CRETE - A Year in Review

I talked to an old Crete buddy of mine tonight. He emptied in San Antonio tonight at 6pm and they asked him how Laredo for Tuesday pick up sounded....he was still waiting for something better last I heard.....

 

I checked my DAT app on my phone, there isn't much to choose from on the loadboard either. I hate holidays any more. For those of us that stay out and try to take advantage of the miles, holiday freight has been getting worse and worse every year.

 

I am at All-State Career School now. This company came to our school. I am hearing not to many good things about the company. If you do not mind: tell me what is a good company to go with coming out of school. I know that they are a lot of companies out there. I have no clue. I want to go a good company for several years. I am not trying to jump from company to company.

 

This is an excellent company to go to out of school. I also went to All State. Crete is very strict now on who they let in though. The pay and the miles are pretty good, except for the whiners and complainers who hang around the terminals for days on end.

 

No offense Terrapin, but since you are training(or just finished training) what point of reference do you have to compare to? Especially when you talk about whiners and complainers. When you have 5-10 years of driving under your belt, then form an opinion about a company...coming fresh out of driving school, everything is new and exciting.

As far as my personal experience with Crete. They are a solid company financially, and pay above average. Their equipment is traded fairly regularly, but is under equipped, under spec'd and under maintained. The way the operations department runs, it almost seems as though they do more 'fly by the seat of their pants' type dispatching. Only rarely do they preplan you ahead of your delivery, so that you can beter utilize your 14 each day. Their communication with the driver varies...sometimes is quick and helpful, other times is non-existant unless you message them many times. I've said it before, and it is still true today....Crete use to be a company you would stay with until you retired, now it is a stepping stone company that you can make do with until something better comes along. Out of school, you would do better with them than many others, but if you learn all that is offered, keep your record clean, it would tie you over until you get enough experience to move on to a company of your choice.

 

SSB has been with Crete far longer than have I, but I have to agree with everything he has stated in this post. I've just spent the last day waiting on an empty here at New Kingstown so I can p/u a load in York. Tim in Lincoln (whom I have very little regard for already) FINALLY tells me to bobtail to York.

After almost 7 months, I'm still behind my monthly earnings pace here compared to Schneider, though SNI was paying me 3.5 cpm less. I've been waxing and waning as to my future here, but I'm just not seeing things getting any better here as a company. SNI did a lot of things well, and I may try to get back on with them in a regional run. I just don't want to invest any more time with a company that doesn't seem to want to invest anything else in the operation as a whole.

 

I might also add, that the best way to keep them running you is to keep on them...sort of like the kid in the back seat..."are we there yet....are we there yet....are we there yet". Only as a driver it's "is that the most productive load you have?" Every few loads, just to keep them on their toes. My fleet manager actually paid me a compliment (although she apologized for thinking she insulted me), she said I was agressive in reguards to how I constantly push for miles. I actually think that is one of the nicest things anyone with a management title has ever said to/about me. I am agressive almost to the point of being abrasive. Others have success by puckering up and smooching booty...not me...the only thing I have to do with their booty comes from the totally opposite end of my body, and has steel toes built in. And I don't think that is the way things should have to be done. It causes hard feelings many times.

 

Gotta question. Anyone else with a Prostar lose the airline to the shift selector solenoid? Going thru traffic at a red light, lost my lower 5 gears. Limped into a TA (limping at the start of every green light in 6th gear). Found out an air line across the transmission had melted through and caused a huge air loss to the solenoid and hence, no lower gears. $3.98 part/$100 labor. Breakdown was totally clueless. Could not grasp that I was at the TA, in line for repair when I sent the breakdown message......Where do they get these people? Just curious. Also does anyone have a fuel gauge that works properly?

 

At Stevens we have one called a "stick" with measurements on it and a chart to interpret how much fuel that equals in each size tank. ( We have 3 different possible sizes depending on which truck you get.

 

I had a Century class that had the air valve go bad. The only way I could get it into the low side was shut the engine off, pumping the brakes until I was low on air, then it would drop back to the low side...then start the engine and build air back up. Usually breakdown will limit it to $100 on put of pocket cash repairs, so that might be why they had an issue.

As for the fuel gauge is an issue with my truck. I have the low fuel beeper go off then the gauge rolls all the way around and stops at the bottom. Then a while later it starts working fine again. It'll do it a couple times a day. I just use the trip odometer to keep track of how many miles I've run so ai don't run out of fuel if it quits completely.