CRETE - A Year in Review

WELCOME TO THE REVOLUTION
I keep running into 'snackbar followers' every week...I wonder... If I were to promote a mass objection protest, say a massive call in to your terminal manager and complain, on a specific day, at a certain range of time, how many would follow? Naaaa. Better not stir up to much more *bleep* right now, the more you stir, the worse the stink. Besides, I think I've caused enough trouble for this quarter.

And before anyone gets there shorts in a wad... This is only a joke, I would never organize such a thing...heck, I can't even keep myself organized...so don't take this serious please!!...

 

Hey, Just wondering whats the cash advance amount every week at crete? thx in advance for the info!

 

yes u bring up a good point trader, but some of these companies are cutting bonuses, mileage pay, even dropping 401k plans & dependent health care altogether; oh & lets not forget another slap in the face, a no idle policy for trucks with no APUs' yet, but does management or ofc staff have to pay for their office A/C or heating bills where they work, hell no! Oh but truckers with sleep apnea need a machine to help them sleep.. well how about proper sleep temperature inside a steel box at nite when it's over 100 deg out & the humidity is over 60%, or below freezing in the winter & u can't idle that truck.. where is their concern for the driver then?? It's all bs from what i can make of it, not concern for the drivers sleep habits, if that were true the no idle policy wouldn't be an issue..

 

Honestly, I didn't wake up one morning and say to myself 'I think I'll be an argumentative, obnoxious SOB today'. I use to be easy going, take things as they come type person. The way it use to be here, they would only run you as hard as it took to make you stop asking for more miles. (picture tiny Tim - 'please sir, may I have some more'.) I don't know if that was a policy, or just the way it worked but because some drivers don't need or want to run the wheels off of it every week, but they let you decide the pace that fit you as long as you were above the company required minimum for productivity. And most of my rants and disagreements with ops comes after a polite courteous start, but then escalates. Like last week, all I asked was for something that delivered on the current weeks work, and since it was Wed, I didn't feel that was out of line... and again, had my previous month and a half been more productive, I wouldn't have even been concerned with that load causing a bad week. I mean my attitude has always been, I pay my bills monthly, as long as my monthly income is acceptable, a bad week here and there is just part of this business...if the average for the month is acceptable, then I deal with it. But when 3 of the previous 5 weeks were below 2000, and my monthly average is hovering around 9000 for the entire year, I need to start seeing something positive. I've tried the full range of handling things from going with the flow all the way to the other extreme of yelling and screaming. I have always been the person that's not picky about the 'where' as long as the monthly average is as good as I feel they can get me, my biggest gripe is it could be better if things were done different in regards to hiring. I know you can't predict the extreme ups and downs...but every one who had an opinion on the recession all said it was going to be long and deep...that might have been a hint to slow hiring enough to keep the remaining drivers busy enough to keep them happy. I mean, if you only have enough money to feed 20 guests at your birthday party you don't invite 40 and make everyone starve. They wouldn't have had nearly the number of drivers leave had the average miles been up. Park a few hundred trucks for 6 months until things start showing signs of improvement, then start hiring again. I mean they eventually did reduce the fleet some, but for many of us, it was too little, to late. It was like putting a new lock on the barn door after the horse kicked it down, escaped, fell off a cliff and died, then it's body was sent to the glue factory.

I got the impression when I spoke to my terminal manager the other day, that this company isn't concerned about the success or failure of their drivers. She didn't actually use those words, but from the general tone and attitude, only I was to be concerned with the success or failure of the company...who cares if I'm going broke or homeless as long as the company survives. This wasn't stated, but my gut feeling...and I'm rarely wrong(I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken----ha) My opinion, this is a partnership, without them we have no job, without us, they have no job/company. The more satisfied I am the better I take care of the company and our customers, thus making them happier. The happier they are, the better they take care of me. The same principle works another way...If I'm expendable, so are they, if companies don't take care of the driver, then the driver usually doesn't take care of the company...the company fails, the driver moves on. Everyone, including the operations and management people suffer. If we all work together to try to succeed - as a team - we all not only have a better chance to survive, but thrive and prosper. Take a look at Walmart drivers, and how low their turnover is, or at least was...They are, or were, paid for everything except wiping their nose. When Sam W. was around, his drivers were king... That's why it takes knowing someone who works there, years of applying and a perfect driving record to get in. That's because the senior drivers there rarely leave, they retire after a long career, or make one final delivery to the big DC in the sky.

I have previously stated that my miles are down around 20% for the year to date. I stand corrected...I ran the numbers the other day, and for the year-to-date as of the end of August(the last full month my spreadsheet has a monthly ytd average)... It's in the 16% range. I may just crack 100k miles this year. Year to date over the last 2 years, it is above 16%, perhaps closer to the 20%. My 1st year here is still the best, and miles have been on the decline since...(my 2nd was when I had to take 2 mos off for an injury, so no blame for a reduction in miles can be credited to the company, in fact, the previous manager pushed hard to help me get as many miles as possible once I returned to help me catch up)

 

As far as the advance money goes, they have 2 sides of your fuel card. When you use an ATM you have access to what it thinks is savings and checking. The checking is the money you tell Crete to put on your card out of your previous weeks pay, the savings is what they call 'truck cash' and is limited to 2 $125 advances, it resets sometime during the week and on the weekend. You're suppose to only use 'truck cash' for purchases like truck supplies, or repairs under $100(use to be $50), lumpers(although most lumpers charge more than our limit any more), etc. Many drivers use the 'truck cash' like normal advance money, and if you don't turn in receipts to cover your advances, it just comes out of the paycheck for the current weeks miles. I personally have money set aside every week when they do payroll and put it on my personal(checking) side of the card. That side is never cut off, even when I'm home on home time or vacation I have access -because it's really my money. The other side(savings) isn't available unless you are under dispatch on a load. So if you're laid over waiting on freight and are a little short of cash and didn't set up personal cash, you're screwed. And the savings side is the one that gets used when you get advance money at the fuel desk/island.

Since most of the lumpers fees are in excess of the advance amount nowadays, we have to call in to operations for lumper advances(this provides a little more security when dealing with hundreds of dollars for lumpers, so they can verify it's really you, plus you're not keeping that much cash money on you or in your truck just waiting to be pilfered). All of this call-in advance money doesn't affect the advance money(truck cash) available on your fuel card.

 

SS, Your posts here are always enjoyable to read. I agree with you 100% about how Crete has kept the size of their fleet larger than the demand for freight. Earlier this year when we had those driver meetings in Wilmer that was the main concern for all the drivers and all they could tell us was that Crete wants to maintain a larger fleet so they could take advantage of the situation when freight picks up. That right there tells me they don't give a dam about the drivers and our financial situation. After the meeting they asked for our input via the qcom and my response to them was that by keeping the fleet large shows that they dont care about their current drivers financial situations. I have voiced my opinion to my FM and that is like talking to a dead tree. I just choose to not let all the bs flow in the direction of the dispatchers, after all they are the ones that give us the loads.

 

Sleep apnea is where you stop breathing while asleep, then (hopefully) you start again after anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute.

About 10 years ago I worked for an engineering company in Atlanta, doing IT admin and support stuff for the engineers who design the electrical, plumbing, and HVAC systems for buildings. One of the owners was a slim guy in his early 50's who was as healthy as anyone could hope to be (I wish I were as healthy now as he was in 1999). He died in 2000 of sleep apnea. He just stopped breathing in his sleep and never started up again.

Yup, sounds like a "######## disease created by the pharmaceutical companies" to me. Hey, maybe they snuck into his house while he was asleep and gave him something to make him stop breathing, to help fuel a panic about sleep apnea!

 

Thanks for the info!, Supersnackbar! Was inquiring in case I decide to join crete, Im going to get a new cb, and a convertor for my t.v. I would try to keep my personal cash on me and spend the advance..its going to come out the check anyway, Also I would like to know whats the average age of the tractors at Crete? Thx!