Crete Carrier Corporation - Lincoln, Ne.

I totally agree Mack, I guess I was trying to say pretty much the same thing just with a different approach. I think I made the right decision also.

 

Hey there. I head out for orientation on Saturday. They are paying for a rental car. They are reimbursing for my Motel Sunday. They are paying me for for my two days of orientation. They are paying for the motel. They are sending me out with a trainer for 3 weeks at $600 a week for evaluation; I have 1 year experience or just shy of a year. At my official hire I get 41 cents a mile, practical miles. I get 44 cents a mile come September 1st. They are going to allow my son and wife come out with me once my trial period is up.

Man, I gotta say that the couple guys got buried. But hey, it could've happened to me, it could've happened to all of us. It still may happen to any of us. But at that point, we just pack it up, we head to the house, talk to God, and lay out the life direction again.

Not all carriers operate on DAC reports.
I know many of them in Hawaii.

There's gotta be a thousand small time local operations that will hire you guys who got burned.

Keep up the hope. Stand your ground. Forgive them and be free.

That all being said. I am walking in with my eyes wide open. I will let you all know how it goes and what I see. You can bet on it.


Varmit

 

Hey Varmit,
I wish you the very best of luck with Crete. When I started last September, as a new driver, I got 33 cents/mi after getting $400/week while training for 8 weeks. Then my own truck, WOW! Was to get 33 cents/mile for a year. Praise God, you are very lucky, and I am excited for you.

Just remember that you have to start paying for Health Ins. right away, so that $60-70 will start being deducted right away. Then you have to by 2 Enforcer locks, one for the King Pin and one for the trailer (to secure cargo). They charged me $90 each and they start taking that out of your check right away.

Varmit, since I was discharged in February, I do have several of the necessary items which I need to sell, if you are interested. The items are as follows:

1. Both enforcer locks which I can sell to you as I don't need them anymore. I can make you a deal if you are interested?
2. Have a great new CB and Coleman cooler (plugs right in) as well.

Please let me know if interested.

I gotta tell you, I have put in well over 50 apps to many small trucking companies, but the story is the same Varmit, only 6 months exp. and they require 1-2 years experience, and their insurance will not let them hire you as they all seem to use DAC. If you know of any small companies that don't use DAC. I would really appreciate some info on any of those companies. I live in W. Tennessee.

It's taken me a long time, but I do forgive them, especially the VP of Safety who will meet his reward in a place he will not like.

Right on Brother! I have done that, but no results as yet, just enjoying the unemployment life till I can find something. Trucking is gone forever! There must be something else very special he has in mind for me.

Hey Varmit, I wish you and your family only the very best, and I trust that you will do well and continue to receive God's blessings. Varmit, I got a box saying that this message was too short, and that I needed to expand it by 10 more words. I hope this works!

 

As you know, when you are "FIRED/DISCHARGED" from a job as I was, and your DAC shows three (3) alleged accidents, you cannot get another job. However, I find it interesting that when I filed for unemployment (you cannot get unemployment if you were discharged), Crete sent a whole bunch of written stuff to my State Unemployment dept. essentially setting that I was a no good, lousy driver. After the State case worker talked with me for my side of the story, they went back to Crete and asked them to prove the alleged accidents. Well guess what, I received a letter from the State Unemployment dept. awarding me unemployment benefits because Crete could not substantiate their accusations. This was great, but my DAC report is another matter, and Crete will not remove that. I guess that I will have to seek other means to get this accomplished.


Actually you were awarded benefits based on the fact that Crete could not prove that any of the accidents were do to malicious intent. The Unemployment people view accidents as just that, "a accident" and not something you did on purpose.

 

I posted a seperate thread regarding my quitting Crete but will put a recap here in case others chose this lengthy thread instead.
Unlike the original poster on this thread, I do believe Crete to be one of the best. Good miles - they led the industry in changing away from HHG miles last year. Good pay - they compensated drivers 3 times in the last 3 years to keep the payrate at above industry averages. Good benefits - I've been in the Acklie family for 10 years, since joining Sunflower in 1997, the merger with Shaffer in 2002, and now, Crete since 2003.
My problem is and always has been lack of communication and dishonesty on the part of management. I'm not talking personal issues, ######## about a screwed up payroll (I've NEVER had a payroll discrepancy and have had incorrect mileages corrected as soon as I brought it to the attention of payroll), or whining about a manager (I've NEVER been called at home, but have had a manager ask that I return to work at 8am instead of noon as was my habit for many years).
But in general, during the merger, changes occured, billing, home time, fuel network, and these items were not communicated to the drivers pro-actively. At times a manager contradicted the truth trying to show that the company policy had not changed when I had payroll receipts to show they had. After a year of frustration, I left the "new" Shaffer-west (Sunflower). I'm not certain about some of the posts in this thread about the company, it has all always been one corporation, the Acklie Groups. With seperately managed divisions.
The only merger that I know of is Sunflower / Shaffer and for some very poorly thought out reason, they kept independent dispatch/operations centers, one in York, NE (the old Sunflower) and the original Shaffer in New Kingstown. It did NOT help effective communication to have one new division of drivers who were still being run by seperate management teams.
That was 2002/2003, I do not know how things have worked out for them in the previous few years.
Much of the ######## about Crete I imagine reflects back to last years multiple fatality accident after which safety decided to change the log book rules, auditing procedures, and driver over-sight via use of GPS.
NONE of that did they communicate to the drivers.
We all suddenly began gettting slammed with points at our audits for doing what we had done for 10 years.
Flexibility in logs, you know the story, got 310 miles to drive today across 65 mph Wyoming, I'll log it 5 hours straight. If I start at 10am but stop for lunch, and a shower, and actually arrive at the end of my day at 5:30pm whre I get fuel, well, I'd adjust my log to jibe with the fuel purchase at 5:30, that is I'd show I started at 12:30.
Got 175 miles to travel around DC and past Richmond? Log it 3 hours even if there was a tie up that made the trip last 3 1/2 hours.
Averaging by speed, I think they call it.
No more.
GPS is used to assure that you are WHERE you say you are at every step, begining, tolls, fuel, end. Try to leave after 9 hours sleep and only 9 hours 45 minutes after stopping last night? They will flag you and shut you down for another 10 hours. Only logging by the watch from now on with big brother, that GPS unit, now being used by the log department.
NONE of those changes were communicated to drivers last year.
Why? Because in order to say "we are doing it this way NOW" means they are implicitly acknowleging that for 10 years they have allowed that 2 hour grace period between log entry and task time reality. And legally, they can't do that.
THE ABSOLLUTE WORST management choice I have ever experienced in 35 years of working in various fields. Crete simply has no valid management model. They have no management integrity. They are dishonest in whatever way helps them go forth with their agenda, even at the risk of losing drivers. They lost LOTS of drivers last fall with this new approach to logbook audits. Some old dogs don't like the new tricks. I hated it. But I learned and forced myself to have patience. One month I would be cited for hours violations (9 3/4 hr break), the next month for location violations (showing myself at mm142, when I had actually cruised another 12 miles before stopping), and the next month for having too many safety points after the last 2 months worth of violation, LOL!
Running 100% legal isn't easy, it is a chore, and I'm not talking about big violations, I'm talking about all the log book shortcuts most drivers take to make record keeping just a little easier.
And now this. Crete is a forced dispatch company. Not a bad thing, they are good at dispatch, I have very little to complain about regarding trips I didn't want. I could ALWAYS tell them no if it regarded safety/logs/hours of service and they didn't second guess me. Very limited layover experience, they would deadhead me over 300 miles on occasion to keep me rolling.
BUT, I hired on to drive OTR for the national fleet. Crete is bleeding money and cannot find drivers to fulfill its obligation to WalMart in Sterling, IL. Its lousy work, lousy conditions, lousy pay. I did it once for 2 days and requested to get back on the national boards. They again tried to hijack me to Sterling last week. I refused and told them straight up, I'll quit first.
My manager would not stand up for me. The company would not acknowlege that I had already put in a couple of days in that fleet earlier this year. They lied and told me they had no frieght in Ohio and that was why I was being diverted to Illinois. I told them I'd wait for freight, I wasn't going to go work for substandard pay ($150/day) driving local delivery and living in a WalMart warehouse parking lot. Suddenly they had freight in Ohio! It took me home and I quit yesterday.
That was the final straw after 4 years of toleratiing corporate dishonesty and lack of driver support from Crete Carrier. There is a reason they have been heavily recruiting the past year or so. There is a reason they can no longer boast low turnover. They are kidding themselves if they try to blame the industry or a driver shortage : it is their policies that are driving drivers away.
Crete has begun a slide to mediocrity, a shame.
A 10 year driver and I was forced out by lies.
I won't miss them.bb

 

Well, it shouldn't be hard finding a new better paying job with your experience. I hope you have a lawyer, b/c they'll probably try to hammer your DAC.
=You can't really blame them for GPSing, but they shouldn't have been so free on logs before.

 

actually I think I left on good terms - I mean I did nothing wrong, I stayed with the truck, a took a load directly back to a terminal and I resigned without waiting for any disciplinary report on my record.
I don't see Crete as the kind of company that would try to blackball someone.

Unfortunately, being at the top of the pay grade, I doubt I'll get a similarly paying job unless I luck out. I'll probably have to take a 5 cent per mile cut but that's fine with me, I'm using the opportunity to change my life style from OTR to regional so I can have a life for the first time in 12 years, LOL!
And I don't blame them for GPS, I just hate the fact they couldn't treat drivers upfront and admit what was going on instead doing it the way they did. I imagine Crete will go paperless in the not-too-distant future, but it should be easy since all the drivers now know the routine. ( I did a re-orientation in May and they now tell recruits exactly what the rules are from the start - they were not doing that last fall). bb.

 

Heartland Express. Truckerjo I think works for them. It's under the post What company lets you stay out longest.

 

Update : I was 100% wrong about Shaffer being reasonable in my re-hire.
I just got off the phone with them and they said that after talking to my Crete manager, I would be required, by SHAFFER, to go back and work that full week underpaid at the Illinois Walmart DC.
I told him I was applying for work in the SE fleet and by no means would accept that blackmail. So my only recourse is to challange the decision by writing to the owner, Dwayne Aklie. But, as with other things, if they are in the wrong as I think they are, then why would I want to fight for a job there. Goodbye Acklie companies.