CRETE - A Year in Review

Timely as always.



WEEK THIRTY TWO
Monday, August 10th through Sunday, August 16th


This week started out with me in a hole with regards to miles. I had a reasonable number of miles last week, closing the week out with 2811 paid miles. But as that week ended I was under a load that didn’t deliver until Monday. That in itself doesn’t sound all the bad until you consider the fact that I’ve been sitting here waiting to deliver this load since early Sunday morning and the delivery time on this load was 11pm Monday night.

Not only would I spend the better part of two days waiting to deliver this load with instructions not to deliver early, I would be putting in an empty call in the middle of the night with no chance of getting a load out until the following morning at best. As it turned out “at best” was a pipe dream and I was hit with a load that didn’t pickup until 3pm Tuesday afternoon going to OH(569mi). Now, I don’t mind short runs in the least if they are productive. This one was not!

Because the load didn’t pickup until the middle of the day it didn’t deliver until the middle of the next day. In the good ol’ days of plentiful freight, not a big deal because I could always count on another load shortly after delivery to keep me moving, but those days are a distant memory at this point and my afternoon delivery would inevitably result in sitting around until the next day for a load. Net result, 600 miles in two days after spending the previous day and a half sitting in the back of a truck, therefore, 600 over the last 4 days. I have choice words for this type of a situation, but I’ll keep it civil and leave it at “I’m not enjoying this”.

I contemplated giving dispatch a call and trying to get myself into a better situation but reluctantly decided to accept the load and hope for a better load further on down the road. With freight being the way it has I didn’t figure there would really be anything better available anyway. If my next load was a stinker like this one I might be more prone to start squawking a bit, but for now I will hold my peace. I had accepted the fact that this was going to be a bad week from the start and figured it would make for a more relaxed situation if I were to take it with a grain of salt as opposed to stewing over it.

I could always head on over to the shipper early to see if I could pickup ahead of schedule, but there was no point in doing that because it had an appointment delivery going to a Sam’s Club. No chance of an early deliver with that place so I was in for more sitting around.

After putting in another 10hr break after my exhausting 1 1/2 hrs delivering my previous load I headed on down the road to my next pickup, arriving about one hour early. A lot of good that did me. I was actually given a dock door assignment upon arrival but they had no intentions of loading my truck before that time. As a matter of fact they managed to put it off for a good 45mins after that time and I found myself looking at a clock that told me it was 5pm before I was able to get this day going.

Now all of a sudden this run has managed to get a little ugly. I had been watching the clock intently because this load was actually scheduled very tight based on pickup and delivery times. This was rather odd because I had been chatting with a Crete driver that was leaving shortly after I had arrived. We were going to the same Sam’s Club with the same basic product, but he had an earlier pickup time than me and also had a later delivery time. Go figure? Basically he had all the time in the world to make his delivery and by the time I got going I had something like 30mins to spare. I would be able to make the delivery if no surprised popped up along the way, just not overly impressed with the appointment setter on this one. One good thing came out of it though; I would be unloaded before the other Crete driver, putting me at least one spot ahead on the load list to get out of Ohio (yet another uncertainty) once the MT call went in.

Even with the delays incurred during the day I still had just enough hours in my 14hr day to make it to the customer before shutting down. The primary reason for wanting to do this would be to have as much of my 14hrs available the next day as possible in order to turn some good miles. The reality however was that I would be looking for a load after an MT call sometime after 4pm and the need of a 14hr clock was all but moot. Regardless of my next run, I had no intention of driving until 4 or 5am nor did I really feel like driving until 2am tonight just to get to someplace that only had one TA truckstop in the area with no hope of overnight parking at the customer. I would undoubtedly find nothing more than a full TA and end up wondering around in some industrial area praying for a parking spot within 15mins before finding myself with an illegal log book.

With all that in mind I simply pulled over in an Ohio service plaza close to Midnight. Thinking it might be hard to find a spot this late at night I stopped about an hour before I had planned on, expecting the chore of hunting down a parking space to be an unwanted challenge. As it turned out parking wasn’t a problem in the least with a large number of available holes. This shortage of freight really stinks as far as making a living goes, but it has done wonders for the parking shortage problem. I found my parking spot and took advantage of the free showers that Ohio’s service plazas offer.

Wednesday started out in the middle of the day again. My days have been nothing but a pain in the butt ever since leaving Phoenix. I have been getting an endless stream of odd ball loads with wacky pick ups and deliveries and can’t seem to get on a reasonable schedule. I’m the kind of driver that likes to get the day going early, like 3-4am and finish my day up by 5 or 6. This suits my sleep pattern much better and takes parking concerns out of the picture. Instead, I find myself starting my days close to noon and driving into the middle of the night. Today would be no different.

I pulled into Sam’s Club as early as they deem acceptable, exactly one hour before my appointment and go through the process to get my door assignment and settle in for what I assume will be the customary three hours. One hour waiting for the unloading to begin at my appointment time and another 2hrs to get the call on the CB. It’s amazing how often Sam’s/Wal-Mart manage to get you out the door just as detention pay is to kick in. When all was said and done they actually messed up a bit and called me in to pickup my paperwork 20mins before. I was also surprised to see the other Crete driver I had been talking to at our pickup the day before pull out of his door mere minutes later because his appointment had been set an hour after me. Isn’t he the lucky one!

My load offer came in almost immediately; very surprising indeed with another blasted 23:00 pick up that night. NOT surprising! Ugh!!!!! I’m starting to feel like I drive for Heartland. It could be worse I guess, I could actually be driving for Heartland. Not only did this load pickup in the middle of the night, therefore wasting another entire day, it was another relatively short run (much more common these days). Again, I have no problem with the short runs, just make them productive. Hint: 500-600 mile runs over two days, NOT productive]. I would be hooking to this 579mi load late tonight (Wednesday) and delivering it Friday morning.

I guess the day wasn’t entirely wasted, after all I had 162 miles of deadhead to occupy a little of my time. That also told me there was no freight in the immediate area and I was actually thankful to have gotten this load. It’s not very common to get that kind of deadhead these days. They could have just as easily told me to sit tight until tomorrow. Some miles are better than no miles, right? Oh yeah, on more little fun fact about this trip, I was headed right back to the very same DC I had just left back in IA. At least this time I’ll be making my delivery at 07:00 instead of the middle of the night. I might even get a morning pickup after my MT call. Sure.

This day had started out close to noon which meant it had to end near 2am. My pickup wasn’t until 23:00 which meant this day was all but shot with the exception of a little deadhead and maybe a few miles tonight after picking up my load. I had been to this customer on previous occasions and knew that it would be a drop and hook as opposed to what appeared to be a set appointment live load. I also knew from previous experiences that this customer often falls behind schedule and it is not uncommon to be told the load is not ready. This little headache is compounded by the fact that they refuse to give you any information over the phone unlike many other companies of this size. Instead, we are to contact our dispatch and they are in turn to contact shipping to find out if our load is ready yet. This is not what I would call an effective system and has resulted in some annoying delays in the past.

Fortunately, today this would not be an issue, for when I arrived to get my trailer it was ready to go and just to rub it in, the paperwork let me know that it had been sitting in their yard for five hours prior to my arrival. Whatever, I have a couple of hours left tonight and all day tomorrow to get this silly little load to where it needs to be. I wasn’t at all tired after picking up my trailer and knocked out the first hundred miles or so just to avoid more time in the back of the truck.

Thursday was another barn burner day of 330 miles before once again retiring to the confines of the sleeper berth. I considered taking a country walk through Iowa’s heartland but didn’t really have the desire to tackle the above normal temps and nasty humidity and opted for a movie or two instead. I’m sure glad I have the APU, I would not be having a good time with idle percentages this week.

Friday was a new day of hope. I had no problem being the first one in line for the 7am appointment rush because I had planted myself on the side of the road in front of their gate the night before when I made a pointless attempt at making an early delivery. I was told I could arrive one hour early and found out the next morning that they meant one hour. As I was waiting for the magical hour of 6am to make my appearance, one of the truck behind me decided to make a break for it and pull up to the guard shack at 05:50 only to be turned away and told to go to the back of the line. My time came soon enough and I did the check-in thing. I knew the unloading wouldn’t start until 7am, but being in the front of the line has its advantages. By the time I made it to the shippers window and waited another 20mins before anyone acknowledge me there was no less than 15 other drivers standing behind me. The unloading didn’t start until 7am, during which time all the other drivers where also assigned there dock, but I was the first truck to start bouncing around and the first one to pull out of the gate.

That also made me the first one of four Crete trucks to get my MT call in and supposedly would get the earliest load out of the area. I had decided to draw my line in the sand with this load. If my next load offer was anything like what I’ve gotten over the last week I was going to make some noise. After all, here I sit on a Friday morning and I have all of 1200mi to my name. This can’t go on. The Qcom chirped its beckoning call and I read my fate. Finally, a real run with real miles. Yeah for me!

After picking up what appeared to be a preloaded trailer not to far from here I would be headed to the Atlanta area(862mi). The pickup wasn’t exactly perfect with a noon to 23:59 window, but it sure beats another midnight pickup and the delivery was set for 04:00 – 20:00 Sunday morning. Again, not perfect, but its good miles and from the looks of the delivery times I’m prone to thinking that the same delivery window would be acceptable on Saturday as well. Could I be so fortunate as to actually be able to deliver an early load for a change? Don’t know, but I will by the time Saturday afternoon rolls around.

It was still early in the morning and the load wasn’t supposed to be ready until noon at the earliest. Not having anything else to do I simply parked on the side of the road just outside of the entrance gate where I was joined by 3 more Crete trucks. When I left a few hours later the other Crete trucks were still parked, so I guess I did ok getting this load.

I arrived at the next shipper a little early and was told to drop my trailer in the back lot and proceed down the street to there auxiliary warehouse to pickup my loaded trailer. I did as instructed and wondered off to find an empty slot for my trailer. Not and easy task since the lot was very full and I had to spend a little bit of time blind backing into a tight spot. Once completed, I made my way to the other warehouse to get my load. Seemed like a simple enough plan, too bad it didn’t work out that way.

Upon arriving at the other warehouse I noticed there wasn’t a Crete trailer in sight and was told soon thereafter that I would have to be a live load because they didn’t have an empty trailer available to preload. Well, at this point and time I don’t exactly have an empty trailer either. Back I went to get my trailer (much easier to pull out than it was to back in) which I then backed into my assigned door. Once all was secure I called them on the CB to let them know I was ready to go which was answered with a, “OK, we’ll get started on you as soon as we finish with our one hour lunch break”. Perfect!

It was another 2hrs after that before I was signing the paperwork and headed on down the road. The delays of the day had taken their toll and I didn’t get as far as I wanted too, but I was able to get myself within a 5hr drive of my final destination. Even though this load had an open window delivery for Sunday I would be able to pull in by 3pm on Saturday and take a shot at making an early delivery. This little plan worked out well and was simply told to drop my trailer out back when I arrived which I promptly did (another blind back in a very full lot). The next step was to drive across the street to another warehouse to pickup my empty. This is sounding eerily familiar. One problem that tends to pop up when making early drop deliveries, especially on weekends, is a shortage of empty trailers (especially when there are so many dropped loaded Crete trailers on the property). Loads are often scheduled for delivery to coincide with scheduled unloading of previously dropped trailers. If too many drivers drop ahead of schedule, empty trailers become a scarce commodity.

I knew this might be a problem long before I actually arrived, but was willing to deal with that problem should it become one. Well, it did become one and after a quick trip around the lot I found my self empty handed and it was starting to look like I would be spending most if not the rest of the day waiting for an empty trailer.

There was still a glimmer of hope, however, because I saw two of our trailers sitting in dock doors. A quick thud on the sides of them let me know that one was definitely loaded and the other one gave every indication that it was empty. At this point I didn’t know if it was empty and ready to be pulled from the dock or perhaps it was sitting there waiting to be loaded. Off I went on a search for someone that might be able to answer those questions. It took awhile, but the finial reply was most favorable and I was allowed to pull the empty trailer and claim it for my own. The MT call went in and my hopes went up, sort of. I managed to drop my load early and finagled an empty trailer, but I was still sitting at 2000mi for the week and most of Saturday was already shot. I wasn’t exactly feeling optimistic about getting a load out this late in the date and even less positive about getting a respectable mileage total for the week.

I had actually expected a “no freight” message or some short mileage trip that wouldn’t deliver until Monday, so when I found myself looking at a load offer that was on a preloaded trailer ready to go today with a destination of KS(993mi) for Monday morning I was absolutely thrilled. The week started out slow as molasses, but it sure ended with a bang. Soon thereafter I was headed on down the road to pickup my load.

Now instead of sitting around all day I know found myself on a bit of a tight run. I had time to make the delivery as scheduled on Monday morning, but there wasn’t much wiggle room, maybe 3hrs to mess around with to waist on such activities as fueling, breaks, showers and the like. I also had been efficient enough with my day that I would have just enough time in my 14hr clock to fit in a full 11hrs of drive time. If I did so I would put myself within one days drive of the receiver and be able to spend the night parked on their property.

I drove the rest of the day with this in mind and pulled into a small truckstop in the middle of nowhere, MS and prepared to put in for the night. But before doing so I made one last check on the GPS to calculate how much further I had to go the following day. I didn’t really like what I was seeing because it would put me at the limits of what I could fit into a days drive. I checked my truckstop book and saw that there was another truckstop 14 miles down the road and I still had 15mins left in my day. That little bit of extra distance might just be what I need to get the job done tomorrow and I scooted on down the road and shut down just as my 14hrs came to an end.

Sunday had me looking at a solid day’s drive, but nothing I couldn’t handle and fit into a solid 11hrs of driving. I still had my 3hr time cushion and could actually take my time and make a few stops along the way to stretch the legs. It didn’t take too long before the day got interesting.

I hadn’t even been on the road for 30 minutes when I heard one hell of a racket coming from the right side of the trailer. I had the window rolled down a bit and it sounded like someone was beating the side of my trailer with a very big stick. I had just enough time to focus in on the mirror and realize that one of my retreads had decided to throw a belt and the recap was disintegrating at a very rapid rate. A fraction of a second later the tire exploded and pieces of rubber where flying everywhere. I was puzzled by such a display because I had just check the air pressure on each and every tire with all of them reading 100psi and from an outward appearance, where all in very good shape. I had even made a mental note to myself when I first picked up this trailer about how good of shape the tires where in, which is always a nice added bonus when pulling a very heavy load.

The very first thing that popped into my head was my 3hrs of cushion time. It would probably take all of that plus if I had to go through breakdown and wait around for road service. Generally I can take care of a problem like this on my own by limping on down the road to a nearby repair shop. But I was on the middle of nowhere on Hwy 78 in Mississippi on a Sunday morning. I had pulled out the laptop in an effort to hunt down some help, but there were no open tire shops within 60 miles of my current position and that one would force me to cross a state scale with a blown out tire staring a DOT scalemaster in the face. Even if I were able to go that far with a bad tire before blowing another one(not that I would try it with a load this heavy), I would get nailed at the scale house.

I though about changing it out myself because it was an outside tire, but I didn’t really have the necessary tools and would be improvising with what I had. I would be able to get it changed out, but I had little hope of setting the bead so that the tire would take air. It looks like I will have to give breakdown a heads up on this one which would surely cost me more time than I had available.

I was able to get back to the Pilot I had passed as my tire exploded and sat impatiently waiting for a response form breakdown, all the time watching my 3hrs slowly melting away. It was a good 90mins later when I finally got instructions. I had been expecting the appearance of a service truck to get me out of my jam, but instead I was given directions to a tire repair shop, that as luck would have it, was on the opposite side of the highway, just out of sight behind the ramp. Great, I just lost 1 ½ hrs of my time to find out there was a tire shop 200yrds away from me.

Not that it would have done much good to know it because they were closed on Sundays, but I was told they would be there waiting for me. Waiting was a bit of an exaggeration because there was some guy with a gooseneck trailer having new bearings installed onto an axel and one of those million dollar motor homes with a blown tire like myself. All three of us had a right rear tire blown, which seemed a bit odd. I couldn’t help thinking that someone was “generating” business for the only tire shop in the area. Even more so after I got the bill.

There were two “good ol’ boys” working on the two customers ahead of me and I could do nothing more than pace back and forth impatiently as I watched them work at a snails pace as my window of opportunity continued to shrink away. The frustration was compounded by the fact that I could have had that stupid bearing changed out in 15mins and Cooter here had been putzing around for the last hour finishing up that very task which was well under way when I had arrived. Once the job was finally done it still took another 15mins for them to get around to taking it off the jack and present the bill to the unlucky mark. The poor guy just about had a heart attack when he saw the total and I could understand why. He had just been hit will a $500 tab for something that should have been much closer to the $200 range. As it was explained to him how much cheaper it would have been if it were during regular business hours, the proprietor was handing him a stack of business cards and suggesting he hand them out to everyone he knows, never once loosing his country charm smile, missing teeth and all. I couldn’t wait to see what he was going to hit Crete up for.

It was finally my turn and I was down to about 20mins left on my countdown. Anything more than that and I would not have enough time to make it to the customer tonight, thus resulting in a minimum of a 3hr delay in my delivery the following day. After observing the breakneck pit stop speed at which these individuals had been working up to this point I had little hope that I would be successful in meeting my goal, low and behold, they surprised me. They had me back up on a wood block to lift the outside tire off the ground. Minuets later the old carcass was off the rim and the spare that I had provided was slipped on in five minutes flat. As he was filling the tire with air I made my way inside to get the bill. “This should be interesting”.

As he was calling breakdown to get final authorization for payment and waiting on hold, he decided it would be a good time to give me his sales pitch. He started by saying he was the only tire shop in such and such radius that would come out on a Sunday and couldn’t understand why Crete didn’t use his services more often. He then proceeded to tell me about a wheel seal he had replaced last month down at the DOT scale at the state line and how he had been told that he was overcharging for his services. Apparently he is found of the $500 figure for $100 jobs and for some strange reason felt compelled to plead his case to me in hopes that I would talk some common sense into whom ever was responsible for making these decisions. I simply pointed out that he was charging Crete $145 for the simple 5min task of changing out a spare tire on an outside rim and said, “You aren’t exactly endearing yourself to breakdown by bending them over like this. I wouldn’t count on too much repeat business”.

Even though it wasn’t my money, I was furious that he was charging such a ridiculous rate for such a simple chore. I would have understood if he had to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night and drive a service truck out to the middle of nowhere. But in this case, I drove to his place of business and he was already there to take care of other customers. Why can’t idiots like this realize if they charged a fair price (even though it is a Sunday and outside of his regular business hours) they would get hundreds of calls over the years to service the thousands of Crete trucks that run up and down this highway, instead he will get a handful of emergency cases and the remainder of said business will be handed out to competitors.

Once all the paperwork had been taken care of I was back in the truck and on an incredibly tight schedule. I had to make one stop for fuel and the remainder of the day would have to be spent in the driver’s seat without a moment to spare for any other stops. The handful of toll booths that I would have to go through would be a big enough problem for me to deal with and if there was any kind of delay getting fuel I would be dead in the water. This was another major concern for me today because as luck would have it I was to stop at the Loves in North Little Rock for a fill up. For anyone looking for a quick in and out fuel stop, this is not the place to do it. I regularly get held up at this hole in the wall for 30-45mins and had to assume today would be no different. Sure enough, as I took the off ramp and looked into Loves parking lot there was a line stretching out to the road as always. Looks like I will have to be a bad boy today. I’m not one to fuel out of route, but today would be one of those days in the name of “one time delivery”. I hung a left at the end of the ramp and headed on over to the Pilot or Petro. I would make a beeline for the first empty pump I saw. As it played out I saw an empty island calling my name at the Pilot and pulled in for a five minute stop and was once again headed on down the road.

It ended up being very close, but I was able to pull into Wichita just as my 11hr/14hr clock came to an end and made my way to the receiver. Even though I had an early morning delivery appointment I wondered around and found the receiving docks and learned that they were a 24hr operation and all was good. I made my delivery ontime, vowed to pickup a set of tire irons on my next trip by the house so I can take care of my own blown tires, at least on the outside rims, and found a new hiding spot to park at when in the Wichita area just outside of the customers’ gate.

This week started out looking like it would be a disaster, but by the time it had come to a close I was actually looking at a 3000mi week. I often find myself getting upset over one run or the other, but the one thing I use to comfort myself in these situations is to look back at how often things tend to work out in the end. My writings tend to lean towards the negative, but I only point out the frustration in order to make a point of how often there really is nothing to get worked up over. That’s not saying that I’m not looking forward to better times to return, but until then, it’s not really all that bad for me now.

With that said, I’m not looking forward to next week because my previous week did not allow me to take a 34hr reset. With the way the week started I didn’t think there would be any concern for such a thing, but as the week ended in a flurry of miles I am now looking at picking up no more than 5 ½hrs per day for the next three days. That means the best I can hope for is 800mi by the close of Wednesday’s work day and I am also being routed down to TX to attend a Defensive Drivers Class on Thursday, this being a result of my failure to yield ticket that I picked up in Indian last May. I wouldn’t mind that all so much if I had actually been convicted of the offence, but as of now it is still making its way through the courts system and my lawyer has received a verbal agreement from the prosecuting attorney to have the charges dropped upon a “formal explanation” being presented to the courts at the next hearing in late September. No matter, DDC class, here I come.





WEEK THIRTY TWO
Monday, Aug 10th through Sunday, Aug 16th
Miles include deadhead

Rochelle, IL to North Canton, OH………………………………………..569mi
Lima, OH to Maquoketa, IA…………………………………………….....579mi
Clinton, IA to Fairburn, GA………………………………………………....862mi
Krannet, GA to Wichita, KS…………………………………………….....993mi

Total Paid Miles…………………………………3003 Miles
Actual Miles…………………..3058 Miles

3003 Miles x .43 = $1291.29