Originally Posted by evertruckerr

My week of despair continues. I picked up my 280 mile run this morning after putting in a whopping 75 miles yesterday and had it delivered by noon (leaving me with 205 miles to finish it off today).

I have since been informed that there is no freight left in Indiana for the remainder of the day and load offers for tomorrow are in the works. So here I sit in a McDonald's parking lot with 4 other Crete trucks waiting for something to do.

Friday is now shot and by tomorrow morning I will be sitting with a grand total of 980 miles or so over the last 6 1/2 days.

They say patience is a virtue. This seems like an appropriate time to bit my tongue.

Originally Posted by Trader

I just delivered at the Dollar General in Gene Autry last night and got the no freight message, this morning they sent a message asking if I would like to go home for the weekend (about 100 miles to home). Well, I would prefer to drive some miles so I gave dispatch a call to see what's up and they said I could either spend the weekend at home or at the truck stop, not a hard decision. They also said they were short 1000 loads this morning nationwide and with today being a holiday it will probably be a long weekend for a lot of drivers. On the bright side of things, last week was a very good week with 3400 miles. I had some good loads with D/H's and one of those went out to Flagstaff. This week was not so good, managed to squeek out 2080 miles.

Originally Posted by otrtruckerscott

Got lucky here in eastern PA this time. Delivered here near Scranton of Friday, and got a dispatch, on a holiday weekend no less, to pick up Sunday night going to Detroit...+/- 550 miles. Doesn't deliver until Tuesday at 0700. I'll call on Monday morning and see if I can deliver early.

Better than waiting until Monday or Tuesday

Originally Posted by evertruckerr

emtepockets wrote:

Damn, that was the one state I could actually speed in. Guess we will be holding up traffic in Ohio now too.

Longbow wrote:

I can relate to that. It's one thing when you are out here getting all the miles you want. I don't think much of living in the truck for weeks on end, but when the miles are there at least there is some kind of a justification for it. At least when you are busy you don't have time to think about it as much. These endless days of sitting in the back of the truck definitely gives me time to lament over my situation. There really is nothing more aggravating than spending and entire weekend in a truckstop when the wife and family are on the other side of the country. I'm not exactly what one would call a happy camper these days, but I'm sure my discontent is being shared with most drivers who currently find themselves in the fine world of OTR. Most of what I read on these threads seems to confirms that suspicion.

rolllin stone m wrote:

I'm willing to give Crete a big thanks on this one. With all the complaints that I have heard (and givin) in regards to their hometime policy over the years, it is nice to know that some effort is being put toward alleviating this problem. I give it an A+ rating at this time. My last two attempt at hometime showed a marked improvement, especially last time around. They actually put me on a load that would have found me at home early. It didn't come through, but only because the shipper canceled the load. After delivering one more load I was once again planed on a load to the house and arrived on the exact requested day. I don't know if this trend will continue, but the new system has been very effective so far and for that I am grateful.

jdrentzjr wrote:

Well said.

therobot wrote:

They still pay nothing for layover and it is something that gets under my skin from time to time. BUT, that was information that was readily available before I hired on and made very clear to me at orientation. I can hardly justify my complaining about it now. In all fairness, when the freight was strong layover wasn't an issue. During my first 2 1/2yrs I had a total of 3 layover days. That has obviously change of late, but you certainly can't blame a trucking company for a disastrous economy.

Many companies do pay layover, but it is often a meager amount. The superior pay package that Crete was offering at the time more than made up for the lack of layover pay. Sure, I could drive for a company that pays $50/day layover, but then I would be running for 32cpm instead of 43cpm. Even with the layovers that I have experiencing lately I still manage to get respectable miles. My first quarter of this year has netted me 31,198 miles and over $14,000. No where near as good as last year, but acceptable considering today's economic climate, not to mention the fact that I've actually spent 15days at the house so far this year. A far cry better than last. It's a trade off I'm willing to make at this time.