A to Z Challenge 2024 - Professionally Speaking - G is for General Freight Agent

 My adoptive grandpa, Perry Wilmer Reed (1885-1938), was a railroad man.  While his father was a conductor, and his brother Frank was a switchman, Grandpa Perry was a freight agent.  This meant that he had to be able to handle all the rates, rules, routes, regulations, and requirements the railroads he worked for had to meet in order to do the business of carrying goods from here to there.

Having worked in the labor relations department of a major railroad for a while, I can attest that these rules and regulations and requirements are complex, indeed.  The key in such a complex field is not to have it all stored in your brain, but to know where to find out what you need to know.  That means how to assemble, organize, and use a great many publications, tables, and books of regulations.

He was also enrolled to practice before the Interstate Commerce Commission, the federal agency that has jurisdiction over railroads in the U.S.  This meant that he could represent his railroad before the I.C.C., argue cases, and present testimony in matters involving the railroad relating to its role as a commercial carrier.  According to his son Robert Reed, in this capacity Perry Reed (like that other Perry, one Mr. Mason of literary and television fiction) never lost a case.(1)

(1)  Robert Reed, "Little Man," Pensacola History Illustrated, vol. 3, no. 4 (Winter 1985), p. 27.