Glad I moved over to Poly Trucking

I get your point, but...that company isn't in my area, I won't work local, I don't care about frills. What I want is a reliable truck with enough room for me to store my belongings, a factory inverter or an option for an aftermarket inverter to be installed (or a quality APU). And a decent pulling motor and a decent ride. Other than that, I don't need chrome or chicken lights or satellite radio. I just need a decent piece of equipment with a productive company that allows me to do my job at a competitive pay rate. That's it.

As far as your prediction for the equipment requirements, don't hold your breath. They have been pushing e-logs (or OBDRs) for a long time, and are they in every truck yet? It'll be 10-15 years before cameras, collision avoidance and speed limiters are mandatory. By then, it won't matter to me because I will have left the occupation or died.

 

You again missed out on the word New and have mistaken that for newer. And you may have almost as much time driving , but there is a bigger more glaring factor holding you back , it's called non-productive agenda , your priorities are to write policy and spend millions , why you aren't VP or XO , leaves me scratching my head. You drive a truck for a living slick , you aren't engineering long range missiles for Lockheed Martin , or Space shuttle computer chips for Northrup Grumman.
And no neither is our immediate bosses at bldg. 8 , but they also do not write or overwrite policy or solely decide to scrap the fleet and order new KW's. But I guess venting and telling the world to run , flee and hide from Poly and talking outsourcing so none of us have jobs is your answer to all the problems. I stepped out of the truck and into construction at age 38 , for 17 to 18 months spent 12 hr graveyard shifts doing manual labor and made 72k in 8 and a half months then came seasonal layoff the 2nd year , economic stress finally led to the sale of the company to the Untied Rentals giant . Fact is it was a job that you racked up 7 to 10 miles a night on foot , and many with weight being carried. We sit 12 to 14 and you expect 70k for that without sacrificing home time. Problem is that in reality , those jobs are hard to come by , they don't have a large driver turn over , and because they are not in bad shape can pick and choose their next driver and be nitpicky in the process. Have you ever tried getting into ABF , YRC , or UPS ? If not Why those guys make 80k a year , but you may have to be a casual on call guy for 9 or 10 yrs before stepping into the regular board.
It just looks to me like you make things harder on yourself by venting publicly , but you don't just vent , you smear them into the ground. People demand change , but never change themselves , then get all bent out of shape because no one is listening to them.
You need to be the director of blockbuster movie SB , not an actor , any thing less isn't gonna work for ya , Sorry.

 

True , if i were in my own truck and it broke it would be much worse
that what we have at Poly Trucking
No reimbursement for the room to start , and no revenue while the truck
is broken , a fellow could sink pretty fast out here as an O/O , while your
broke down the payments would still be rolling in.
As long as Poly helps out by at least getting us picked up and brought back
to the loaner yard things should be ok.
I have decided that i would probably not take a loaner in the dead of
winter because they usually don't have heating/ac systems that are dependable.
A fellow could literally die out here in freezing temps.

 

If Poly got 100 new trucks today , how many guys here that have over a year with them would be issued a new one ?
I ask because , I'm not likely to give a guy a brand new truck that has spent the last year publicly smearing the company into the ground.
Yet they do it anyway and expect to be treated nicely. My guess is that some of those trucks would sit long enough for some 8 & 9 month guys to get that year and others would rot waiting for the day they get one. To each his own , though . Sometimes people might be better off to do a self evaluation and ask themselves , am I part of my problems ? It's hard to humble yourself enough to do this , I did it once over a 3 to 5 year period , the changes you make in your thinking allows life to be good n a bad day the end result is amazing !!!

 

i was told getting a new truck is based on the drivers with better miles.

So in other words if you and i both started on the same day and you averaged

3200 a week and i averaged 1800 a week for the first year you would get the new ride.

 

I don't particularly want a new truck , the stuff that breaks on mine is usually
something piddly , like a hose torn or a slight leak. The engine is strong
and the transmission/clutch is smooth.

 

i am wondering , E _logs are right around the bend , do you guys envision Poly
resetting the speeds on all the trucks to 65 in order to fulfill their strange little
'don't log over 65' thing that they do ?

 

I believe there's more to it than that , as I said earlier in a post. The guy I went through orientation with and I were both issued new ones at a year. I never truck hopped because I carry injections in a fridge.
He blew me away in miles , I doubt I had much more than 106K 1st yr. He had I bet almost 140 maybe 150. We did it in a quiet friendly way not a loud boat rocking way. I'm pretty sure at poly , they like those that like them , and do a good job. And that said isn't that the best way to a good working relationship with your company ?
I know I'm thought of here as K / A , I don't much care either , fact is I've made for myself a comfort zone , just by being pleasant with them for the most part. I have been in the Sup's office a half dozen times in 2.5 yrs. And the end results have been all good because of our approach to each individual event that brings me in there. I have in a gentle way brought problems to their attention , and mostly the result is positive. Not always though , sometimes you walk out knowing you gained nothing , other than getting it off your chest without thumping on someone else's.
I had a supv one day holler at me in front of bldg. 8 , get the F outta here , the dog and pony show was about to start. Walmart biggies there , I could have carried that around with me , but what good will that do me ? So I let it go , he could've handled it better yes , but by me not making matters worse , and blowing it off , keeps it all good. Will I do that 5 times over for the same Sup ? No , I wasn't put on this earth to tickle his butt with a feather. I treat an isolate event as just that until I see that it's an abusive habit , at which point I see his boss.
You don't have to turn 140k each year with them to be in a new truck , I never have and never will , 110k is fine by me. I be as observant as I can to maybe help the truck last longer by slowing way down on bad roads , if my back is taking a beating my wheels are also , and hopefully by doing that it'll be over 300k before the breakdowns begin more frequently. You can only hope here at poly that the job you do and how you go about it keeps you in newer equipment , I baby mine hoping that it'll keep me in good hands for 3 to 4 yrs before it starts acting up. And maybe be in line for the newbie when the time is right.

 

Haven't heard them even considering it.

 

Issues in this industry will always be there. I've been with decent companies and was so pissed off anD ready to quit for whatever reason, that when any issues came
Up it seemed to drive me 10x more insane till I finally moved on.

With poly I look at the big picture. I've never been towed until arriving at poly. I've been towed 4 times this year which would usually drive me crazy but when I look at the big picture and realize I've made more in 8 months than I did all of last year I tend to deal with these problems with a much clearer head.