CRETE - A Year in Review

I am going to work for crete on monday. Good info and like the spreadsheet.
Thx,
tennessee1

 

my husband is thinking of working for them for the time being . im more afraid of big companies for the fact of no loads and ur just a number to them not a name .

 

I hear ya longbow, when the On Guard system is screwed up then you also have no cruise control. Spent the entire last year without cruise control, just hated the thought of the down time to get it checked out, but after a collision with a deer and 10 days in the shop (Wilmer) my On Guard works great again and now have cruise control restored

 

Hey evertrucker.... Just finished reading week 23. I enjoy reading about your adventures with crete. I can see that you put alot of effort in trip planning, right down to the minute. I thought id try one of your tricks of trying to deliver early to a cold storage in stockton . My appt was for 0630 the following morning, but i showed up at the gate at 1800 the evening before. As i pulled up to the gate, i was thinking that if evertrucker can do it, so can i . Well, they told me to flip a u turn and come back in the morning. After i bumped the dock the next morning, took 30 minutes to check in to receiving, 5 hours to unload, then another 30 minutes to check out. Oh, and the lumper cost $ 328.00. Every time i pass a crete truck now, ( truck goes 65), i ask my wife " I wonder if thats Evertrucker"

 

Hey Tennessee where are you going for your training? I'm headed to New Kingstown on the 22nd, actually the 21st will be at the motel.

 

I could not go a whole year with no cruise. I had to go without for a month in my Cascadia when Crete decided to pull the plug on the On Guard system until the manufacturer worked out all the bugs.

 

Holy crap...hit it so hard it screwed up the on-guard??....Geez, he musta been on the high side backing up before his computer logbook said he had to quit

 

What it screwed up was the curved plastic shield in front of the eye. One bolt holding it on broke off and the shield now vibrates in the wind. I think it is sending bad info to the computer causing it to lock up.

 

Greetings gang...been a little while since I've updated... I tried last week, but the new Firefox browser has a glitch...sometimes when you post on a forum like this, it gives you an error. It use to go through if you went back a page and resubmitted, but when I did it this time, I was only 1/2 way through with what I had to say, and just wanted to proof-read (on 'preview post')then after I entered some addtional comments, and tried to submit...it gave me an error, but the go-back button kept taking me back to the old post, before the extra addition...so I got frustrated after retyping 3 or 4 times and gave up. If you are using the newest Firefox and are having the same problem (something about a missing security token)it's not the forum, it's the browser. I am on a couple different forums - like for my Jeep, and for my POS Blackberry...it does the same thing there. So, now I have to use the ole' colander known as Internet Explorer. Plus, IE doesn't have active spell check, so forgive me if I misspell something...I've got lazy(er) and stupid with Firefox when it comes to spelling.

Since I left home the afternoon of the 3rd of March, as of Sunday the 14th, I have run around 5200 miles. I spent the 1st week running nights, sleeping days. Something I have never gotten comfortable doing...I mean I can do it, but the truckstops are always a whole lot more busy during the day...makes it tough to sleep with all the trucks backing in, sliding tandems, slamming doors etc. I've been trying, since I left home, to get a service done on my truck, but the closest they've gotten me was a breeze by the Columbus shop...(a place I will avoid unless ordered to go there)and I got to wave at the Lincoln shop on the way over to McCook, NE, then wave again on the way back past there to Red Oak, IA...Both loads were 'hot - customer production sensitive' loads, and with my hours running tight, a t'call would put things a little too tight to repower being so close to the delivery time. I was also informed by Op's that the Council Bluff's shop was no longer open...Which sucks, that was one of the better shops in the system.

I was even in Hagerstown, MD emptying on a Monday morning, and got a choice of loads...that close to PA, at 8am on a Monday and I had to make a deceision...

I did pick up and deliver to a couple of real cool customers. I picked up in Baltimore, and delivered in Prairie Du Chien, WI (not to Cabela's, someone else). A whopping 5000 lb. load. Both the shipper and receiver were some of the most friendly, eager to please bunch of people I've run into in a while(yes, even in Baltimore there is someone who is friendly). They were anxious to get my load on and off the trailer so I could keep the wheels rolling. Kind'a nice to feel appreciated for a change.

Even Op's has been Johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to responding to messages, getting loads offered and dispatched...kinda' tough to find anything to gripe and complain about right now...what will I do with myself????

As of the 12th of March, I had already exceeded the total number of miles that I ran the entire 1st quarter of '09, and still had 19 days to run this quarter. If things keep up the way they are going, by the end of the year I will gross around the same pay as the year before 'the great recession' was alleged to have started.

I am having the same trouble as everyone else has when it comes to that blasted 70 hour limit...I had to shut down this morning in Bloomington, IL because that was it for the day...I wasn't the least bit tired, but hey...the logbook rules the roost. It feels real good to actually be tired from running hard...I fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer and wake up feeling better. Last year, when I was putzing around and waiting on freight, I felt a whole lot worse than I do now.

Oh well, better call it a post...

Welcome to all the new Cretin's...hope things live up to all the good post's you've been reading here, and don't go as bad as some of my troubled times I've written about.

CYA'll

 

I gotta say, after kicking around this industry for awhile, I prefer bigger companies. All two years of my verified experience was spent with bigger companies. I've got six+ years of non-verifiable experience (no paystubs, W-2s or logs, heh heh) running with smaller outfits. And with two notable exceptions, the smaller companies screwed me way more than the bigger outfits. I'd rather be a number who gets paid ontime, than a "member of the family" who sees one week's pay for three week's worth of work.