analyst

senior analyst

freight specialist

senior director

freight coordinator

Livingston International

A typical day in the brokerage department will involve lots of email follow up according to your assigned clients. You send your supplier's invoices to the Houston National Service Center branch who processes all 3461 manifests and 7501s. You must audit every file to ensure everything is mistake free to avoid any detention of trailers at customs. If you have experience working in the field of brokerage there is little to learn here other than learning the company's ABI Interface system known as Evolve. I say this because there is minimal training stressed by management or help from your team lead, also known as the Import Analyst. The Import Analyst will not help you out whatsoever if you have any issues and will feel threatened if you have more experience working in brokerage. The regional manager stresses importance to 2 accounts in particular since those accounts were brought in by him. The rest are given little to no importance. The atmosphere at work can be great but it is mostly divided amongst groups. Beware, there is alot of favoritism in this company and it does not go to the hardest workers. This applies to people that are good with the manager. Accounts and workload will not be well distributed because of this. Only groups which are the manager's favorites are allowed to talk. There are plenty of ill decisions such as the company dispatcher being assigned a large account when it's obvious to anyone with experience that a dispatcher is rarely at the the office. The company system is suspect since it will crash alot. Sometimes people will need to process their own entries and alot of them are not trained from the get go to be prepared for these situations. The job isn't hard when you like your job and it comes to you as second nature. However this is visible to the Import Analyst and the Manager and they will take this as you needing more work when you already have alot of work. You will be loaded with the toughest clients and will have little to no support from the IA or you teammates who fall into a routine of having small clients and little responsibility. It is because of this that you will often be stressed out mostly because lack of support. You can have alot of responsiblity with your workload but you  You will be asked to cover other team member's accounts yet they will not cover yours. The most enjoyable part of the job is the available overtime and the clean work area/office. Being close to an area with many restaurants for your lunch hour. Close access to Loop 20 and Interstate 35.

Great training: good employee morale until you really see what the company is about. no room or real incentive to move up unless your well liked by certain management. Promotions are given out based on who is liked well not by their actual skills and abilities: poorly skilled, Supervisors: Managers are completely out of touch. problems w/ minority races who have health issues. Same rules and regulations don't apply across the board to each employee as each employee is treated differently based on how well they are liked.  One employee hand book but the rules apply differently to certain individuals usually people of color. Poorly managed company.  Low yearly profits. bonuses aren't worth the taxes you have to pay on them if you get a bonus. again certain people get bonuses based on how well they are liked by management not by your accomplishments. HR department Human Capitol as they call it isn't worth sending an e mail no support, a real JOKE. last HR person left within a matter of months.  no one to go too unless again your well liked by management but if your well liked by management you have no problems. High unreasonable expectations of their employee's trying to keep up with competition and they still fall short and cannot keep good staff. Constant turn over of staff.  Great place to get training and get your foot in the door. No place to call home and think your going to have a real career. and be treated fairly.  If your not white and well liked by management this is no place to think your going to progress. I've never seen so many highly skilled employee's passed over for promotions because they weren't LIKED enough by management. Average pay: not enough for the amount of work required and unfair treatment.  Oh and the office equipment is cheap, cheap uncomfortable chairs, no writs pads for the computers.  Only upper management and conference rooms have comfortable chairs: office suite itself needs updating poor heating system: winter time you come in from the cold and it's just as cold in the office: many staff members have blankets: certain parts of the office during the summer months your on fire, no air, stairwells are dirty and falling apart, carpet only vacuumed at the office managers request which is hardly never. If you want good office supplies to use, I suggest you bring your own.

From the hiring process to completing the training program for the RCA role,  this experience has been nothing but frustrating. The recruitment member took a less than minimal effort in getting to know me or allow me an opportunity to ask questions about the role and company during the hiring phase. They spoke so fast they didn't give an opportunity to ask questions, and hung up the phone when they were done having the conversation. The interview was less than 15 minutes long, to which the hiring manager and recruitment personnel both showed up late, and one explicitly mentioned they would not be turning on their camera because they were in their pajamas.
Sending in new hire documentation was unnecessarily difficult. They sent me 2021 tax documents to fill out, and once I did I was notified that I filled out the wrong documents, it was my error and I needed to correct it asap. I also had to send my void cheque in twice as they were not able to find it on their end, even though the documentation was sent through their company's online forum. 
Training is a uniquely dysfunctional experience.  It is 3 months long. Whether you have an education in customs or supply chain, experience in the filed or no education or background, everyone gets hired at the same salary and same starting point in training. The trainer exhibits poor work-life balance, diminishes experience and educational backgrounds, and communicates in a severely condescending tone. No respect for co-workers with known disabilities. Enforces a 'one spoken, must know' mentality when new information is presented. Continuously talking themselves out of contradictory statements they make. When the trainer asked the group for feedback on the learning environment, they were very close minded and would place blame on the students. An impossible environment to learn and grow in. 
I took this job with the hopes of becoming knowledgeable in the field and to use this experience as a stepping stone into a another career path. After this short lived and horrendous experience, I am looking to get out as fast as I can. 

Attention friends: Ignore the ignorant and hostile reviews of Livingston International. Never in my life have I had the privilege and honor of working with such a competent group of professionals... until I accepted their offer of employment, that is! 

Now, I’m not here to make any wild claims, but if you are lucky enough to work here, you are in for the adventure of a lifetime. Literally everyone is treated in a fair and impartial manner. Favoritism doesn’t exist and everyone gets along. 

At the end of a fun filled day, I feel a sense of sadness knowing that I have to spend the next 12 or so hours with my “family”. Well, I guess it’s more like 5 hours tops when you factor in sleep or whatever. Livingston is really the only family I need! 

Our office is a nonstop roller coaster of amazing, and sometimes, if you listen closely enough, you may even hear one of your magnificent co-workers singing the entire soundtrack to Disney’s Frozen. Awesome sauce! 

Don’t even get me started on management! They are like the “Dream Team” but so much better than Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson; well, at least as far as customs brokerage is concerned. I can’t give evidence of or comment on their particular merits regarding basketball, but Pippen ain’t easy, I suppose.

At Livingston, the fringe benefits are so totally out of this world! Well, not the health insurance so much; the health benefits are rather horrible, but the Ethiopian coffee pouches more than make up for the sense of reassurance one ultimately feels when covered by decent and affordable healthcare. And FYI, the coffee is fair-trade, which is super trendy right now. Also, every Friday we watch Teen Wolf Two, which is by far the best Teen Wolf. Honestly, it was Jason Bateman at his finest.   

If you’ve heard anything about the higher than average rate of turnover at Livingston, you should just apply and see for yourself why that is, or is not. You won’t regret it. Chances are that like 12-15 people will be gone by the time you’ve begun the unbelievable adventure that is Livingston International.

Trade up. Or something.

First let me preface this with the fact that this office was purchased from JPMorgan by Livingston. This is not a indictment of Livingston International but rather the management of this office.

The problems are Livingston kept the existing management in place, and they, in turn, refused to integrate into the greater culture of Livingston.

Petty management, systems that are held together with tape, reactive, rather than proactive management. More time is spent on clerical minutia, than on actual work. Large volums of personal CYA, because there's always a bus looking for someone to run over. Got a family? TOO BAD. Medical problem, work around them.

Most people are pretty decent, they are in the same boat afterall, but there are others who have reached their zenith, and are quite protective of their perch.

Management views people who leave as poor employees who were recruited away by opportunistic companies. They never look to themselves as bearing any responsibility. The odd thing is, almost without exception, these "poor" employees are now advancing in their careers.

What I've learned, a five minute job can be micro-managed, meeting and measured into a multi month project. Don't think for yourself, it could contradict someone's process. While other parts of the company work together, this office works apart and against. Its greatest product is meetings and meeting minutes.

Hardest part of the job is "we know better than you do", effectively ZERO support, bureaucracy and systems that are less efficient than paper and pencil processes.

The most enjoyable part was when I gave my notice. While moving out of state was not my first choice, the decision has allowed me to grow professionally and nearly double my pay.

There was a lot of hope that the purchase by Livingston would result in significant changes. Per my friends who remain, "not so much"

Most of the day is spent putting out ongoing or retroactive fires while attempting to complete your assigned daily tasks. If you don't finish, (which you likely won't since you'll be pulled in 10 different directions, all marked as URGENT) that day's work will rollover and pile on top of tomorrow's, so now you've created your own fire along with everyone else's who didn't finish their work on time, effectively creating a forest fire.

Now the village is burning. But that's okay, you're understaffed. Management's solution? Work more overtime. It's mandatory. So now everyone is stressed out and discouraged as you're expected to perform the workload of 2.5 people, put in more hours, but instead of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel you only see the avalanche growing.

You turn to your supervisors for help and advice, but they seem just as clueless and confused, escalating urgent problems to upper management only to have upper management throw the hot potato back at them to resolve, and if they're too busy, the hot potato boomerangs back to you...they're bosses, not leaders.

Also, have fun using outdated, user-unfriendly systems and interfaces that make workflow processes ineffective and redundant. Sometimes they're even counter-productive since a built in glitch sometimes nulls file numbers, making it almost impossible to follow up on time-sensitive emails or catch them on time.

The good? WFH, Time flexibility and Overtime. If you're a workaholic or looking for a job where you can pick up 2nd and 3rd shifts, then you'll probably like it here. Since it runs 24/7, the more OT you can do, the better. You'll have no social life, but the check should be somewhat juicy.

Working from home is a great perk, too, as you'll avoid driving long distances or through morning traffic. In fact, that's the only reason I'm still here, saving on gas, outside meals, work clothes, etc.

As an RCA at Livingston you'll learn the basics of customs brokerage  and the benefits are pretty good. Those are the only positives.

Customs is already a stressful field but Livingston's lack of organization makes it worse. "Glitch" and "workaround" are terms used a lot because nothing works but things still need to get done. The way work is divided is unfair and inefficient. Favored employees process a lot of the easiest files to look like they're productive. If you follow the rules about what to process and when you'll end up doing all of the difficult files and then get in trouble for low productivity or for making mistakes.

With very few exceptions the people supervising RCA's are unpleasant and have poor communication skills.  They'll constantly say to ask questions so you can avoid mistakes but then get angry at you for talking to them. You'll have five different people telling you what files to process at the same time but no real support system. The RCA's who are friendly with management and get away with doing what they want will also go out of their way to get others in trouble for minor or nonexistent mistakes.

They don't pay enough for this level of stress and toxicity. The low salary also reinforces this office's awful culture because few decent or intelligent people will put up with it for long. The trainers and managers higher up in the organization are all friendly and helpful but the people running the day to day operations in this office make this a place to avoid.

Horrible horrible horrible manangement. They could care less if you have a family. No fair labor or any other laws follwed. Discrimination and passive agressive harrasment. You are only an employee and no job security. Too political. If someone doesmt like you you are gone. They dont even know or enforce their own policies unless they use them against you.  wish I could afford to quit.  the people who have handled the same clients for years are switched around and clients are not imformed. Only negative issues are pointed out .nevef a good thing said. Raises dont even come close to cost of living increases along with more than three percent increase in costs for insurance etc.managers would rather watch you drown in files then help and dont lead by example. Mngrs allowed to come and go as they please but enforce rules of not letting anyone else. If you are not mngmnt you are nobody. Beneath them. Suprised a class action lawsuit hasnt been issued yet. They dont even deserve the one stars above. Most deserved to stay blank. No flex schedule. No special accomidations. No care for thos who are just employees

There was always more work than you could possibly expect to get done. The training was alright, but management takes on more business than the employees are able to handle. The ship is sinking, people are collecting experience for this company's sub-par pay, then taking themselves to higher paying companies in the industry because Livingston refuses to pay their ground-level and arguably most crucial members a pittance.
The office usually has some level of interpersonal drama, the workforce is divided into cliques. Management is so busy with the litany of ridiculous tasks they're burdened with that they're out of touch with the work being done by direct reports. You're not recognized for doing well, but get chastised over every mistake, sometimes scapegoated by the person who's supposed to be your supervisor. The corporate body seems so distant to the thousands of office workers who process the entries the CEO takes millions in bonuses for. A soulless, cold machine that turns out burned out employees and sub-par performance, due to the constant revolving door and short staffing.

A great transition job as far as pay and benefits. Though don't stay at this job past a couple years. Terrible ten week training process. By the time you get on the floor you find that you were thrown to the wolves and not properly prepared. This job doesn't prepare you for the floor properly but they expect you to go out of your way to learn how to process instead of teaching you how in the first place. Tons of favoritism between RCA's and Supervisor's. In my interview I was told I don't have to answer phones and that it isn't a call center. Very misleading and very false, you will be required to answer angry phone calls and not even be equipped with the proper information to go about sed phone call. Basically they want you on phones but won't take the initiative to train you especially not in the ten week training process. The environment is very cliquey though most jobs are so I won't say that was a problem. I personally would not recommend this job to anyone or at least not at the Tonawanda location. Also the pay isn't that great for the work that you do. Can be very stressful at times. They care about quantity over quality. Also you will be told one thing from one higher up and something almost completely different from another. Therefore expect to be left out in the cold when it comes to certain things. Clarification isn't ever clarifying at this job. Hope this helps someone! 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Analyst 8 salaries reported	$20.55 per hour
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Senior director 2 salaries reported	$149,100 per year
Freight coordinator 5 salaries reported	$18.90 per hour

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