Suggestion Squeezed: A Procurement Pro's Chronicle of Exhaustion & the Search for Meaning

Chicago, 2025.The air always seems to carry a hint of the stubborn chill off the Great Lakes, mirroring my own state of mind. Ten years now, working in global procurement for this small American company. The days slide by in a blur of purchase orders, contracts, logistics tracking, and endless communication. What once felt like a job connecting the world, full of challenges, now leaves only bone-deep weariness and a pervasive sense of meaninglessness.

Tariffs, that specter relentlessly escalating over the past few years, became the final straw in 2025 with the latest round targeting specific categories. Profit margins are squeezed paper-thin. Every quote, every contract comes with anxiety calculated to two decimal places. It’s not just a numbers game; it’s about the company’s survival, and the weight rests squarely on my shoulders.

But the exhaustion runs deeper than tariffs. Procurement has long been plagued by systemic issues — like pebbles in your shoes, grinding you down day after day. Supplier lead times are as fickle as Chicago weather. Quality disputes are routine. Communication gaps can feel despairingly wide. Finding tariff-avoiding alternatives at the right price means exponentially more effort and risk. AI systems boost efficiency with customs clearance and data analysis, sure, but cold algorithms can never grasp what a single delay means to a family-run business, or the sheer frustration and futility when customs rejects documents over some inexplicable formatting error. I’m the buffer zone caught between rigid systems, anxious clients, and the reality of suppliers, absorbing pressure from all sides, my energy slowly draining away.

And the family burden makes this fatigue crushingly heavy. In 2025, with inflation not yet fully tamed, the costs for three kids, the suburban mortgage, health insurance bills… these numbers are no longer abstract symbols. They take shape in my wife’s weary posture, my children’s expectant eyes, and the silent reminder of the bank balance at month-end. Work isn’t just about finding purpose anymore; it’s about that non-negotiable paycheck. This sense of “must” is an invisible shackle, making even a breath feel like a luxury. Lately, I find myself sitting in the car after work, listening to the silence after the engine cuts off, needing minutes to gather the will to push open the door and leave the job’s gloom outside. Weekends, meant for family, are haunted by the red dots of unread emails and next week’s orders to negotiate — a constant background hum in my mind, making true relaxation and presence impossible.

Recently, this state became impossible to ignore. In the quiet of the night, I had to confront myself: Why am I so exhausted? Is it just the workload? No. Deeper down, it’s the erosion of meaning. What am I striving for every day? To help the company barely survive another round of tariff wars? To handle the endless problems spawned by industry-wide dysfunction? Or just to pay the bills, sustaining a “normal” life trembling under the pressure? The parts that once felt valuable — finding great suppliers, forging win-win deals, seeing goods cross oceans to meet needs — are now buried under minutiae, conflict, and survival anxiety. The core meaning of the work seems silted over by the grit of reality.

Acknowledging this is painful, yet it’s like cracking a window in an airless room. Admitting the weariness, the lostness, takes courage itself. I haven’t found perfect answers, no sudden revelation. But I’ve started trying to find tiny anchors within the daily torrent: maybe the understanding reached after a tough but honest talk with a supplier; maybe catching a potential hefty fine by meticulously reviewing documents; maybe deliberately setting my phone to “Do Not Disturb” after work to truly finish building those blocks with my kids. I’ve begun refusing to let work completely devour the boundaries of life, even if it’s just clawing back a sliver of breathing room. Rebuilding meaning might lie in these small acts of resistance and in refocusing on the “human” — noticing my own feelings, a colleague’s stress, the real situation of the supplier on the other side of the screen, not just seeing them as data points.

I want to ask others in procurement:How are you holding up lately? Are you feeling this too? Let me know I’m not alone. If you’ve found good ways through it, please share in the comments. I can’t keep living this numb and painful existence.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

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