company does not meet expectations at all.. The economy is bad and this company keeps hiring.. Many companies have a hiring freeze but they keep hiring here and cutting their long term drivers short of miles..

If you really do use this accusatory and confrontational tone with the above mentioned people, I doubt they'll have much if any sympathy for you. With the chip you have on your shoulder, you wouldn't have an audience with me for very long.

sincerely hope that you don't think its the company that made it hard for the family leave paperwork. having experience with it, believe me, it's not the company you're employed with...

__________________
You have to do what you love to do, not get stuck in that comfort zone of a regular job.
Life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it...
Lucinda Basset

I have to agree with her on the miles issue. I've been here 5 years. The 1st was the best, and it's been down hill since. I know it's slow, but like she said, why keep hiring... I was told, during a face to face with some of the mid-level management it's because they need to keep a certain percentage of their trucks filled in order to meet certain customers contract standards. But I don't understand why they just don't stop buying trucks for a little while, then when someone's truck is due to be pulled out of the fleet, move them into an empty truck instead of putting a new-hire in. That way, the truck is filled, the percentage of filled trucks is up, and we are cutting the freight pie into fewer and fewer pieces until the economy picks up. But I don't have that diploma on the wall from some overpriced liberal think-tank college, so what do I know. I just know from what people tell me, when Mr. Acklie was at the helm, most of his drivers would give him the shirt off their back if he asked... how many drivers would even speak to the guy we have now unless their jobs depended on it. ( I use 'the guy we have now' because I was called on the carpet for making my post personal on the family....even though he's not blood, they still consider him family) I have never met the man personally, but from speaking to those that have, I haven't heard many nice things about him...so my opinion of the guy is solely based on others opinion and hearsay. But if I talk to a couple dozen people from different parts of the country that all swear they saw a pig fly, I'd tend to walk around with a big umbrella for a while. Or at least keep an eye to the sky.

__________________
The head of the complaint dept. is Helen Waite, if you have a complaint go to Helen Waite!

Slacker rules, Sirius/XM drools.

Are you are saying that they shouldnt hire any more drivers to replace the ones who leave and the company shouldn't buy new trucks... ? If the driver pool is lean then what happens to the customer? Not enough drivers to satisfy the needs of the customer and not enough trucks to replace the old ones. What do you do about the needs of the customer that you're trying to keep? Do you just tell the customer you don't have enough trucks to take care of their business? Right now every carrier is trying to keep the accounts that they have and trying to secure new business. Everyone is out there trying to slash rates and do everything that they can to keep and get that business. If you think that any customer is going to stand by a carrier who can't take care of their service needs, you are sadly mistaken. It just doesnt happen that way. I don't work for Crete but I do know that they have some pretty good accounts that any carrier would do the dance of joy to have. Another thing I don't think they've done is slash rates like so many of the others have. I could be wrong about that but don't think so. That's how they remain profitable and don't have any problems meeting payroll and paying their bills.

__________________
You have to do what you love to do, not get stuck in that comfort zone of a regular job.
Life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it...
Lucinda Basset

What a crock! Trucks are sitting in truck stops for two days between loads and your telling us their are not enough trucks to cover freight so they need to hire new drivers. Crete is hiring new drivers for one reason only and that is to lower the fleet average CPM by cycling to younger drivers to increase profits. Fuel prices have dropped 50% do you see a cpm increase or trucks going back to 65mph?

At the present time we don't have enough freight for the existing trucks...that's the problem. And according to just about everyone who has an opinion on the economy, it hasn't even hit the bottom yet, so a turnaround and recovery is a long way off. I'm not suggesting a permanent freeze, just temporary in order to keep the drivers we have afloat. Many of the major companies have already stopped hiring, or stopped in many of the slower freight markets and/or stopped hiring experienced drivers to slow their payroll expenses. I think it's time to, as they say, batten down the hatches so we can weather the storm. I managed a whopping 573 miles this week. I haven't turned 12000 miles total all year.. and a good number of drivers I was sitting around, and heard from on this forum that are with Crete, are having their worst start of the year ever. I've been out here almost 15 years, and I have never seen that low of a week, month or quarter... and they say this recession isn't as deep as some in the past, so far that is. After my meeting in November, I was informed that this company has actually been running in the red for a while...and if any Crete driver doubts that... just look at your profit sharing account for last year...see any new deposits???? nope...in fact due to the stock market, most lost value on their existing balances. It doesn't hurt the people in the office, or in the shop, but this 'over hiring' only hurts the very people that sacrifice the most as it is. If you don't take care of the people that take care of you...how long will you stay in business. My guess, not long at all. If you keep hiring on the 'hope' that you will receive a better contract for more freight, you may as well run down to the local quicky mart and start investing in lottery tickets because you will be broke before it ever pays off, and you have a better chance of winning at the scratch-off's.

__________________
The head of the complaint dept. is Helen Waite, if you have a complaint go to Helen Waite!

Slacker rules, Sirius/XM drools.

I think you should reread my post and/or rethink what I said. What I meant was that a company and I don't care who it is, can not let their driver pool drop so low that they don't have enough drivers and equipment to service their customer base. If a company doesn't have enough drivers and equipment to service the customer, that customer will look to other companies to haul their freight. In this economy the traffic manager is very accountable when it comes to rates and service. If the present carrier isnt rate and service competitive, the business will go to another trucking company. You can believe that to be "a crock" or whatever you want to but its just a fact when it comes to customer retention. And, of course, that's just my opinion...

__________________
You have to do what you love to do, not get stuck in that comfort zone of a regular job.
Life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it...
Lucinda Basset

They have a number of problems at Crete. We have taken over a couple of accounts recently that they couldn't seem to service right. Not sure of what all the problems, be they in dispatch or the drivers, but I talked with these customers we started hauling for and they said that Crete's biggest problem was that they couldn't seem to deliver or pickup on time. One lady that worked in shipping at a pickup in Ohio said that she was always having to work overtime because the Crete trucks wouldn't show up on time to pickup. Now she can actually go home in the afternoon like normal people.

Could this be due to the driver pool not large enough to service the customer? Who knows. I would probably be inclined to believe that no one thing is at fault. I am sure dispatch was at fault part of the time by not tagging a truck to the load and getting it picked up on time. I am sure that a driver or two overslept and missed delivery appt. Either way, I have had to pick up the slack from about a dozen places this last year cause Crete couldn't cover things like they should.

Maybe they shouldn't hire any more drivers until they get logistics figured out.

Oh well....

I read your post. This thread was about Crete. Since Crete has drivers/ and trucks lined up in truckstops and terminals for days waiting to be dispatched it is glaringly apparent they don't need to be hiring new drivers. Ton wants to replace older drivers that make higher CPM with newer drivers with lower CPM nothing more , nothing less. This economy is the avenue that allows that. Do a web search on Ton O and him tallking about the average age of Crete's drivers and how a economy downturn would be a good thing for Crete as it would bring new drivers into the industry.