Episode 99
Driving Ambition: Redefining the Trucking Industry on Our Terms with Pam Polyak
The trucking industry has long been the backbone of the American economy, integral in weaving the fabric of our everyday lives by ensuring the delivery of goods across the nation.
Recent shifts due to economic, generational, and technological changes have brought both challenges and transformative opportunities to the forefront.
Today we delve deep into these topics with Pam Polyak, a third-generation trucking business owner who is the President her family's Wisconsin-based trucking company.
Pam emphasizes that pride in one's work remains a cornerstone of her company's philosophy, despite the evolving industry landscape.
Attracting younger workers remains a challenge with stricter regulations, long hours without overtime pay, and the lifestyle demands of long-haul routes have made recruiting more complicated.
We discuss how the industry is attempting to stay ahead by adapting operations, such as creating shorter local routes and integrating more rail options into logistics models to make the field more appealing to the next generation.
Her experience underlines a pivotal industry lesson: advances in digital tools are best harnessed to complement, rather than replace, the human elements of business management.
The trucking industry stands at a crossroads, marked by generational shifts, technological evolution, and economic fluctuations. For leaders like Pam Polyak and many others in the industry, the path forward involves a delicate balance between honoring the legacy of the past and boldly steering towards a sustainable, inclusive future.
Highlights:
-Generational shifts in trucking industry ownership.
-Pride and craftsmanship in blue-collar work.
-Challenges of geographic logistics in freight.
-Impact of technology and government regulations.
-Economic struggles post-COVID for truckers.
-Essential role of personal relationships in business.
-Attracting younger workers to blue-collar careers.
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This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Transcript
Welcome to Blue Collar B's, a podcast that busts the popular myth that we can't find good people, highlighting how the different generations of today, the boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z, are redefining work so that the industrial revolution that started in the US stays in the US.
Brad Herda [:The Blue Collar B's podcast helps blue collar business owners like you build a business that'll thrive for decades to come by turning that blue collar B's into some true blue collar business solutions.
Steven Doyle [:In this episode, you are going to learn how to keep generational ownership alive and that pride in work pays off and government tech control is not a key to attracting new people to the industry. And lastly, that people and service will always win.
Brad Herda [:Our guest today is Pam Polyak, an enthusiastic, passionate, third generation family trucking business owner who is disrupting the status quo. We hope you enjoy this show.
Steven Doyle [:Welcome back to the show.
Pam [:Brad Hurda.
Steven Doyle [:How are you doing, my friend?
Brad Herda [:Fix my hair.
Pam [:Hang on. So for those of us, for those.
Steven Doyle [:Of you that are listening, we're fixing our hair or the hair that we don't have. Just having a good time, you know, bantering back and forth with our guests. That's coming into the show in a few minutes, but. So Brad, how, how have you been doing? It's been a, been a hot minute since we've recorded a show.
Brad Herda [:Yeah, it's been, it's been good. It's been really, really good. Weather's changing. You're here. Cheating Michigan Wolverine, they're going to be playing in the big ten championship game. Well, you know, cheaters got a cheat. Cheaters got a cheater got a hate.
Steven Doyle [:Ain't no cheating. Ain't no cheating. One hand behind, tied behind her back is still get the job done.
Brad Herda [:It don't matter, whatever. You know, you could, you could actually end up being like Ohio State. And if you do win the national championship, get it revoked just like they did, you could be just like them.
Steven Doyle [:I mean, no, no chance that we're gonna have it revoked. So it's okay because there's been nothing found. So it's okay.
Brad Herda [:Not yet, but anyway, okay, so for.
Steven Doyle [:All those hopers out there, you know, we deal in hope all the time.
Brad Herda [:But in reality, hope is the best plan.
Steven Doyle [:It is the best plan. So anyways, speaking of that, Brad, we're hoping that this show doesn't derail.
Brad Herda [:So that is, that is going to be a very unlikely thing today with our guest Pam Poliak, the president of Pollyak Trucking. We are grateful to have her here today, talk about an industry that often gets overlooked and never talked about and often underappreciated because we don't get shit in our stores, we don't get shit in our houses, we don't get any of those things without them moving stuff on trucks and nobody pays attention to it. All people think about, oh, those trucks are just a pain in the ass when we're driving down I 65 or 94 or wherever we're at. But they're necessary. They may not all be evil, but they are necessary. So welcome Pam Poliac to the show.
Pam [:Hi.
Brad Herda [:Focus, Pam, focus.
Pam [:Though I will tell you, for about a month during COVID we were America's heroes, correct? We had that title for a little bit. Everybody loved us. Everybody was out celebrating and honking and doing all the things, I don't know, to show appreciation. It was awesome. But it didn't last long. It didn't last very long.
Brad Herda [:And now we're back in the now here we are in 2023.
Pam [:Yes.
Steven Doyle [:So, Pam, before. Before Brad and I both forget, which generation do you best fit in with?
Brad Herda [:By birth or by self identification?
Pam [:I identified as a gen xer, I guess, technically, depending on which calendar you want to go off of. Born 1986, technically, I guess, puts me as a millennial. However, I would never, ever tell anybody that, so far as anybody's concerned, I just. I'll take ten more years onto my life. I really don't care. But I'm not saying I'm a millennial ever.
Steven Doyle [:As long as we know who you are, we're long.
Brad Herda [:As long as we have that line drawn, we're good.
Pam [:Yes. Yes. It might be imaginary, but it's going. It's there.
Brad Herda [:So you're part of a family trucking firm that started out, you know, three generation. You're third generation. Is that correct?
Pam [:I am third. Grandpa started it. Yep.
Brad Herda [:So, first of all, you deserve massive congratulations to making it to the third generation, because that is a very, very small percentage of the population that make it to generation three. So congratulations on that. What kept you in the industry? What kept you down this path to stay in a very, I'll call it old man, old ways type industry. And you're not def. You're definitely not an old man, so help me.
Pam [:Well, it certainly wasn't sanity that left out a long time ago. So that is not a part of the equation at all anymore, I think, to be honest, I think it just has mostly to do with, like, the challenges of it. We are not bored ever. And so that has a lot of pluses. It has a lot of negatives to it. But the challenges day in and day out, they can be entertaining, right? They can be horrible, but they are certainly not boring. So. And drivers are always changing.
Pam [:People are always changing. Customers are always changing. I think one of the funner things. Yep, funner. Using that word, that's totally fine. Is that you see people pop up throughout the years. Cause I'm on year 18 of this now, being directly in this industry. So I have seen a lot of people kind of come and go from different jobs, and then you see them a couple years later, pop up at a different customer, or they'll call and say, hey, I'm with so and so.
Pam [:Now, would you be able to do this? And it's just like, yeah, I missed you. Where you been, buddy? Like, what's going on? So it's. I mean, it's good. I like it most days. Most days.
Steven Doyle [:So it's always interesting. So being in the trucking industry. So I used to work commercial automotives, making a lot of semi truck components. So some of the stuff that we ran into, like with drivers, is knowing their different nuances that certain drivers like certain vehicles. Do you, uh. Do you kind of see that as a generational thing, or do you see that more as a kind of person specific of knowing what vehicles they were trained in?
Pam [:Well, there's two different. Two different answers to that one. There was a huge push when the automatic versus manual.
Steven Doyle [:Correct.
Pam [:Really started happening. Now, I personally dislike the fact that they even have schools right now that allow for teaching of only automatic vehicles. You can put that on your driver's license now.
Brad Herda [:Yes.
Pam [:Say that you can be a truck driver and you can have your full CDL, but you are only allowed to have automatic, right. I dislike that. Don't feel like that should. Should have ever been a thing. I feel like it was a cop out to anything. It makes things very difficult because there are still trucks that are obviously made manual.
Steven Doyle [:Oh, yeah.
Pam [:From an owner standpoint, there's a lot of perks to it being automatic. There's things obviously you can control, speed being one of them, how you're revving the engine, fuel, all of that stuff could obviously be fixed. A lot of drivers, once they change over to an automatic, like it better. But it also goes into the same stance of like, right now. What people do with cars is that there are very few manual cars. Manual cars, though, stop you. There's a lot of evidence that they would stop you from doing the hands free stuff you're on your phone, you're grabbing stuff, you're doing whatever. So there's pros and cons to both from that aspect of things.
Pam [:As far as trucks themselves, the one thing I will tell people when they're looking to purchase a truck, or the one question I should say I asked them is, are you going to sleep in your truck? And if the answer is no, then don't buy a hotel. Why are you looking to buy a sleeper?
Steven Doyle [:Right.
Pam [:Right. I mean, you guys come in here, and it's. To your point, it's. It's a. It's a fashion statement, right? A big, bad truck with a sleeper and a big body and a big, long nose, Peter belt and all this stuff. And then you're going, like, what kind of driving are you looking to do? Oh, I need to be home every night. My wife. My wife works, and I got to get the kids on the bus, and I got to be home every night.
Steven Doyle [:You ain't getting no sleeper.
Pam [:Why would you spend the extra? I mean, at this point, the market's been absolutely insane in terms of costs, but you could. You could easily spend 40, 50, $60,000 more on a sleeper versus a day cab. And for what? You know, and as soon as I ask them that question, they go like, oh, you really? I don't need to be the big badass with a sleeper. You know, it's like, yeah, okay, I'll do that every night. That's fine.
Steven Doyle [:Right?
Pam [:It's a stereotype right. There is that look. People want the look. You know, some people, you know, are you in it for the business, or are you in it for the look? Right. That's an interesting figure out which one it is.
Steven Doyle [:So that's very interesting.
Pam [:Yeah.
Steven Doyle [:And as you're looking at those different options, how much does driver experience matter? Meaning, we know that those that are closer to our age probably have some preferences, those of technology and stuff in a vehicle versus those that are younger. What are they looking for in their vehicles?
Pam [:They don't have much of a choice.
Steven Doyle [:Well, there's that.
Pam [:I say that with a little bit of hesitation, because the thing is, like, obviously, the government has stuck their nose into every inch of this industry as a whole. So the government's now going to mandate the control locks, the braking, the systems, all of that stuff is now required within the truck. So from a technology standpoint, they also require the elds. Well, any eld now comes with all the types of monitoring, from cameras, from hard braking to rolling stops to harsh turns, all of that stuff. So from a technology standpoint, these guys don't have much of a choice. I mean, it's there. It's in there. It's going to only increase.
Pam [:And if you don't like it, get out of the industry because it's not going anywhere. Cameras, by far are the biggest thing now that everybody's using it, has perks, has downfalls. Right there is. But with the amount of shady people, the outward facing cameras are actually been a good thing for a lot of people in the industry because everybody wants to turn around and blame a truck driver. Right?
Steven Doyle [:Right.
Pam [:You hit me, you scratched me, you dented this. Whatever. Within a week of having the cameras put in on outward facing, I had a video of a driver who was literally on the highway, right lane behaving, going 69 in a 70. Like, I can see all his speed, I can see everything. He's behaving. There's this car that came out of nowhere. He's got nobody in front of him, nobody in front on either lane. This car comes out of nowhere, cuts him off to the point of he almost ripped off the front bumper, would have spun himself around, gets in front of him and breaks.
Pam [:Yeah, twice. Oh, it was literally a suicide attempt. Like, I caught. I ended up getting really good, clear image of his license plate because it literally almost hit our front bumper. You know, I'd get all this information and I called the cops for it, and I was like, this guy's literally looking for a suicide attempt. There was no reason for that. There's nobody around. What do you do it? And so that technology, when the drivers see that, at least they, one, know that we're paying attention, but two, they see it.
Pam [:Then as I send out a message to them saying, hey, this driver had this incident. It's reported, I want this other car off the road. I want them reprimand, I want them whatever. And then you gain a little bit of that respect from your team going like, hey, she's behind this. She's watching this. She wants us to be safe. And, and then at the same time, you're congratulating the driver for having his eyes on the road and doing everything he needed to do to not hit that car, because that was clearly a suicide attempt. So it can go both ways in terms of technology, but it's not, it doesn't matter how old you are, it's not going anywhere.
Pam [:Right?
Brad Herda [:Is the technology and the automatic, are those things able to attract a younger talent pool to try to come into the industry versus, you know, the guy that wants his split deaf and all the other fun things. And he just likes doing what he's doing. Are you seeing that attracting a younger talent at all or not?
Pam [:Not the technology part, but what ended up happening kind of post that initial COVID kick. So the later part of 2021, 22, all of that, a lot of that. What was attracting people was the money and the loads. There was a lot of financial gain happening. Right. Um, and so there was a lot. There was an uptick and I'm going to get the quote wrong and the numbers wrong go with it. But just.
Pam [:It was upwards, I believe, over 30% over the last three years of increase in individual truck ownership authorities being activated, which means these guys are just out there buying trucks. The banks were giving trucks to whoever you. All you did was decent credit. You didn't even have to have a CDL to buy a truck. Nobody's checking that. You can start your dot. Nobody's checking if you have a CDL, just to start a dot, to start your own authority. Nobody's checking that stuff.
Pam [:So it's very easy to join the industry. But they were seeing numbers that they've never seen before. We were seeing numbers we've never seen before. We were getting paid seven, eight, $9 a mile to go from here to Chicago.
Steven Doyle [:It was great.
Pam [:It was. It was excellent money. Right?
Brad Herda [:And today that same mile is how much?
Pam [:Oh, you want to make me mad this early in the. There has been, we are on the later half of upwards a year now of the market completely crashing in terms of transportation. There has been not just numbers, pre COVID numbers, meaning when we were. When we were around COVID. Right. Just before COVID started a load from Wisconsin to Illinois, like Milwaukee area down to Chicago. Right. So a little 150 miles run, you could probably easily be about 400, $5500 on just a standard full truck load run like that post COVID.
Pam [:So about 20 to 22 later, half of 22, you could see seven, $800 for that same run. We are now seeing 300 and 5400, which are numbers similar to zero eight and zero nine numbers. So the recession and all of that is 100% here. It's not going anywhere. There's a lot of indications that 2024 is going to be horrendous as a whole. Fourth quarter is not even close to where it should be in terms of numbers. So I don't have a lot of hope for what 24 is going to bring, unfortunately, from a financial standpoint. However, what that does then is that all these people who joined in, 20 and 21 and 22, who were basing all of their financials off of these 700, 800, $900 loads that they can't find anymore that they will never see again.
Pam [:Those guys are closing their doors. Those guys are done. They had no idea that 354 hundred would ever be an option because they were new to the industry. They didn't know what they were doing. Still don't. So they're kind of piecing it all together while we at least we knew it was coming that the numbers that we had weren't going to last. I definitely didn't want to see zero eight and zero nine numbers, but I was okay with seeing 18 and 19 numbers again. So if we could get back up just a little bit.
Pam [:Yeah, we'll flatten out and everything will be okay. But right now there's a lot of trucking companies that need to leave the industry in order for it to fix itself and correct itself.
Brad Herda [:And that load price doesn't even, I mean, economically, it's ridiculous because when I look at some of the diesel price activity. Right. We're forcing 416 nine right now is what the, what? Looking it up right now, December 7 of 20 was $2.52 gallon. Right. So it's like. And having that load rate go down that much with your fixed costs essentially, or variable costs going up significantly. Yeah, I'm sure trucks have gotten more fuel efficient, but not to cover, not.
Pam [:To that extent, not in those couple of years.
Brad Herda [:So as you attract owner operators to your organization and even your own w two employees and things like that, how do you get the different cultures, the different generations, the different styles of communication, how do you get that through your organization to be effective and be that superior provider to your customers?
Pam [:I mean, I'm pretty awesome. So focus, ma'am, focus. Okay. Okay. Got it. Wow. I mean, you had to go. You had to go somewhere with that.
Pam [:Right? How do I attract, honestly, it's taking the technology piece out of it, I guess, for the most part, although we have a lot of automated systems, the guys still can come in here and have a conversation and talk and pick up the phone. They still have my personal cell number. They still have access to me. So although there's a lot of things that are automated in terms of the geofence on their, on their. Eld is telling us that he arrived at the location. He doesn't have to call and tell us anymore, you know, that type of stuff. So although it's eliminating that part of things, there's still. It's still a people business.
Pam [:It's still communicating with the customers, asking them for more freight, asking them if they need any additional help, asking what other options do they have for different freight, different lanes, different whatever. I mean, you still got to pick up the phone and have a conversation regardless of the technology that's behind it. But I will tell you, and I don't, this obviously isn't a trucking podcast, but it's all there is.
Brad Herda [:Could be. I don't know.
Pam [:Could be. But in recent news, convoy has gone under. So convoy came into the industry about seven years ago with this idea of this technology. Convoy is owned by Amazon. They did a very uber like thing where they post a load on the board. The lowest truck wins, period. The lowest truck. From a financial standpoint, you could see what other people are bidding.
Pam [:You can see what the lowest bid was, and you could either choose to match or take it. If you were the lowest by the time they had the cutoff, then you got the load. Very rarely did they care about service, about the fact that you have. You could do that lane every day, that you could. That you've dealt with that customer before. They don't care. They built an entire system on not caring. They built an entire system on the cheapest person wins.
Pam [:They were in business for seven years and just closed their doors. It doesn't work when you take the people out of it. And I think that's the biggest lesson I want the industry to learn, is that everybody's come up with technology, right? Everything's got a new bid, a new platform, a new website. Hey, go on this website. Put in your bid. Do this, put in your bid. It doesn't work. Convoy just proved that it doesn't work.
Pam [:They lasted seven years. They were supposed to be this huge, innovative change to the industry. Everything's going to be fantastic. And they didn't last. They didn't survive it. And good to me, that proved that people are still behind this, that people still care about a conversation at the end of the day, hopefully, right.
Steven Doyle [:Knowing what you know now from 18, you know, working in this industry 18 years ago now, looking at where you see opportunities, and because we talk generations, where do you see opportunities for the younger generation to get involved in the trucking industry?
Brad Herda [:Look, let's go 29 and under right now. Let's take the 29 and younger crowd.
Pam [:Where, if I'm being totally honest, I have no interest in anybody else joining this industry. I need to get people out of it so that we can get the rates back to the way we were.
Brad Herda [:Right. But in terms of the retirement piece.
Pam [:That'S coming I know. I was gonna say in terms of.
Brad Herda [:That aspect, there's still people going out. You still have to replace those that are going out some way.
Pam [:They have a very. They, meaning the entire industry as a whole has a upwards battle. There's a couple things working against the industry that will never be appealing to anybody younger, the millennials, or even anybody else down the pipeline at this .1 of the big things is overtime. Truck drivers are exempt from getting paid overtime, which is awesome for an owner. I certainly don't want that. They work 60 to 70 hours a week. Paying overtime on a 40 hours basis is not sustainable. But right now, that is facing legislation.
Pam [:Right now, there is little belief that it will ever go anywhere. However, there are people trying to push for it. That appeal of working 60 hours a week, not making overtime, not doing all of that stuff isn't very appealing to a lot of people. The laws and the way the government has butted themselves into everything that we do obviously affects that appeal to the. The concept of years ago when Grandpa was driving, when dad was driving of the windshield time and take your wife and let's just go on the road and let's be gone for six months and, you know, we can put the house up for rent and we're just going to go see the country. That was a real thing. People really did that and they loved it and they wanted it. And they'd go from Montana down to Texas and from Texas to New York, and nobody cared about their e logs, nobody cared about their speeding.
Pam [:Nobody cared about whether they were tired or not. Now the government turns around and says, you need to sleep at this time. You need to wake up at this time. You're only allowed to drive from this time to this time. You, you know, you can't possibly get there in that amount of time. You know, it's just. It's not appealing anymore. So the industry as a whole has a huge battle to be able to get that younger generation to somehow want to work.
Pam [:And I would make the argument that a lot of younger generations right now don't enjoy hard work and don't take pride. Let me rephrase that. Don't take pride in their. In working hard. Right. They want more pay for less work, and don't we all want. Well, yes. However, I will say that, though, in all honesty, and Brad, you know me.
Pam [:I mean, in all honesty, like, I would be bored, right?
Steven Doyle [:Yeah.
Pam [:Yeah, I would be bored. I don't have a problem working 10 hours a day. I don't have a problem working 8 hours a day and I have a problem working. I mean, if I have to work 14, I'm probably tired. But I'm not the truck driver they are. But it's, it's one of those things where it's like, it's not. A lot of people say, oh, my God, ten hour. I work 10 hours.
Pam [:I work 12 hours. Okay, that's a break for us. We have a ten hour break every day. That is it. So your work day is our break. And people don't want to be involved in that.
Steven Doyle [:Right.
Pam [:The appeal comes, though. The industry is working on this. There has been a lot of work. Warehouses. Right. Amazon. If you look at Amazon, this is no secret. Amazon puts up little warehouses everywhere and everybody's like, oh, my God, Amazon's taking over the world.
Pam [:Amazon's technically doing that to accommodate the trucking companies because they don't. Now we're not going from Kentucky to Milwaukee. We're going from Chicago to Milwaukee. We're going from Sturtevant to Milwaukee. We're going from Sussex to Menominee Falls. The trips are a lot shorter. So the industry is doing a lot of that where they're popping up a lot more warehouses so that the travel distance isn't as much, so that a lot more companies can be local where you're not necessarily taking the load from California to New York, you're just going to take it from California to Texas and then somebody else is going to take it from Texas to Georgia and somebody else is going to move it along the line. So trains, there's a huge thing with trains coming up now that they're talking about the more rail yard railroads and all that stuff, too.
Pam [:But that's yours.
Steven Doyle [:That's always cyclical.
Pam [:Yes. Yes.
Brad Herda [:So are you suggesting that the large national OTR, the guys that are doing the New York to LA runs and, you know, Wyoming to Texas and all those, we're going from point a to point. We're going from New Orleans up to Boston because that's where it came in from port to port type scenario, that those types of organizations will become very niche and specific versus being.
Pam [:This is what, that is my, that is, that is my belief. And there's been a lot of evidence of it already, including the uptick in rail. They're using a lot more rail yards for, for runs that are cross country like that. Do I still think there's going to be, to your point, there's still going to be a need for it in terms of not only safety, but getting things there faster if you go in the rail yard, they don't have to stop for a ten hour break. And you drove 8 hours, you got to stop for a half hour. They don't have that when it's on a train. So there is a lot more evidence.
Brad Herda [:Car number 63 out of 420 off here a while.
Pam [:I'm waiting for that lift to get me out the train. Yep. That's a very real thing.
Steven Doyle [:Well the other, the other thing with the rail though is you also have the Mississippi river. So you've got a change of hands at the river. So that is a huge deterrent from where we're located.
Pam [:I mean, we go in and out of Chicago ports. We've done some stuff out of the Minneapolis ports, that type of stuff. But for the most part that industry has taken its own hit. Because you remember anything? I think it was 21, end of 21, beginning of 22, maybe. There was a huge railroad strike. There was all of that lingering and it was going to be brutal. Do I still feel like they band aided it? Absolutely. So it's going to come back up when.
Pam [:I don't know. I don't know that answer for sure. I don't know when the contracts and stuff like that are open for renegotiation. But our president band dated that. There was no. There was no doubt in my mind. He didn't give this. The strikers 1oz of anything that they were looking for when it was first going on.
Pam [:So managed to disappear right around midterm. So take that for what?
Brad Herda [:Not a political show. We're gonna let that go there.
Pam [:I would kinda. That's the problem. And not that I wanna be political at all, but politics play a huge role in what we do. Not only the laws that they give us, but everything from hurricanes and huge weather crisis, and national weather crisis and all that stuff. They play a huge part in what we do in the cause and effect of things. If things get shut down in Florida because of hurricanes, ports are shut down, equipment's low, everybody gets affected across the country. And that's the other thing people don't realize, you know, day to day stuff. Well, there was a hurricane in Florida and there's a thousand containers sitting in the railyard.
Pam [:That was the huge concern about the ports closing when the strike went down. If they. If they were to strike and go completely ghost, we'd have a huge problem. Because the majority of the things that we would use to move any of the freight would be locked in the rail yard. Yep.
Brad Herda [:Right.
Pam [:It was a very real concern.
Brad Herda [:So Pam, if somebody listening to this awesome show, you know, our tens of listeners that we reach every day out in the general world.
Pam [:I was really hoping for 1110s.
Brad Herda [:I said tens, plural. Tens, ten plural. And they want. They could be a, you know, somebody looking for a hands on company to work with if they're looking to get in the industry, want to have a conversation about the industry. How do people find Pam Pollyak and Pollyak trucking? Where do they find you? How do they get ahold of you? What do they do?
Pam [:Well, I'm pretty awesome on the Google, so if you go to the Google, you can type in Pamela Polyak, my phone number.
Brad Herda [:Is this the alternate fans only page?
Pam [:Yes, it is.
Brad Herda [:We're gonna go there.
Steven Doyle [:Okay.
Pam [:I'm just saying, you could. We. Obviously. Website chugging. Stop. Steve. You know what? Your face is turning really red. Could you just.
Pam [:I need to breathe. Sorry. Fine. So, Google, we're here in Liz, we're here in Lisbon, Wisconsin. We just built a new building, so we're right smushed in between Sussex and Menominee Falls, which has been excellent for us this past year. But honestly, Google's usually the best way for email address, contact information, all of that shenanigans. It's on there. Awesome.
Pam [:If you want my spelling, my last name. P o l y a k. Polly act.
Brad Herda [:Polly act. Not yak. No, not Paul.
Pam [:Ack yak.
Brad Herda [:No. Yakking.
Pam [:Hey, you wouldn't. You'd be surprised. But I will tell you one fun fact. Right? Because we're Wisconsin based. I absolutely. Part of the fun of being in this industry is learning how everybody else in the country tries to pronounce Wisconsin cities.
Steven Doyle [:Okay.
Pam [:We deal with daily.
Brad Herda [:Yes.
Pam [:Walk a shot. Menominee had one person. I had one person one time, like, oh, we have a pickup in Neenah. Neenah, Wisconsin. I said, did you just emphasize the. Naw. What just happened? Legitimately. Nina.
Pam [:So now I cannot say Nina anymore. Nina's not a thing anymore. It's Nina.
Brad Herda [:Wow.
Pam [:That's what we deal with here in trucking.
Brad Herda [:Yes. The rest of the world.
Pam [:And then somebody tried to tell me that we were only, like, an hour away from Grand Rapids because somebody. A newbie. A newbie. Decided that air miles was the same as, you know, going around the giant lake that was in the middle of us in Michigan.
Brad Herda [:You can just use the boat to get across. It's fine.
Pam [:Just put that cargo ship on there. It's fine. Got a cargo container for that one. And she was like, what?
Steven Doyle [:That's awesome.
Pam [:Look at a map. Lady, look at a map, you can tell newbies. I love newbies in this industry. It's great.
Brad Herda [:That's a whole nother that's a whole nother conversation. We're going to have you back to talk about newbies in the freight industry just, just to have those stories go out and talk.
Pam [:And it doesn't even matter if they're young or old, right?
Brad Herda [:I agree.
Pam [:I am not ageist. I don't care what I, you, I will teach you how to say Nina the right way. Perfect.
Brad Herda [:Pam, thank you so much for coming on today's show. We really appreciate it and I look forward to seeing you, seeing you very, very soon live and in real person. So thank you.
Pam [:Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. Have a great one.
Steven Doyle [:Thanks to.
Brad Herda [:Thank you for listening to Blue Collar B's brought to you by vision for business solutions and professional business Coaching, Inc. If you'd like to learn more on today's topic, just reach out to Steve.com, Doyle or myself, Brad Hurda. Please like share rate and review this show, as feedback is the only way we can get better. Let's keep blue collar businesses strong for generations to come.
