CRETE - A Year in Review

"irregardless (that one is for jd)"

You a funny man! Glad we can laugh about it.

I had a few other people ask about O/Oing at Crete about a month ago, so I called a recruiter to see if the O/O hiring freeze had been lifted. Was told it had not been, and that the talk was that they may not lift the hiring freeze till the first of next year. However, that may not apply to current company drivers.

Enjoy the vacation!

 

Hey ET(evertruckerr) that was some good reading up there. It sounds like a typical day huh? I don't have as much time as some of you, but I wish I had all that stuff runnin around in my head as far as seeing how the situation at hand is going to turn out over the next day or 2. I'm gettin there, but I spent the last year and a 1/2 doing local stuff. It's really all basic stuff, but only time will afford me the insight or foresight to be able to get the jump on stuff.
So keep posting stuff like that, and some tips if you can, and I'll add my own when I get back out there. I'm SURE I'll have some stupid and comical stuff to add.
later

 

Man that's some sucky home time. Hope it's worth it.

 

Well, let's see. I'm sitting in Clearfield, PA getting an unneeded reset. Got me a load offer to pick up tomorrow morning in Brookville going all the way to Baldwinsville, NY. Delivery time is anytime between 1530 tomorrow and 0330 Tuesday. Total of 337 miles.

I've already pulled 2 different reefers, and I'm finding that I'm now dreading drop/hooks because I'm finding more and more trailers with tandems that are impossible for one person to slide. I'd love to find out which mechanics at our shops are remedying broken tandem slider release springs by simply connecting the pull arm directly to the release lever. I have a crowbar I'd like to apply to his cranium a few times.

I'd also love it if dispatchers actually read messages that I sent in, such as "Hey guys, I need to get this truck in the shop for an air leak. Since I'm delivering less than 30 miles from Ottawa, would you mind routing me there and changing my PTA to sometime tomorrow morning? I'm hoping to have it fixed and ready to go by then." That one was roundly ignored - my empty call got me a load offer going to Chattanooga, over Monteagle - not a place I want to drive with a hole in my main air line coming out of the compressor. So I sent another message - "I'd love to take this load, but the trk has a big air leak making it unsafe to drive. Need to get n2 shop ASAP." Somebody named Toby replied, "I take it you want to put ur trk in the shop? If so u can go to Ottawa, I'll route u there." DUH!

So I get the truck fixed in Ottawa, set my PTA for 0500, get a load offer picking up off the Ottawa yard going to Plainfield, IN for 10am the next day and a message from Toby saying, "Can u dlv this ontime? If so, go ahead and I'll get you a preplan from there." I took it. No preplan. Again. I believed that lie the first time Toby told it to me. He needs new lies to add to his repertoire.

But, it's not all bad - it's just that the bad stuff tends to stick out in my mind more when I'm sitting at a truck stop in PA with plenty of hours and a load I can't pick up til tomorrow morning.

 

I've had mixed results with Toby. One time he helped me out big time on a preplan to the west coast, next time he turns around and pulls me off of a great load to go pick up a load I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Go figure.

 

Well, I think I've figured out how I'm going to work this load to Baldwinsville. I could deliver it at 1600 tomorrow and be almost out of hours and looking for a place to park around Syracuse (and we all know how well that'll work out) or I could hold up at the Petro in Waterloo, and deliver around 0200-0300 and have plenty of hours to get outta there. I think I'm going with the latter.

When I get to Waterloo, I'll ask dispatch about a preplan out of there since we have a lot of beer loads coming out of the Budweiser plant there (that's where I'm delivering also). I don't much care which direction I go after I deliver, just that I get moving so I don't have the joyous experience of looking for a parking spot in the Syracuse area in the middle of the night. If nothing is forthcoming, I may go ahead and deliver in the afternoon and hope for the best on parking.

 

Has it been a while since you've been to Baldwinsville? The reason I ask is that the last time I was there dispatch told me that we don't load out of there anywhere near like we used to. Last three times to Syracuse netted me 0 beer loads.

 

Joy. Guess I'll just deliver the thing ASAP and hope for the best. If nothing else I might be able to park at that little hole in the wall truckstop in Syracuse or the one a little further north up 81.