Groendyke Transport

For anyone wondering about Groendyke Transport, I figured I would throw out some information about them since I have been here a couple months now and recently attended the new hire orientation at their corporate office out in Enid Oklahoma.

My opinion about the company is kind of middle of the road right now. I can't say they are a bad company but I won't say they are a great company either. This is just my opinion based on my personal experience up until this point. I feel there is more cons than pros. I will have to stay here a while because I have hopped jobs too many times (not intentionally) over the last year so I need to get my jobs/years ratio back in check. One could possibly retire from here if so inclined. Can't say if I will or won't. That will take some time to determine. They do promote from with in so there is opportunity from time to time to get out of the truck and go into something different. So that is a plus.

I will rewind back to when I originally applied. I was hauling fuel last summer and that job did not pan out so I wanted to go back to pulling tankers. Groendyke had openings out of the same place I used to park at with Superior. They were offering regional/local and system opportunities. I applied and checked off I was interested in the regional stuff out 3-5 days and maybe work a day or two local here and there. Got a call from the Winder terminal to come in for an interview and test drive. That all went smooth. No issues there. I did inquire about pay and was told what I would be making per mile based on my experience and other additional pay for picking up loads/delivering, demurrage, etc. The one thing I took issue with was that I was told wrong due to lack of knowledge from the guy I talked to. I was supposed to start out at top pay based on my experience but it turns out I was 6 month's shy of their required experience to come in at top pay. I was irritated but no big deal since I will get top pay in another 4 months. I am currently making .50cpm loaded and .39cpm empty. Top pay is .52cpm loaded and .40cpm empty. So I am not too far off from that.

Groendyke is extremely overkill on safety in my opinion. All their new trucks have all the latest bells and whistles of safety "features". Front end collision detectors, blind side detectors, speed monitoring, etc. Several of these features are accompanied by and annoying beeping sound coming from the dash and a grunting sound coming from the speakers. Quite the distraction when you are trying to concentrate. The only way to not have these systems reminding you they are there is to run at maybe 63mph and stay in the right lane all the time. Trucks are already governed at 65mph which is too slow for traffic these days. Imagine dropping a couple more miles an hour. This is one of the cons for me about the company. Slow trucks and constantly monitoring your performance. This to me is more stressful than just letting me do my job. If you get a roll alarm from the truck saying I took a curve to hard or a hard brake incident then have a chat with me. I am cool with that. (I have never had a roll stability alarm and only 1 hard brake over the last 4.5 years by the way)

They also have a software program called RALF, which I could not even tell you what it stands for other than Groendyke developed it themselves and it is basically a program that baby sits your progress. Every time you get an alarm in the truck, have any kind of incident, etc, it get's plugged into this program and they come up with a nice little statistical number for you telling you how much you are at risk for having a major incident. After you are hired you will have a 90 day review. I think this is done by the terminal manager. They will go over your RALF rating with you at this time and tell you what areas you need to improve in. At 90 days there won't be too much but after this it will be used at your annual reviews where more data will have been collected over a years time, etc. I saw mine when I was at Enid. I am sure I will get a talking to about my speed (I love rolling off hills). Groendyke gives you like 4mph before they start recording an over speed. At 5mph they start recording your speed and for how long. You will get a percentage value that accumulates over time on this and every other area they watch. This is how your overall performance rating is calculated. Groendyke loves statistics. If statistics proves it is a good or bad thing they will believe it.

Okay, let me move on to something more positive about the company. Their runs. So far I have had pretty decent runs and have been home almost every weekend. There were a couple exceptions, one when I had to have my truck serviced on a Friday so I did not get home until Sunday. Still had a couple of days off once I got back. The other was where they gave me a load to take to Tulsa on my way to orientation. I picked up on a Friday and dropped at the Tulsa yard on Sunday. So I was able to make some money on my way to orientation.

Paychecks seem to be decent. My insurance will start coming out of my pay starting Feb 1st so we will see what kind of money I am taking home then. Drivers. All the ones I have met so far seem to have a positive attitude. None of them had anything bad to say about Groendyke. I have met a couple that have been there anywhere from 8-15 years. They have endured a lot of the changes that Groendyke has made and still hung around so I guess they can't be all bad.

Anyway, I will add more to this shortly. I will go over what orientation was like.

 

I am actually on the chemical tanker side. That was one thing I was going to cover. Groendyke does have numerous division that you can work in depending on location. They haul chemicals, asphalt, dry bulk, gasoline, LPG and maybe a couple others I am not aware of.

They do not haul gasoline in the Atlanta area. Even if they did I would have no interest in it after trying it once. I could not make any money at it. Getting paid percentage of the load is bs in my book. Especially when you are doing 100% of the work. Groendyke pays their gas haulers percentage of the load but just from what I heard from a few guys in orientation they must have things set up a little better where they make a little more than the other guys. There were at least 3 gas haulers in my orientation and I did not hear any of them complain about pay but I did hear them saying they had long days, 12-14 hours.

 

Orientation. First thing I will say is be on time. Groendyke is very strict on this. If you are late for class you will probably be sent home unless you have a really good excuse. For most the orientation is only three days. And thank goodness for that because they go all day. 8am to 5-5:30pm. They cover everything from the usual race, ethnicity and harassment stuff to all the company policies and then on to all the DOT stuff, rules, regs, CSA, etc.

I was a little disappointed what they paid us per day. $125 per day for the 3 days. However, they did pay for our hotel rooms and all meals paid for, breakfast, lunch and dinner for all 3 days. They pre-paid breakfast at the restaurant located in the hotel so all we had to do is present them a voucher that was given to us when we checked in. For lunch they had some great stuff catered in. I am not talking Subway either. We had salmon, pork loin, fried chicken, meat loaf, roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, fried okra, tons of salad, biscuits, etc. They had more stuff to eat than I can remember. For dinner they gave us $50 cash on Monday after class to last us three nights. I ate too much on Monday between lunch and dinner that I didn't want to see food for a month so I was conservative with my dinner meals Tues and Wed. I actually came back with $23 in my pocket.

You have these test to take as you go along through classes. They are not hard and give out the answers as they go. If you are paying attention you can get all 100s. I made all 100s so they gave me $30 in "safety bucks" to be used at the Groendyke Store online. Only place you can spend them. If you don't pass some of the test you have to stay late on the last day to go over and re-do the ones you missed. Once you pass all the test they issue you a completion certificate along with your HM126 certification card. They also gave us a pretty nice travel bag that will come in handy.

Also on the last day you will take a field trip over to the corporate office which is like two blocks away. It is actually pretty neat. The original building is still there. As the company grew, they added on to the original building. The front entry has a lot of cool stuff to look at. As you go all through the place they have cool stuff set up everywhere. One hall has all 6 of the Heil Trophies they have won. They will probably get their 7th this year. I told you they were big on safety.

 

I think chemical tankers is one of the easiest and better paying gigs you can have. I don't touch any of my loads as far as loading is concerned. They are either pre-loaded hook and go or live load at a chemical plant. As far as unloading, I have unloaded 3 out of all the loads I have hauled since mid November of last year. I wore the chem suit once on one of my unloads. Most these places unload for you. I imagine for liabilty reasons. Fine with me. I just sit in the truck and collect my money. Wearing a pickle suit every now and then isn't a big deal.

 

Let me know if you have any questions about them. I guess I should have hammered on the safety aspects of loading and unloading here at Groendyke. If something isn't right or looks unsafe you have the power to stop everything and make a phone call. You will never get in trouble for that. However if you do see something unsafe or are asked to do something unsafe and proceed anyway then more than likely you will find yourself looking for another job. They cover all loading/unloading procedures and do/dont's in orientation so you have been taught what to do. Don't second guess Groendykes policies and procedures and you will be fine.

Groendyke motto: Do it right the first time or don't do it at all.

Yes they run the place like it's the military. It is not for some people.

 

No offense taken. But here is my take. With everything that is being expected out of drivers these days, especially tanker drivers and the higher standards they seem to be held to, $125 a day seems a bit low. If you want me to be honest, $200 a day would be better.

If a company requires you to go through orientation then yes they should foot the bill to put you up somewhere. I don't really care about the food. I am not that big of an eater and can get by on soup and sandwiches.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate what they did but at the end of the day, money going into my bank account is what pays my bills.