My journey with CRE

Some people have asked if I could write about my experience with CR England so here it goes.

Back in September of 2008 I applied with CRE. I remember I submitted my application on a Wednesday night and the very next morning a recruiter called me and asked if I could go to orientation that Monday. So I said yes. I thought CRE was a good company because the warehouse I was working at doing inventory control had a lot of common carriers from CRE. When I would talk to those day cab drivers they all seemed pretty happy and said they take home about $850 a week for 5 days of work plus benefits/paid vacation.

So I show up to orientation on Monday in Mira Loma California and there was about 150 people that had showed. There was not even enough table space so some people had to sit on the floor while they filled out their application. After the first day about half of the people from Monday were gone for various reasons. I remember one guy being all pissed off because he did not qualify. Paul, the orientation instructor, told him to call his recruiter and we all could hear this guy yelling on the phone from the hallway. The guy who was DQ yelled, "You said my felonies were not a problem!" Apparently that guy was from Phoenix and did not have money to get home. He was hanging out in the front asking people for bus fare and finally one of the orientation instructors told him to leave the premises or the police would be called.

So moving on I got my learners permit and got into the flex program. Basically that was just a training program where I would be trained with a veteran day cab driver. My flex trainer was coincidentally one of the drivers I would see a lot at my old job so that made the experience pretty good. After that I tested out for my CDL which was really easy since I was tested by a CRE employee so of course it is almost impossible to fail. At the end there was 11 of us who graduate onto phase 1 training.

Phase 1 training:

My phase 1 trainer was actually a pretty cool guy except after about 12 years of training at CRE I could tell he was burned out. He taught me how to up/down shift properly but that was it. I remember that I did not even practice backing until the day he dropped me off for phase 1 upgrade. We were at the backing range at the Mira Loma yard (back when the school was there and you could do phase 1 upgrade there also) and he just told me when to turn hard right then left. I really had know idea what I was doing but he basically was showing me how to do a sloppy straight line back.

Phase 2 training:

So when i meet my phase 2 trainer it was a different experience. He was all sleeved up with tats and his truck was a mess. He asked if I had any weapons with me or drugs and I said I had a small pocket knife that my Grandpa gave me. He said I couldn't have that on the truck because of his pass criminal history. So I did not argue and gave the knife to my Wife. The best way to describe this guy was that he was calm like a bomb. I would see him go off on different drivers at truck stops and I would just ask him if we could have just a calm and relaxing day. Once he found out that my phase 1 trainer did not teach me how to back he said that it was not his job to teach me that. So whenever I had a backing situation he would have me stand outside the truck and watch him. We got into it a couple of times since his attitude was about 10 feet in front of him but after about 6 weeks working together we become friends. I told him when he dropped me off for phase 2 upgrade he was the guy you loved to hate.

Waiting to go company....

 

So here it is the new year (Jan 2009) and I fly back up to SLC after spending Christmas break at home. Back then CRE actually paid your airfare to get you back for upgrade. I got back on a Monday and made it clear that I wanted to go company first and maybe lease later in the future once I got my feet wet. So there I am at the CRE hotel at the yard sharing a room with 8 other guys. It was horrible for me and there was all kinds of drama too. One guy got his laptop stolen while another had $200 stolen from his wallet while he was sleeping. I could not even sleep at night since my bunk mate would snore extremely loud. I used to stay down in the commons area and just watch TV until 4 or 5 in the morning. Once all my other room mates were out doing their training I would sleep for a couple of hours before they got back.

So after a couple of days I was going broke just waiting around for a company truck to open up. Back then I could get a lunch voucher if I would go to the lease presentation. So I would and I would just day dream while the guy talked. Well after about a week of this the guy from Horizon told me to check out a Century they had and tell him what I thought. So he throws me the keys and says if I sign a lease today I will get a $500 bonus. $250 that day via comcheck and the rest on my next paycheck. I check the truck out and after spending a week in the hotel "hell" room I really just want my own place to get some regular sleep plus I really wanted to get rolling. After checking the truck out I ask the guy how do I get started.

So I lease a 2007 Century and my payments back then were about $450 a week plus all that other variable/fixed costs. The Horizon guy tells me the only way I can make good money is to become a phase 2 trainer. So I take the one day course and get a student the next day. We take off from SLC to San Francisco and my truck breaks down getting over Donner. I am a green horn so I have no idea what is going on. I limp it to a DD place in Sacramento and the mechanic sees that my EGR valve is leaking black soot and said most likely it has frozen up. Of course it is a Friday and they will not have the truck fixed until Monday afternoon (plus I could not hang out in the truck while it was in the shop). I did not have the money for a hotel room for the weekend so I call Horizon and tell them of the situation. They said these things happen but they could not give me an advance for the hotel room. I call my Wife and she tells me to just come home and find a local job with a better company. Me being the stubborn guy I am I say no and end up borrowing the money from my Mom.

So once the truck gets fixed it still seems to "cough" a lot but I do not know any better. My phase 2 student seems descent and we start rolling with okay miles. Well after about a week he says he suffers from migraines and cannot drive more than 2 hours without stopping. I am driving the grave yard shift averaging about 650 miles a night driving a truck governed at 62 MPH. I was on paper logs back then so I could make it work. My student gets worse and worse with his migraines where he would only do about 100 miles during his drive shift. So finally on our way to SLC he makes the roll over alarm go off even after I told him to slow down for a clover leaf on ramp. My truck has two type of rollover alarms. One just to slow down and then another that causes a critical event to be logged and sent to safety. So this happens and I finally had enough of his lack of work so I dump him off at the SLC yard. Once I tell him that I am dropping him off I find out that I was his 3rd phase 2 trainer plus he had 3 phase 1 trainers. After I drop him off I tell the training coordinator that I plan on going solo for awhile and she asks if it is because of my phase 2 student. I say yes and she says they are not all that bad but I go solo anyway. The next day I get a phone call from my former student and he tells me he has been fired and it is all my fault. We start arguing on the phone and he tells me that I better watch my back because if he sees me he will mess me up. I just laugh and tell him, "Well you know what my truck number is."

So I go solo and I am doing pretty good with paper logs. I am only taking home about $500 a week but i figure there is just a learning curve.

Now going back to my lack of backing experience I am having a lot of trouble figuring out how to do any kind of backing unless it is a straight line. Well one day I am down in Southern Georgia at some cheese cracker factory and the yard dog sees I am having trouble trying to do a jack knife ally dock. So he comes over and I tell him flat out I do not know what I am doing. So he tells me to circle around and put the nose of my truck right where he is standing. So long story short he spends about 30 minutes with me and taught me about the pivot of my tandems, 4X4, and how you pull forward to make corrections and when you back up you can only make minor adjustments. Everything clicks then and my backing really starts improving.

Going to E-logs....

 

I was running solo on paper logs for about 4 months struggling but still making a positive paycheck. One day I am routed to do a drop/hook in the SLC yard and once I get into the yard I am placed on stop dispatch. My DM tells me to talk with safety and they said that I must go on e-logs before I can leave the yard and they have a 2 hour course I can take the next morning to show me how use these e-logs. So I get my Qualcomm updated and take off with my new e-logs. Now this is when everything seems to start going bad again. My truck starts blowing black smoke again and losses power when climbing up hills. Plus getting used to the e-logs was difficult especially when you are a newbie. I was having trouble just getting 400 miles in a day because of delays at shipper/receivers plus I really do not know how to nickle and dime my logs yet.

So I get desperate and get another phase 2 student. I actually get really lucky and get a good one who likes to drive the graveyard and is really safe. So we get rolling but now my truck is having all kinds of mechanical problems that require it to be in the shop about two days every week. Some of these problems were minor but I did not know anything about my truck since I was new. Of course now I do a lot of repairs on my truck and have a full set of tools with me with extra parts that commonly cause minor break downs.

My student stays with my for about 6 weeks since he was trying to find local work back at home but he did not. So I drop him off for phase 2 upgrade and get another student. He was alright and we get about 5,000 miles a week but my truck keeps having mechanical problems.

Some weeks I turn in about 5,500 miles and that is about a $1100 net check. Every other week is a break even or negative check because of the time my truck has to be in the shop. My 52 week average for my first year with England was about $400 net take home. I would be away from home for about 6-8 weeks and really missing out on a lot of stuff back at home. My Wife and I used to argue a lot since she said I could make more at home just doing local work with any other company. And of course my stubborn attitude gets in the way. I remember one argument we had when she got home from work. I had two negative paychecks in a row and it is time for my home time. So I go home for a week since I am burned out. When my Wife gets home from work she finds me in the backyard drinking beer in the kiddie pool. She says what have I done all day and I say you are looking at it. Long story short we do not talk for about a week since she says I rather be working for free then be at home.

Get my old phase 2 student back...

 

I drop off another phase 2 student at the SLC yard and I run into my old phase 2 student who got an OTR company position. He said he was taken off his company truck because it was old and being turned back into Freightliner or something to that effect. He was waiting at the SLC yard for about a week waiting on another company truck to open up and was getting restless. He asked if I would like to hire him on full time as a permanent 2nd seat and I say sure. He cost me .13 a mile which to me wasn't bad since I could trust him to drive the truck while I was sleeping. He said that once he could find local work with another company at home he would quit. I understood but we still worked together for about 3 months until a new dedicated route called the 'green line' opened up and he could be home two days a week and make about $900 a week net as a company driver.

He takes the dedicated route and at the same time my DM gets fired. He was a descent DM and he called me on the phone to tell me that he got screwed over and wishes me the best of luck with a new DM. So I request a new phase 2 student but get denied because the TC said I have to much experience and have to become a phase 1 trainer. I think she is joking because I tell her I am way to inexperienced to be a phase 1 trainer. She tells me firmly if I want another student I have to become a phase 1 trainer. So I take the train-the-trainer course and at the same time I get offered a spot in the western regional fleet.

Running in western regional....

 

Starting off in western regional as a phase 1 trainer was difficult. Most of the loads are short haul loads that are JIT so I would have those 0200 delivery appointments at places that had no truck parking on street or the customer facility. I would get home every other weekend so that was a plus but the miles were good one week and then bad the next. So after complaining about the bad miles I got a new DM named Sam Leon and he knew how to line up freight. Most of the loads he dispatched were drop and hooks and I was getting about 5000 miles a week at $0.93 per mile (yes I know this is horrible since I work for Landstar now and $0.93 per mile is something a just laugh). Things are going good but then all of a sudden the Account Manager calls me and says he has a DM who is struggling with a fleet of bad drivers and could use my help. So I say sure I will move over to him since it is still western regional. Well things take a major nose dive and I talk with the Account Manager again and said this guy has no respect for his drivers and can't line up freight to save his life. I am denied moving back to my old fleet so I make a formal complaint. My DM calls me the next day and yells at me fore wasting his bosses time and I could either quit CRE or leave western regional. So I make a couple of phone calls and find out that the container division needs drivers. So I figure why not and move over to that fleet.

I was OTR for about a year then in western regional for about 1.5 years before moving over to the container division. The container division was excellent. Most loads were drop and hook and there was plenty of miles. Technically, back then, the container division was under England Logistics not CR England which made a difference on my pay and the type of freight I hauled. Most of the loads were export loads going to the west coast ports which once I got used to handling the protocols at the terminals was not that bad. Even when I did not have a student I could get about 3000 miles turned in and make a $1200 net paycheck because my truck was paid off.

Buying my truck:

I guess I should have fit this process in earlier in my statements but o well. So back when I bought my truck you had to have $7K down and Horizon would give you a penny per mile truck investment fund contribution. So I guess I saved about $6000 and Horizon filled in the rest. I know now that Horizon made it a lot harder to buy your truck and the end of the lease since the down payment is a % of what they say the retail value of that truck is wort. Plus you cannot have any negative paychecks within the last couple of months and some other factors. I remember one former England driver I talked to said Horizon wanted $14,000 down on his Cascadia once he was done with his lease. He said if he had that kind of money he would just buy directly from the dealer.

After 4 and a half years with England I started realizing that $0.90 a mile was just way to cheap to move freight even with my truck paid off. I would bust my butt all week with the same results on my settlement. I could see that I was never going to make great money working with them no matter how many miles I got. I talked with the driver retention manager a couple of times about getting a raise or maybe getting home more often. I told him that I have been totally loyal for all those years with no accidents and I should have some kind of raise. He said I should become a fleet owner and lease another truck. I told him nicely that I was not interested and that is when i started looking around at other company I could lease on with since my truck was paid off.

I was still scared about leaving England because sometimes I would read Qualcomm messages about how freight was slow for all companies and how I was lucky to be in a fleet that had so many miles. It took an argument with my DM to finally give me the push I needed to apply with Landstar. I was last Christmas and I told my DM I would work through Thanksgiving but I had to be home for Christmas. So I was out about 6 weeks before Christmas was approaching and here I was in Denver asking my DM where is my load home since Christmas is 4 days away.

She then tells me that my home time for Christmas was canceled because there was to much freight to move and she would get me home in a week or two. I thought she was joking and i ask her again nicely I need a load home from Denver. She says that there is nothing available to get me home and I need to head east towards Kansas (home is So Cal for me). I call her up and tell her that I have been with CRE for over 4 years and how can she treat a veteran driver like this who owns his own truck. She then goes on to tell me I work for her and these things happen. So I get upset and I tell her not to dispatch me on anything and I am going to catch a flight home from Denver. She says if I do that and refuse to move freight for her that I will be fired and hangs up on me. I call back a couple of times and she does not answer. I send a couple of Qualcomm messages about me heading home and then I get a call from her boss.

He begins to tell me that they got nothing heading to Southern Cal and I need to keep rolling. I tell him nicely that I am going to get a cab to the airport and fly home for Christmas. Then once i return in a week or two I will give them my two week notice. He says do what i have to do and hangs up. I call the Wife and tell her whats going on and she says go ahead and fly home. So I go online looking at last minute flights home and then I get a call back from my DM's boss. He said he got me a drop and hook home and it is ready for pickup now.

I hate having to go through all that drama just to get home for Christmas so that night I go ahead and put in my application to Landstar.

What happened to my phase 1 & 2 trainers...

 

I did run across my phase 1 and 2 trainers. I actually run into my phase 2 trainer at the Mira Loma yard a couple of years back and he was quitting. He was at the shop turning in all CRE property since his truck was paid off and he had a big old story to tell me. Basically he had a medical emergency while he was under a load. I forgot exactly what it was but he was having major stomach pains one day and thought they would go away. So the next morning he is driving and the pain gets extreme so he happens to see a Pilot and pulls in there. Something ruptures in his stomach that causes pain so bad that he passes out while getting out of his truck. He fell out of his truck and hit his head on the curb next to the fuel pump and he had the scrapes to prove it. Luckily the driver fueling next to him called 911 and he was rushed to the hospital. The manager at the Pilot moved his truck into a stall and called CRE to tell them they had a driver collapse and was rushed to the hospital. So my former phase 2 trainer wakes up 3-4 days later in the hospital and the doctor tells him he is lucky to be alive. So the first thing my former phase 2 trainer does is call his DM from the hospital bed to tell him what happened. His DM says do not worry about it and says everything is fine.

So after about a week he is released from the hospital and goes back to the Pilot to get back into his truck. It is not there and he talks with the manager and he said England sent someone out to pick up his truck. Now his truck is paid off and he can't understand how England can just have someone pick up his truck and drive off with it even if it is attached to a loaded England trailer. So he calls his DM and asks where his truck is and that is when he finds out that it is at the SLC yard. So he gets on a plane and heads to SLC. Once he gets there he goes to look for his truck and he notices all his stuff has been taken out. He goes to talk with his DM but his DM does not want to see him. He then gets instruction to see the HR person. Once he talks with her he finds out that he has been terminated for load abandonment. He tries telling her the story about how he almost died but she did not care. Also to add insult to injury CRE charged him a truck replacement fee for having to send someone out to move his truck back to SLC even though he never requested any of this. I told him why didn't they just bobtail someone out to get his loaded trailer at the Pilot and leave his bobtail there for him but I guess CRE doesn't work that way.

My phase 1 trainer was with England for about 15 years when he finally had enough. He was a fleet owner where he had one truck paid off and had someone else driving that one while he trained in a lease truck. He was grandfathered in from his original lease from 1997 or somewhere near there where he did not have a variable mileage payment plus they gave him a special lease price since he was a loyal IC. So he goes to lease his 5th or 6th truck and Horizon said that he would have to sign a brand new lease just like all new employees. So that would mean about $200 a week higher lease payment plus about $0.11/mile variable mileage payment (awards program brought that down 3 cents). So now he would be losing $700 a week on this new lease agreement and he said forget it. He told his driver that he would be taking over his paid off truck and moving on with another company.

My phase 1 trainer was making good money for a long time with England he said. He would have me look up his pay settlements on the Qualcomm via a macro 40 and I never saw a net settlement less than $2,000 a week. He would get a $0.01 bonus per mile for total miles ran by a former student who leased a truck after he trained them. So this would be only about $20-$30 a week but times that by 7 or 8 former students and that would add up. England took that away from him plus the grandfather rates on his lease.

My flex trainer from back in September of 2008 has also quit working for England. He was with them for about 7 years and he said that his fleet got saturated with new drivers and they dropped his pay by about $400 a week gross.

There is a lot of other things I am forgetting to add but will update later.