I/B supervisor is the most important front line supervisor. He sets the table for the entire week on his first shift. If he screws something up you are playing catch up all week.
However, he deals with his men and his freight. He needs to know his runs, his men and he is set.
O/B supervisor is the tit job. Again all he is doing is getting his plan ready and when the freight hits, BOOM, make it happen. Even at a busy terminal an O/B supervisor is loading maybe 20 points, while the I/B sup is loading 20-30 runs and trying to set up dispatch.
As long as you have a good crew, who respects you, you will make your cuts and you go home and sleep decent hours.
Disptach is relying on his I/B to set up his day and in turn needs to set up his O/B. He is also the only front line supervisor who interacts with customers on a minute by minute basis. That is the wild card, my friend.
Your dispatcher is paid to make his own decisions and those decisions are based on numbers, sales, customer service, traffic, pesonalities of your work force. All things that can change from day to day.
Again, it does not give guy a license to be an a-hole, but it really is a tough job. You get pulled in a lot of different directions, by a lot of different people, all with different agendas.