CRETE - A Year in Review

Thanks for posting your comments. Sooner or later I will make up my mind.

 

Former Crete owner/operator here (18 years). I got off the road 18 months ago for family reasons.
I have been trying to pick a company to lease my truck to.
Well, I filled out a Schneider application today . I am interested in their Choice Program.
I called Crete safety dept to get the date for a minor speeding ticket (50mph/45 zone) and to check on the date that a car hit me. Schneider wanted info on anything in last 5 years. The accident is more than 5 years ago. The safety lady was polite and helpful. She described my record as squeaky clean. I had a 15 year safe driving award and a million mile safe driving award.
I did consider going back to Crete . But I had been somewhat dissatisfied the last several years.
Why was I dissatisfied? Lack of communication sometimes. And lack of load choices . And I got tired of having 36 hours to haul a 300 mile load sometimes, or a load with barely enough time.
So I guess I might give Schneider a try. With these rigid HOS rules, I need more control over what I haul to avoid HOS issues. And maybe Schneider will let me split my break ( Crete forbids split break ).
Crete is not a terrible company. But they have a lot of room to improve, if only they were interested in making it a more driver friendly company.
Will orange clash with a dark red Peterbilt?

 

Not if you can mix them with green $$$.

 

I like the way you think. I don't expect to get rich. A little freedom of choice would be nice though.

I received 2 e-mails from Schneider.
1). The first email said the app was incomplete and i should log in and finish the app. And there was a name and number if I need any help.
2). The second email said my app would be reviewed and I would be contacted if I am qualified.

 

Mine does that, usually right before it does it, it'll show a screen like the one about 'go to sleep or stay awake' only this one is an update screen, and it defaults to update in XXX seconds with an option to update later. Mine...(the no good worthless piece of.....) spends an average of 3 or 4 hours a day with the signal light blinking fast like it's updating(some one told me that is what it does). But this is on a daily basis, and has good signal, and in an area where Sprint has good coverage...and usually right when I need it for a message to op's about a load.

 

Well I managed to #### myself over pretty good.

Had an absolutely terrible day yesterday, right off the ####### bat. So when it got time to accept this load, a #### good productive run from New Milford, CT to Ottawa, KS, with 1330 loaded miles... I wasn't thinking at all about my 70 hour recap. I didn't think about it all day because my day was so ####### ######.

Well... I just figured up that I went a cool 4.25 hours over the 70 yesterday...and #### nearly went over my 11 as well. Had I gone past the TA in Bloomsburg straight to the J in Milton, like I was considering, I would have been in violation of that too, as I logged exactly 11 hours of driving having shut down at TA Bloomsburg.

And I have 4.5 hours available today. So now I'm waiting for Dispatch to tell me what's going to happen with the load.

Completely my fault...but still frustrating enough that I have to vent. I'm a week overdue for home, by my own choice (want to get home on a Wed. so I have 5 days to run before hometime on that pay period, then 5 days to run on the next period after taking thurs, fri, sat and sun. off.) but a few days home are looking really good right now.

Ooooooooyyyyyyyy.

 

I have returned for a bit. I am home for my physical and some R&R before I figure out how to reach through the Q/comm and strangle someone.

I was under a load out of Shelby, IA to Columbia, MO the last time I was here. After that they sent me up to Hannibal, MO to pick up a load going to Social Circle. The way I do things at Social Circle when I'm delivering is to pull off on that little dirt area next to the interstate ramp and do my empty call w/o an empty trailer number. That way it give them time to put me on a load out of the warehouse. It works quicker than asking if they have anything, then waiting, then getting a pplan, then waiting for the load info. Only this time I get a message from Chad R..."No Empty trailers?"...to which I replied "No loads out of here today????" 30 seconds later a pplan. Pick up in Social Circle going to Arcadia, FL for the next day, and it had a trailer number, so I knew it was ready. I go in, drop my load, and attempt to pick up my outbound...and the last so-and-so driver brought a trailer in with a blown brake chamber. I have gotten in a habit of setting my truck brakes and releasing the trailer brakes, then applying the trailer brake handle. I have been replacing an average of 3 or 4 glad hand seals a week lately because my truck won't seal right. I send a message to breakdown, and sit...and sit...and sit. After an hour, I message again....then again at an hour and a half, two hours, two and a half. Finally, my A/M sends me a message saying that they are really short handed and really backed up...please be patient. I told him, at 3 hours, if they haven't replied, I'm bobtailing to a truck stop for the night. He said that I have to be there for the repair...I inform him that if they haven't replied by 3 hours, I will have issues with my 14 and then I'll have to wait for a repair truck to arrive and wait on the actual repair...by then, I'll be out of hours...and I refuse to run illegal because someone up there won't get off their over stuffed wallet and pay up to either hire more people, or pay a better wage to attract more people since they won't buy any better quality equipment...did I mention this was a 3 year old trailer with a blown brake chamber???? At 3 hours and 15 minutes...I left. My A/M wasn't happy, but...he didn't further poke the sleeping bear. 6 hours after I messaged breakdown, they messaged that a repair truck was on the way...I told them the trailer was still at the shipper, and sent them the slot number it was still sitting in.

The next morning, I got up, went over picked up the trailer(and it was indeed repaired w/o me being there) and proceeded to leave...but yet again another glad had seal leak. Only this one (on the service brake side) didn't leak when you went full pressure, it would only leak when you lightly applied the brake pressure. So, I changed glad hand seals again and the problem was solved. Now the fun, it is 9.5 hours from Social Circle to Arcadia, FL. I get rolling, and just before I-4, the road was closed due to a major 7-10 car and 1 big truck crash. Since I don't have the hours to re-route, and no one said a word on the CB before, I missed being able to get on I-275..after a while they clear the wreck and I get through it finally and get to the delivery, then make it to Punta Gorda for the night. My next load, didn't pick up until 1800 Sunday from Plant City going to McDonough for 5 am Monday. I get up early, and head to the shipper...I remember picking up there during the day on the weekend...but I guess it was on a Saturday the last time, because they were closed until almost my pick up time...So I ended up putting a 10 in sitting on the dead end street. I get a whole 2 hour nap while waiting, now I have to hustle to get to McDonough. I get to the delivery at 3 am...tired, hungry and ready to find a parking spot for the rest of the night....but NO FREAKIN EMPTY'S. So I inform Op's I am bob tailing to Jackson, GA for a break, I'll check back in the a.m. to see if there were any trailers unloaded, or let day shift decide what to do...Night shift had no problems with that decision at all...the bear gets to hibernate. I get to Jackson, get a small meal to keep my stomach off of my back bone...put up my silver insulated window screens which block not only heat, but light...and give my pillow some head... it was 4 am when I laid down...at 9, my q/comm beeps...it's Chad again.."Why No Empty??"..."read the messages...there weren't any available, I was tired, had 2 hours of sleep in 24+ hours, so I came down here to get in a break and will check for one once I finish my break". HIM -"I can't offer a load until you get an empty"....ME-"OK...don't"...now I am up after 5 hours sleep, got my attitude motor fired up and my butt in an uproar...so going back to sleep was out of the question. So I grab my shower bag, and go take a shower. Then come back out, grab my computer and head to the free WiFi in McD's hoping to catch up here while the rest of my break expired. But, I couldn't get the forum to load right.

I head back up to McDonough...sit in line for 45 minutes to get an empty(which they had locked outside the gate). I pull in and tell them what was up...and they have to get the yard jockey to go out, unlock an empty in the bull pen, bring it inside the gate and drop it...then I go in, get the empty, and pull it back out...(don't ask me why they do that...I don't try to figure customers out any more, I am nuts enough). I get a load from Social Circle to Alachua. 'I am trying to get near Deland so I can get my physical...is it going to be alright to deadhead all the way from Alachua to Deland then back home with the company truck?" "We'll see once you get to Alachua"...which was going to be after dayshift went home.

I go to Social Circle, check in, hook up to my preloaded trailer and weight out. Until this load, I have been very fortunate with loads out of there when it comes to weight...but again...until this load. All the way back, I was 1000 lbs over on the trailer. Rework load....now I'm 1300 lbs over on the trailer....6.25 hours later.. I'm 40 lbs over...Acceptable, but now my 14 is screwed. I was able to get to Jasper, FL to the new Loves. Just before I get there I get 2 messages...1 a request for an hours update (at 1 a.m.) and another message from some one called George B. saying "the system shows you have exceeded your hours and are in violation, park immediately"...(he just poked a very tired and very p.o.'d bear with a really big stick) I was planning on spending the night in the Love's anyway...so I pulled in and unloaded a bit of my cutting satire on his sorry butt....including ''we already have a digital nag telling us about our hours on this e-log system...we don't need a second person 1500 miles away sitting behind a desk doing the same thing" and a second message "if this company would spend more time on answering messages, routing repair trucks and solving issues with load instead of nagging and micro managing us drivers, we'd all be better off"...I never heard a peep after that.

so now I'm home...I was told it was ok to deadhead to Deland for my physical in the morning...so I'll be on here from time to time.

Sorry for the long post...I had some pent up frustration that I wasn't able to get out since my POS phone is officially DOA

 

Mine does it when going between sections, like HOS to Messages. I get my HOS changed then go to click an arrival or something and whammoo it freaks out and shuts down instantly. I mean black screen of death. I wait awhile and it will start the reboot process. I also do not have the updated FMCSA rules on this. It will show 11 hours of driving available so I have to keep up with the new and improved 8 hour rule on my own. I see myself getting lazy with the ELOGs so I hope they fix it before I get into trouble. There's an update coming tonite sometime so maybe it will be fixed.

 

Ralph...I didn't get to see the deleted post while I was away...I can only guess based on some of the other post's the others have made. I hope it all works out in your favor for a change

 

Reading thru posts and comments, and a few years of talking to drivers from all over the country, my deduction is that: It is mostly not the companies, but the industry and its invisible hand of economy that dictates what crapola gets passed on to the driver.....no matter what company you go for....there's gonna be some major headaches, drivers will eventually get used to and adjust to whatever pay we get - those making $40k will jump for joy if they somehow end up making $45k, they will cry if somehow they end up making $36k - those making $65, same story... if they make $70k and when they make $60k; you'll have headaches with Schneider and with Choice program, and you will not make $100k more than before, but it will be fun, you'll have great people around you, great support, you'll have a paycheck when otheres dont; but remember, there will be plenty of frustrating moments and a few headaches, just as many as with Crete, only different. That's trucking, be safe - bro