CRETE - A Year in Review

Looks like you are getting it! You can make money as an OTR slave, but the sacrifices are rarely worth the money. OTR might be good for a single guy... if he has no desire for family life in the near future.

 

Not harsh at all.
The trucking industry sheds a bright spotlight on the fact that there are often ethical conflicts between making money, and doing the right thing. This very website paints the trucking industry as: “…basically a slave industry with truckers working on the average of over 70 hours per week, many of [whom] are not paid while sitting in shipper’s parking lots for, sometimes, 8 hours or more (a whole workday for average Americans!) Truckers are not paid overtime as others.”
The trucking industry certainly, in my estimation, lags behind in affording the basic amenities for drivers enjoyed by the majority of the American work force. Trucking, certainly, is an industry in which you have to stand up for yourself, or you’ll have footprints all over your face.

 

For who said "psst... nobody cares"... they should care about what you just said. You just made it clear that it is possible to make a living as a truck driver without being an OTR slave. The people who say "
who cares" deserve the laughable OTR life that they have.

 

Granted... some people prefer being a slave. But I was one of the people on the "previous posts". Just curious... have you ever done local? Or are you just going by your feedback?

 

I find it kind of funny when people speak of this job as slavery because it's my way to freedom. My old office career was much more slave-like. As it stands, I have no debt, no wife, no kids, and my house is in the hands of a property management company breaking better than even off rent. All I'm doing is saving money with less than 10% of the stress I had before and, barring disaster, I'll be able to "retire" by the time I'm fifty with more than enough capital to start my own business if I so desire. It's definitely not "slavery" for me and, for my purposes, I can't find a better company than Crete.

 

As was said, it takes all kinds. Some people actually enjoy truck driving and for you to refer to their job as "slavery" is very demeaning to that person and doesnt say much about YOU as a person. I think you need to think more about your comments, before you make them.

 

Yes I have done all type of driving, local, regional, otr, dedicated, you name it, i've done it. 1st job (other than the chicken plant) was local. Daycab...Slipseat...pain in the assets. Have to come in, wait for previous shift to get in so you can get a truck so you can leave, load the stuff you're going to need for the day, see the same scenery day after day after day. If you're delayed, you have nothing to do but sit there staring out the windshield. If you get sleepy, you have no place to rest unless you like to straddle a shifter, then rush back to the yard to hurry up and unload your stuff so the next driver can load up and leave. Then drive home, because you have 8 or 9 hours before you have to rush back to work tomorrow to do it all over again. Sorry, sounds like a glorious way to earn a living. At least with this job, I have the same truck, as long as it doesn't have a major long term repair needed, for 4 years. I have my stuff right where I want it, have plenty of room to get up and stretch my legs, a bed to sleep in. If I am at a shipper or receiver for a while, on top of the .47/mi, I make detention time, and I can lay down and catch some zzzzzz's if I want, oh,by the way - can be logged as sleeper berth time instead of logging it as on duty time. If it came down to it I would rather stand behind a counter and ask "would you like to super-size that for only .49 more?" than drive local again.

But we've been through this, and I think we both know where the other stands on this, so we will leave it there.

 

Not my intention to demean the drivers... if that were the case, I'd be demeaning myself as well. My description of the job is shared by many others, and I believe that I have earned the right to refer to it as I wish. However, I do not mean to demean the hardworking people who do this job... if that's the way it came across, it wasn't my intention.

You're probably right. I tend to be a passionate person, and that passion is often misinterpreted by some people as callousness. Like most people, I'm still a work in progress.

 

Agreed. I was just curious.

 

Finished up this three weeks last night ...

4/18 - 4/20
Milton, PA to Vonore, TN
Empty - 78
Loaded 640
Delivered early 4/19 and, typically, sat a day before I could pick up my home run.

4/20 - 4/21
Calhoun, TN to Catawba, SC
Empty - 43
Loaded - 322
Delivered 4/20

That comes to 7,845 miles for eighteen days out using the "burn it out" approach. 435.83 miles per day. That's still not what I'd like to average, but is a slight improvement over my last two runs. However, when I figure in hotel expenses during the two restarts, the earnings are about the same. What I'm going to try next time out is to burn out seventy hours as quickly as I can the first week, get my restart, and then back it off to logging 8 to 8.5 hours per day the rest of the trip with a nice "pad" from the first week. Hope I don't confuse dispatch too bad ...

I hope I don't sound like I'm trying to hijack Evertruckerr's thread or provide a foil to his gaudy numbers with my own stuff. I'm just using this as a way of thinking out loud on how to best utilize my time during the eighteen days I stay out. If any of you who've been with the company awhile have any suggestions on some things I can do differently, I'm all ears. This is a lot different from my previous company where I was paid a percentage of the load with standing orders to "have it there the next morning" hours of service be ######.