CRETE - A Year in Review

Can't deliver early, that's deep. What if Walmart is willing to take it. I got that message once, minus the $400.00 fine. I took it in anyway, Walmart took it, no problem, no issues with Crete. A Monday delivery that delivered Friday nite.

 

I am curently on a leave of absence from Crete working with a temp company that hires city drivers. I have been doing this for the last 3 months. I read what you guys post on here trying to figure out is it worth coming back to Crete. In the last 2 weeks my bring home has been $1,450.00. I did a lot of sitting with Crete, short miles, low settlements, and wasted time. I have worked with several different companies with this temp agency. Home every night, lots of drop and hook, some unloading, paid $15.00 an hour with time and a half after 40. They sent me to Nestle for a drug screen and interview, could get hired. Would you stay with the temp Co. or come back to Crete? The temp Co. does offer health insurance and 401K. I just want your opinion.

 

The pay and action you're seeing now with the temp. company could be..well temporary.
With Crete even I see good weeks and bad weeks. I know it's a tough decision, good luck!

BTW, I called dispatch to ask if the note about the $400 fine ,yadda yadda was true. She said she had seen this note from time to time and that Wally wanted to live unload certain loads.

 

If you can say, does the temp company have branches nation wide? I would be interested in that as I am getting ready to leave Crete in the next few weeks. Thanks

 

stay with the temp service, forget about otr be home everyday.

 

This temp company is called Transforce, they are based out of Arlington, Va. I live in Stockbridge, Ga. I reach them at 770-923-2828. They do have e Web Site, it is schatman@transforce.com. Look at it like this. No more wasted time in truckstops, no more waiting 2 and 3 days for truck repairs and although Transforce does have customers that require you to spend a few nites away from home you get (actual) layover pay, overtime pay and a faster truck like 65 to 70 mph. And after all of this I'm still considering returning to Crete after my leave of absense is complete. What is wrong with me?

 

*sarcasm on* Thank you for getting back with me weekend ops mgr. *sarcasm off*


EDIT: I have had some time to stew over this. I'm looking for some insights and past experiences from you guys. Live unload at Wally World in Temple. I am on my way home after this load. I asked dispatch if they could call wally and have it switched to a drop. I know they can since they did it before. Instead I get a reply just 2 minutes after sending my note that it's a live unload. I know she didn't call and I'm wondering if she even read the note. I called the op.s mgr. and he said she's new and he would check on things and call me back. Obviously by my first note here he never called me back. I did get a message from a different gal in dispatch which just read "OK". i sent back "OK? it's been changed to a drop? or OK, I got your message". Again w/in a few minutes I simply get back a note that it's a live unload. So I have been here since 14:45 for a 18:30 appt. It makes no sense to me to be so unproductive. The traffic office at Wally said it would be no problem to change it to a drop but ops would have to call. Ops simply was not willing to even try and call. I'm a bit miffed at the moment.

 

i wish I had the ability/courage to imitate ops as I have come up against that too. Every time I have asked dispatch for an earlier appointment they either say "we are checking" and then NEVER get back to me ... or they give a cursory response (e.g. "Sorry that was the last appointment"). So I have started rescheduling almost every load myself and have been about 80% successful. But one place told me like they told you "we can only deal with the ops department of your company".

i'm in Denver now, trying to get to California in 3 days for my vacation. It's not looking good. They tried to get me to go up to Idaho, but I told them it would strand me as I only had a few hours left. They sent several other bad loads that wouldn't help me get to Cali so I told them I would just take a 34. This involved me sending over 30 irate messages within an hour because a lot of the time they never responded. I even called in, which I rarely do. But my battery went dead after I was on hold for 40 minutes and then got dropped, reached them 20 minutes later and then the battery went dead mid-conversation.

My AM really screwed up on this one. When I called her on it last week she literally told me "if you don't stop messaging about your vacation, we will just get you to SLC and you can rent a car". I have a pretty sick feeling I am going to get lectured again by my terminal manager on Monday and they will intentionally sabotage my vacation (planned and authorized a month ago). I've been getting good miles, but the constant war is taking a toll on me.

 

It sounds like you are not hurting with the temp job, it may be worth-while to ride it out, and see if you could turn one of those temp jobs into a permanent job? Just a thought_------

I worked with Shaffer side, and it was no better than what you have posted, left after 10 mths, work for Ashley Furniture---Doing South East Regional Drop and Hook mostly and home every weekend love it!


Its the next best thing I think to a Wal-mart company driving job-hanging up the hat here for a while. I am lucky.

Remmeber: You will not find a better job, unless you look for it!

Just my 2 cents

Good luck

 

I know they don't really want me to (I think mainly in case a driver is stupid and pushy with the customer) but I call most places I deliver. I let them know I can be there at such and such time in case it will help them or if they need the product. I always make it sound like it's helping them. Small places and the like are usually more apt to say yes. But if they say no I thank them for their time and tell them I will see them at whatever the time is for the appt. ALWAYS be nice and it usually pays off.

I just now made it home. I could have been here hours ago! Oh well. After getting mt at Wally they sent me about three miles over to a shipper for a drop and hook and then a tcall at Wilmer. At least I get paid for driving from Temple to Wilmer plus a bit extra for the under 200 mile short haul. I think it's $15. Funny thing is the stupid qcom went bonkers again and the three mile drive didn't set the elogs to driving. I don't know what it is but every now and then the MCP200 will just pass out and reboot itself. I talked to the qcom guy at Lincoln and he says they all do it