Review of Poly Trucking

Does Poly go to Arizona. Can an Arizona'n get hometime there?

 

Yes they do.

 

The funny part is there is just as much negativity on the I love Poly thread as this one. All the old timers have packed up and moved on. Hey army guy I see u still trucking. Good luck with poly.

 

I have been with Poly a little over 2 years. The first few months had a learning curve on how to best use the system to your advantage but after that things have been fairly pleasant here for me. I have been fortunate in not having many break down issues. I think I had two breakdowns in the old Freightliners that only cost me 2 days total in a hotel and I have not lost any time in the Internationals thus far although I have had problems that needed to be fixed but was lucky I could manage to crawl into one of the yards and grab a loaner while they were taken care of.

Bottom line:
Numbers for 2013: 134434 miles 58 days at home, extra drops (30.00 each) - 153
Numbers for 2014: 133583 miles 88 days at home, extra drops - 136

IRA 6% match on taxable income around 3300.00
Monthly phone allowance 50.00 (600.00 year)

Moving to near a home terminal greatly helped with the home time this year. The ability to run pretty much where you want to has kept me out of the NE for over a year (PA included). The shop issues I have learned to deal with as I know not much is going to change so I just roll with the punches and keep on keeping on. I drove for Crete previously and while treated fairly well (particularly by my terminal manager) I just didn't get the same number of miles with a hell of a lot less home time and just a #### load of micro managing through QC. And for anyone that has drove for Crete thinks dealing with getting a hold of Back Haul here is frustrating should have a go at Crete's weekend dispatch

I will have to say I also agree with spending as little time on the yard at Grand Prairie is spot on. I am usually only there long enough to drop a trailer and pick up an outbound load. Without going into any detail that extra 10% out of route allowance is your friend, using it when you know you have extra time or are going on a reset or heading home can likely add 5-6000 miles a year to your bottom line.

 

Maybe the mods can put this in the motor carrier section.

 

Triumph , my point of reply on your original post, was simply an attempt to better speak of some positives you left out , as it appeared to me you kind of got side tracked with things that irked ya, and you had little to say about quite a few of the positives.
Quite honestly there's a few positives, even I left out. See I was one day in 2007 after 7.5 yrs with Jevic dumped along with 1500 others as they did a Chapter13 and closed effective immediately. The old saying holds very true , best time to look for a job is when you have one. My guess is that only appx 200 of the 1500 employees went out found another job immediately and is still there today. Reason for that is real simple , the 1&2 star companies out there far outweigh the 3&4 star companies out there.

You claimed you didn't want to put Poly in the great company to drive for forum , but it doesn't say great companies to drive for it says good companies to drive for. See I've been here for almost 2 yrs , and after Jevic went under 2008 I scraped , and read , and read , and researched til I was blue in the face trying to find a gig that would work for me with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I'm also a veteran USMC , and several companies wouldn't touch me as they acted as though I had Aids. I have to mention this up front , I use the VA hosp in Huntington WV , and live in Garrison KY. that's 14 miles west of Portsmouth OH along the Ohio river in the woods. I mentioned this cause the companies that didn't write me off as dead from RA , told me I'm not in their hiring lane , some even told me 35 miles north of I-64 is too far out of route for their liking. Another reason I'm up front with them is because I need home once a month to get my injections , plus need to refrigerate them on the road, at 900bucks per shot , they have to be in a Fridge.

As you can imagine most of my searching fell short of anything positive , although there were those who did say it would be no problem. And ended up a problem when it was time to get home. Huge positive with Poly, no Bull they said it would work and that they'd make it work, and over almost 2 yrs they've gotten me home every time, when I needed to be there , not to mention the miles home I get paid. And they called me once on the way home telling me they needed me to take and extra day at home , and paid me 250.00 for taking the extra day. IT Does Happen, not often but it does, I have a day layover in a pay statement I could show you.

So many companies out there want to make every single incident an avoidable against the driver , "Do they Not" ? Yes they do believe that especially those that pay safety bonuses. Poly has no safety bonus , nor do they have some a hole trying to steal money from that bonus when you get a warning for a light out on an inspection. Friday after Thanksgiving I'm at HEB in Houston. When the green light goes on on the dock, I go in to get my bills signed, 25 minutes later I hop in the truck and away I go. I arrive at the Pol Tex fuel island to get out in the bright light at 2230 and see over the Driver side steer about 600 bucks of damage superficial type to the hood just above. I call the company and report it , I do all the follow up and a report , get with the shop and it's with me at home now fixed , properly by S.W. Intl dropped it with them on a Friday 2 weeks before Christmas and got it back the following Thurs.

The guy that backed in next to me while I was inside never told me he hit me , and I failed to do a walk around. I have not been called in and not a word been said to me about it. I had some punks throw a rock out of a car as I traveled at night down us68 from Maysville KY , to Lexington a year ago , big rock , took the Grill , the Condenser , and Radiator out. Needed a hook , and lost 4 days pay because of it , but Poly didn't make matters worse and try to blame that on me like so many would. Trust me when I tell ya , about the Blame game, a guy named Shane lives in the area I do also, and was a target that night in a UPS truck, he's been with them 18yrs. Third time in 2months these punks got him and his Supv. began accusing him of nailing someone's wife and now they're out to get him.
How do I know this ? He got em that night, he took the road out both directions that night with a set of pups, a sheriff buddy of his told him to do it , criminals always return to the scene and sure enough they cut a U turn a mile down the road and headed back to admire their handy work. He was out there with a flashlight pen and tablet writing every plate and make down , 3rd car didn't stop they began speeding up and went in the embankment alongside the road to get by , he got the plate # , the police arrested 3 the next day for wanton endangerment.
Sure I know it's a long story , but not a word from Poly , after a year with them , Shane had problems with a boss at UPS though. Later he told me he wanted to sue for defamation of character cause the rumor was out around the shop.

All I'm saying dude , is Poly is a much better company than people are giving them credit for. They are meticulous about policy , yes , they're also self insured and are sticklers about zero liability , there are many that find it hard to adapt to the intricacies of that term "Zero Liability" including me. I'm still learning the true meaning of that term according to Poly. And it can get frustrating, now I like many find it beyond smart to drop get a B-T pass and get out til the load is ready. I'm also finding out that sitting in that driver room , packs a world of knowledge and a new guy can benefit greatly by learning from someone else's misery helping them to avoid their own in the future.

Someone above has mentioned the micro managing Crete is so famous for and the over repetitiveness of the Qcom , within 80 days with Shaffer drove me insane too many times at 1 and 2 a.m...... This is I believe a bozo no no policy at Poly , cause I've never heard it beep after 4 or 5 pm unless it's a left over message in a loaner your getting into. You're hired , with the predetermination they will not have to hold your hand and although they only return the calls from messages you leave that's important enough for them to feel the need to return , I'll gladly accept that in exchange for not having them treating me like I know jack squat about diddly and need assistance taking my next left turn.

 

I've done my fair share of ragging on Poly on the other thread (Glad I ...........). But bottom line is this. In comparison to my previous company, i.e. Crete (for almost 10 years), my 1st full year here I grossed almost $59k. Now, that isn't that impressive for an OTR company except you have to factor in how much time off I took for personal reasons. At Crete I had to run 325 a year, and ride dispatch like a rented mule to make that much, and I was micro-managed to the verge of insanity. Here, along with my many days lost to breakdowns, I was out less than 300 days...and my average home time stay here was 7 days at a time(something Crete wouldn't allow unless you had a lot of vacation time). I did all this with very little if any micro-managing by the office or operations people. Now, if I hadn't been broken down so often, and spent a little less time off, mid $60k is entirely possible. I mean, this is the 1st company I have worked for that got me home to FL on time for Christmas (including paying me for the miles I drove from my Jacksonville, FL delivery to my home north of Gainesville and back to my backhaul pick-up south of Savannah) and they provided me time on another Jacksonville load to spend New Years eve and New Years day at home as well...all miles paid. Something Crete screwed drivers out of...there, you were only paid to your delivery customer, miles driven to home were not paid.

While I agree with Triumph, the equipment is 2nd rate junk, the newest DEF Cummins powered Prostars are less problematic. However, Poly needs to realize that there are other truck makers out there with better equipment than International.

The communication does need improvement, however, especially lately, we've had 2 of 2 new people in the Outbound office. And 300-350 drivers (depending on how many quit in the last few weeks). That's a heck of a lot of drivers-to-dispatch ratio. But, they do need to return calls if you leave a message after the beep.

The shop...we've had issues. When I was bustin' tail running 10-12k+ a month, I was in the shop a lot...service's and general repairs. And it seemed, the more often I was in there, the more we butted heads. I have eased up and not pushed so hard lately, and have been getting services done less frequently...and thus been getting along better with the shop leadership. Plus, the less times my truck is in the shop, the less opportunity they have to screw it up or leave something loose. But the 15k oil change is unnecessary on today's trucks with the improved oil quality, however some of Poly's older Cummins powered Prostars can't go over 10k miles without plugging the oil filter...which is a failure in the shop management to resolve...there are fixes for that problem, but they choose to put a band aid (as in a new filter)on it instead of fixing the root cause, so the issue will never be resolved...but that is what you get when the top dog in the shop is buddies with the top dog in the office.

Triumph mentioned a lot of debris in tires, but I got that a lot at many companies I've worked for. I overheard a conversation about them putting those big magnets on the yard trucks. I guess they tried one...$10k for the unit, and because the property is so uneven, it got knocked off and run over too often, when they raised it up to where it wouldn't get knocked off, it didn't pick up stuff. Maybe that is why I've seen the street sweeper truck more lately.

 

I'm currently finishing up my last load with Poly. A lot of stuff has already been said about this company. My 2 biggest complaints is the shop and communication. Trucking doesn't work without communication. Too many times I would receive a call from backhaul in the am. Sometimes I would be able to answer it, sometimes not, I'm a morning shower person. If I missed that call, I wouldn't hear back from them till late afternoon. Usually too late to pick up the backhaul. If that was the case, they wanted me to call the broker and explain why. There's no reason that they couldn't leave the info on my phone or Qualcomm.

The shop is self explanatory. 7 hr oil changes and it's never done right. I've had a apu that hasn't worked in 6 months among other things.

It's not all negative here. Pay rate is good, hub miles is how we all should be paid. Kind of the last straw for me was when the weather changed. I was told and signed a paper stating that I wouldn't chain or go west in the summer if I won't go their in the winter. Never once did I do this in the spring or summer. As soon as winter rolls around, only loads I was getting offered was west coast. I asked why am I getting offered these loads now? Was told no one wants to go west in the winter. I said I don't chain. Was told if it's a Walmart or Sam's I would have to.

I talked to 3 different drivers in GP last time I was there. They said they only do Florida or Georgia in the winter and North west in the summer. So much for that rule.

It's not that's it's a terrible place to work. There are some good points about this place, but in the years I've driven, 2 of the biggest components in trucking is communication and breakdown and they struggle on both of those departments.

 

I agree with bigcat when it comes to backhaul calling. I know there was a brief rumor that they were thinking about an optional system like Coyote for the drivers with unlimited text...send me the info via text, and if you don't get a "msg received" or "got it" reply within a couple hours, then call...that's one of the things I liked about Coyote...

I think if they could resolve any one of these issues, they would keep more drivers. Heck...pay me breakdown when I am away from the supply of loaner trucks and I would be less tempted to move on.