't make any sense. Carriers are forever changing things, and for many people one of those changes, or an aggregate of them, can often prove to be that motivation.
I am also of the opinion that if you can be successful at one carrier you can be successful at pretty much any carrier, even if those carriers are as different as night and day. There's a learning curve and adjustments to be made, but if you've been successful at one place then you've learned how to deal with those. I learned the business, within a narrow frame of reference, at Con-Way NOW, and when I suddenly found myself at Panther it was quite different. I was determined to deal with the learning curve and make the adjustments and be successful. And I was. But they too eventually made enough changes that motivated me to leave.
We may have been clueless about how other carriers operated but we were fully dialed in about the money. It simply never happened that we met other teams from other carriers who were more successful with their carriers than we were at FCC.
We did not leave FCC because Landstar Express America or any other carrier suddenly got better. We left FCC because they changed their systems for the worse.
And fortunately you were able to take your success at FCC and translate that to Landstar, despite the leaning curve and adjustments it required. At the time it happened, though, I found it very interesting, and somewhat amusing, how the FCC narrative changed, not only because of the changes they made to their business, but how everything looked once the rose colored glassed came off. I wasn't surprised, though. My thought was, "Welp. there it is. There ya go."
