Glad I moved over to Poly Trucking

My guess is someone let that mill in SC ld 11 totes down the center without blocking and bracing. Several times they tried it with me. And I told them I don't care what everyone else does. Block and brace them or I'm not taking it. Totes walk I don't care what they say.
All it takes is one event to wake sleepy up , sleepy being safety.

 

I never said I was , I was researching.
By doing that you have piece of mind knowing your next move before you need it. Been dumped by Jevic after almost 8yrs. And left new century before they had the chance.

 

I know not everyone is unhappy, but more and more are. I mean, in all your years here, have you seen almost 10% of the drivers leave in a couple months time? When I 1st started, during the slow times, the rumor room usually had discussions of where to eat, or the funny times or the challenging loads...rarely an unhappy tone. Now, you hear all sorts of unhappy times and a general negative tone to most conversations. That's a short period of time for such a drastic change.

As far as the rumor room scuttle-butt about freight rates, I took it with a grain of salt...believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. I fell for the old "don't let them know you're looking for another job, they'll fire you"... since then I generally don't believe everything any more.

 

Well I've been on hometime since last Thursday and got a call from backhaul today with my load info. Picking up in houlka Ms friday about 670 mile dh. Delivering in farmers branch Saturday. Pretty good backhaul load.

Need a service so I'll either take a good load Sunday in a loaner or wait for my service.

 

I spend little to zero time in the rumor room , if I'm not waiting on my truck to come back from the shop. The 1 obvious at poly is that when you get there if there is no reason to sit in the rumor room, you don't. It's the one time when you're under the watchful eye. Best place not to be while in GP is rumor room bldg 8.

 

It's not all doom and gloom at Snackbar Pass. I have had a major uptick in both miles and freight availability...back haul has been calling ahead of my delivery times and things are back to happy times. I got my monthly newsletter from the DAT loadboard folks...a shocking article was on there. It said July freight availability was hitting it's usual summertime low, but things were looking up. Funny, my June sucked, but my July rocked. Anyway, for the 1st time since the Love's chain had the rewards points system the way it is now, I hit Diamond level +4 gallons to spare...plus I also got my shower power level at the Flying Peelot...so that means I bought 2000 gallons of fuel (plus what I put on at the company facilities) and it isn't from idling.

As for the rumor room visits...since we have to get permission to leave the compound, and since shipping was so far behind a few months back, I have no place else to go...I am not a bookworm, and I spend a lot of time in my truck as it is...I need to escape and relax outside the confines of this 6 wheel'd crap spreader . The only options are, the rumor room or brave the dangers of walking the lot and dodging speeding yard vehicles. To be honest, the rumor room had less death defying close calls.

After my above average month, it was my turn to pee in the Dr.'s cup and breathe heavy for them (random whiz and drunk test)...which pays me an extra 2 hours, on top of all my miles...when walking in to the clinic, a 'soon to be' former Crete walked up and started chatting. I guess Poly's H/R had him down there doing his physical and pre-screen drug test. I played it cool, didn't want to scare him off...yet...hey, I may be an a-hole...but only when I choose to be.

Headed home next week, Outbound was trying to get the load ready early, but no dice., I have to be home on 9/10 again anyway so my wife can go out of town on farmers market business(cue the bull-whip and cat meow sound effects), so I cut this tour short, it has only been 30 days since I left.

 

SB , you worry about who's not happy and who's leaving , I look at benefits and 401k , hub miles and the positives they have then ask myself if it's a good fit for me. I don't have a position on who is happy and who isn't because what works for some doesn't work for others. Listen when Jevic began the downward spiral toward bankruptcy , 1st the benefits went from great to good to mediocre to sad to downright awful , and this was over a 3 yrs period. The 401k went from a 100% match to 50% , to 25% to nothing , and within 6 months they went under. Poly pays by the hub , has pretty good ins. and a 100% match 401k , they'll still run you home for a dr appt even when the out of route exceeds 10% on miles , no questions asked as long as a Sup okays it. They get ya home when you need to be , you get to plan for your own needs best I've seen in 19 yrs over the road. Someone says they're leaving I don't ask why , it's none of my business. And every company out there can paint artist like , to convince everyone their grass is greener than everyone else's . Poly is never gonna be perfect , never was nor is any other company.
At Jevic I was home 45 of 52 weekends why ? Because although I made 63k a year they made me a raving maniac by week's end and I had to go home just in order to not quit. Every dam day of my 8 yrs with them I hated being out there , but the 63k I didn't want to walk away from.
Now I make like 53 , but have no problem being out 20 to 30 days at a time , why because they leave us alone 98% of the time , and all they expect you do , is be on time. After between 23 and 30 days , I go home and enjoy the hell out of life for a week to 10 days without them bothering me to come back after 4 days. And here's the key most of the time "NOT ALL" I make as much in 25 days as the majority of this industry makes in 33 to 35 .
Whenever you can work 3 to 4 weeks , and take off 7 to 10 days and do it pretty regularly. Plus all the bills are paid , retirement is being maxed out as in the 100% up to 6%. Plus an extra 100 a month in Fed. to ensure a real nice return every year , and a growing savings acct , you don't worry about who is leaving. I've talked to guys that remark about how good they were 10yrs back. But no one is telling me that there were never drivers not happy.

 

It's called trend assessment and prediction. You see the overall direction the company is headed based on their policies and treatment of the employees in general. So if they are on a downhill trend, that means something is up and they are making adjustments. Having done this for over 22 years, I have worked mostly for privately owned companies on purpose...they tend to make decisions that keep the company profitable, but yet more employee friendly as opposed to the publicly owned business who will sacrifice employee happiness to gain profits for the stockholders. I tend to observe what is going on around me, both with the way I am being treated and the way others are being treated to assess the general direction of the company. If it's changing for the worse fast, that signals major changes and the employees need to start making plans for the future elsewhere...but if it's changing slow, it might just be the regular ebb and flow of the business cycle...or it could be the 'frog soup' theory (put a frog in boiling water, it jumps out, put a frog in cool water and turn up the heat slow, it'll stay in the water until it's frog soup). I've tried to ride out companies changes in the past and got burned. Now I try to gauge when it's time to pull out and move on...the best time to pop the chute isn't right before impact, it's well before so you have a controlled soft landing so you can walk away to jump another day.

You care about retirement, I don't. My family heritage and history shows all but 1 didn't live to todays retirement age, and that 1 that did, died within the 1st year after retiring. If the trend continues, I won't retire. Which is why I have a LOT of life insurance. If 50-55k does it for you on an OTR job, more power to ya. I could find many many regional jobs that got me home every weekend or every other weekend making that much...I don't spend months away from my wife, kids and grand kids at an OTR job for that kind of money...if I must stay out, I need to clear 60-65k minimum.

As for the benefits (insurance), if you're not a regular visitor to the doctor, it's good insurance. At least you've got the VA as a backup in case our insurance won't cover something. But my wife is on several continuous prescriptions that the doctor needs to give her periodic check ups before renewing the 90 supply...and they aren't on the same 90 day renewal cycle so she see's the doctor every 2 or 3 months...and our insurance company refuses payment on 1 or 2 of these visits a year, and refuses payment on at least 1 of each prescription every year because they will randomly think I am still on Crete's insurance. Then my wife has to take time out of her busy schedule to call them up and argue with them to get her meds or appointment paid for. So for her, it isn't that great, but for me...it works because I don't use it.

Tucker hit it on the head...when I posted on the Crete thread when I was there, and how I am doing it here are the same...I tell it like it is...good or bad. Sometimes it's venting a bit as well, but if you notice one of my last posts...it was positive. I do it so anyone that reads this thread can get an overall feel for things here to see if it's right for them...heck, I might be saving the company some money by warding off a driver that comes here (on a company provided airplane ticket), finds out it isn't what they expected but tries to stick it out, only to screw up and cost the company some business, then leave. Think of it as a public service that helps strengthen our driver pool...or else we could keep hiring drivers like the one Army guy saw a while back...that drops a trailer not once but twice because he didn't check the kingpin lock.

 

Outbound called around 10 this morning with more loads than I usually get offered. Sunday loads offered were the normal Indiana Illinois stuff, Loveland co, a 1 stopper and a multi stop both ending in Miami and the one I took which was a Uxbridge mass load.