CRETE - A Year in Review

WEEK FORTY SIX
Monday, November 16th through Sunday, November 22nd

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There wasn’t much for this week because I just came back on the road after some hometime. They were a little late in getting me by the house this time around, but I didn't have any compelling reason to be home at any time in particular so no harm, other than once again pulling into Phoenix on a Monday. Dispatch was working at getting me home for my requested date, but I let them know I wasn’t dead set on any particular date and to get me by the house as soon as freight made it possible. So they bounced me around the middle of the country for a few days until they were able to set up a couple of loads that would do the trick. I ended up delivering a load to KC. From there I headed on over to the Caves in Independence.



That turned out to be a real hoot. For starters I was given wrong directions to the place. You know, the kind that say turn right when you should have turned left. Usually not all that big of a deal, but today I was under the gun. The load had a pickup window of 7am to 2:30pm and it was 2:15 by the time I found the entrance to the Caves.

From there I was supposed to call from one of the phones at the entrance for instructions. That sounded like a good plan until I got there to find two separate locations where phones used to be. Evident by the dangling wires and the outline of what used to be. Oh well, I’ll just use my phone like any modern age person would do, right? Well the phone number given on the Qualcomm only got me an answering machine and my 2:30 deadline was now a real problem. I didn’t know how strict this place was going to be about late arrivals and the fact that no one was answering the phone didn’t give me a good feeling. There was also no listing of the particular customer I was looking for on the directory.

My uneasiness wasn’t helped by the fact that I needed to pick up this load TODAY so that I could run it over to our St Louis yard tonight and Tcall it there so some poor unfortunate sole could pick it up and take it the rest of the way to its’ final destination in Pennsylvania. I was then to pickup a load in St Louis of A/C units. This was my home bound load going to Phoenix and if I failed to get loaded out of KC at this moment, everything could fall apart.

I sent off a message to dispatch, but all I got out of that was a note to call and let it ring. “It can take as much as 15mins for someone to answer”. That didn’t work for me at this particular moment and I decided to just head on in and drive around. After all, how big could this place be, I would have to run across what I was looking for eventually. That turned out to be a dandy idea and I eventually stumbled across a big ol’ sign informing me of a low clearance just ahead, “Trucks will NOT clear”. That made for a rather awkward situation that took another 15mins to remedy.

From that point I figured my best bet would be to flag someone down and inquire as to where I might find my particular customer and oddly enough that worked and a few minutes later I was walking into the door wondering if I would get loaded. It was now after 3pm. My concern was for naught though and the guy at the shipping window didn’t show the least bit of concern about my arrival time. I had assumed that the 2:30 deadline took into account the amount of time it takes to get into this place and get situated.

I was told to dock it at door 42 and let him know when I was ready. Simple enough, right? That’s what I though until I found out that I was pointed in the wrong direction to get into the dock and there was no way I was going to try a blindside back in this place. It was hard enough to back into these docks from the good side. So now I had to make another loop around the place until I could fine a spot to do a three point and get going in the other direction. If I was the only guy in the place that wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but along the way I had to wait for two other drivers to get backed into their spot. The first driver was in a daycab and was a short wait, but the second guy was having a hell of a time and I sat there for a solid 15mins waiting for him to wiggle in. I was just thrilled to know that I was getting loaded, even though I was there for another 90mins after docking.

Even with those delays I was able to make it to St Louis and dropped this load before my day was over. I even had enough time to make it to my home bound load and picked it up with an hour of drive time left in the day. Now all I had to do was deliver half of this load to Albuquerque. (one of those tight spots)



And then take the rest of it to Phoenix and be thankful that I didn’t end up like this driver.



The final delivery was actually set for Tuesday morning in Phoenix and I had to take a few hours out of my day during hometime to deliver this load, but loads like these actually stretch out home time because even though I was home early Monday, my home time doesn’t officially start until my trailer is empty. In this case my first official day at home would be Wednesday, even though I had been in Phoenix since Monday. And because I worked a few hours on Tuesday, this day would not be counted toward hometime because I worked part of the day.

This is one of the things the Crete does that many other companies do not. If you work any part of a day it is the same as working the whole day, unlike other companies I have worked for in the past. You know, the ones that say you were home at 8pm Friday night it is now 4am Sunday morning. “That’s your three days, get back to work”.

Anyways, due to this I could have stayed at the house until Sunday without any hassles from dispatch, but I chose to hit the road on Friday to pickup a little extra cash for the holidays.

The end result, another hometime spent at the house while the wife is at work. As I pointed out, I could have worked it out to stay through the weekend, but I've done that the last couple of times through the house and it's tends to take a pretty good chunk out of the paycheck. I decided to hit the road a couple of days early this week so that I can be in Phoenix for a couple of weeks during Christmas. With a week of vacation time and time off built up between now and then, it will make for a nice Holiday break.

I even managed to get through to dispatch the night before leaving to get a preplan set up so that I knew what time to head on down to the yard. That way I didn't have to worry about getting there at 5am only to find out that I would have to sit around for who knows how many hours before my load picked up.

They even gave me a choice of three loads to pick from. None of them were anything to get excited about because they all went to the LA area. But one of them was a drop anytime delivery. I took that one because I hoped that I would be able to get a nice long west bound load once empty and I wouldn't lose anytime waiting for a delivery appointment to roll around.

That all sounded great and I even got to sleep in a little Friday morning. But when I jumped in the truck I knew it was going to be bad news when I saw that I had 8 messages waiting for me. Sure enough, the load had been pulled out from under me and a new load offer was waiting for me. No big deal though because I was now to pick up a preloaded trailer sitting in Nogales and run it over to Dallas with an anytime drop. Sounded great to me, 1200 miles of hard running and high hopes of good freight in TX once I got there.


Thirty miles short of Nogales, I saw a fellow Blue truck pulling a Crete trailer and gave a wave (which wasn’t returned by the way). If I had know at that time that he was pulling my trailer I don’t think I would have been waiving.

I arrived at the shipper to find that my preloaded trailer had been stolen by the other Crete driver who had a pickup time much latter in the day. It took about an hour of back and forth with dispatch to figure out what had happened and the end result was that I had to spend the next 7 ½ hours waiting for another load. Now instead of delivering in Dallas by Saturday night I wouldn’t be pulling in until mid-morning Sunday. Not that big of a deal I guess, but it could certainly have a detrimental affect on freight availability once empty.

As I drove across NM the following morning enjoying the scenery, I pondering just what effect it would have on me and hoped for the best.



This picture was actually from my last trip across NM, but I’ve been meaning to post it and this seems like as good a time as any.

The delivery was quick and easy except for the fact that there were no empty trailers. I’m sure there would have been last night if I hadn’t had my load stolen from me. Now my next load would be relegated to a shipper that I could bobtail too (very limited, if any, options) or re-powering a load out of the Wilmer yard. My load offer came through very quickly and it was a very nice 1000+ mile run, BUT it was a load picking up at a customer that I knew for a fact would require me to bring in an empty trailer.

I sent off another message to dispatch to point out that I had NO empty and my load was quickly pulled from me followed by a 280mi run up to Tulsa (that driver who took my load out of Nogales is really doing a number on me). My new load was sitting in our Wilmer yard waiting for me and I headed on down. It was a rather short run, but in reality didn’t hurt me any because I had already put in 200 miles for the day and my new load delivered at 5:30 the next morning. I would still end the day with 500 miles or so and as long as I get a good load out of Tulsa it will be a no harm, no foul kind of thing.

I headed on down to Wilmer to get my trailer and while I was there I took SuperSnacks chastising to hart and pulled into the wash bay. I had a little spare time and put in a good hour scrubbing away. WOW! There’s shinny stuff under that black stuff. Cool! Good for another year.

Once that was done, I made my way up to Tulsa and found the Sam’s Club and parked it for the night in their lot. I would be at their door first when they opened up first thing Monday morning.


WEEK FORTY SIX
Monday, Nov 16th through Sunday, Nov 22nd
Miles include deadhead

Nogales, AZ to Garland, TX…………………………………………1215mi
Wilmer, TX to Tulsa, OK……………………………………………...311mi

Paid Miles…………………………………………1526 Miles
(Short home week, Fri thru Sun only.)

Actual Miles…………………..1510 Miles

1526mi x .44 = $671.44

 

It's been a solid week since leaving the house. For the most part I've been running great miles with the exception of the little stumbling block in Nogales.

Todays load has kind of stopped me dead in my tracks because it doesn't deliver until 7pm tonight. So I'm sitting around waiting for the clock. I'll try heading in a couple of hours early and see what happens.

Since leaving the house on Friday, I managed to knock out 2978 Miles in five days. But this day is shot for the most part and I'm a bit concerned about getting a load once empty. After all, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I can't imagine there will be much freight to choice from. The one good thing going for me is that I'll be in the metro Chicago area and we have a lot of Drop/Hook customers in the area and I might just get lucky and pull a preloaded trailer out that will give me some miles. Time will tell.

Oh Yeah, I was just in the Indy yard and it has been blessed with a thick layer of heavy gravel. No more dust or bigazz pot holes. Sweet!

 

Yeah, that driver definitely affected my week. But fortunately it's not a common occurrence with this company. As a matter of fact it is the first time I've had it happen to me in the three plus years that I've been here.