CRETE - A Year in Review

warn me soon enough, and I'll bring the Hershey bars and graham crackers...we'll have some smore's, and sit around the campfire singing kumebyah...after all...when my last 10 days load average is at or below 300/day...I have plenty of time on my hands. And you are somewhat right...I am grumpy...plus at my age, there is always something hurting. As for actually staying for life...I think high command will have a bigger say in that department than I do.

And as for my statement about them not caring...it was a broad generalization, not that all of them don't care, but an overwhelming majority couldn't give a rat's butt about us. Some actually do make you feel like they are trying to take care of you...but they are few and far between.

Before I was empty in Breinigsville, I didn't request...I flatly told them not to send me any farther into the depths of purgatory, since asking nicely and generally being positive and pleasant doesn't get me anywhere, getting nasty seems to be the only way I can get my message through to them...and their load offer...another load to Marcy, NY out of the water plant for a 10am, live unload for Monday morning. But, before I could get the crank out and wind up the BMW mobile...Cory got my 1st message and offered me a different load. A whopping 490 mile, 2 day run to Dunn, NC for Tuesday, late morning....the only redeeming part...I was out of his zone and headed out of the northeast for at least 2 days.


I think I need to attend one of their 'how to con a driver into working here' workshops...Errrrrr, I mean 'being a effective recruiter' workshop...Just so I can ask them how they sleep at night teaching drivers how to stretch the facts to make working here seem appealing. With our 250mi/day average, our slow...no pulling trucks, our 'ignore the driver, and he/she will stop sending messages' dispatch system, our 1 dimensional planning operation...I mean, if we told prospective drivers about what really goes on here...our recruiting department could be cut back to 1 part time person that checks the voicemail from home...think about how much money that would save the company. (yes, I did wake up in a more foul mood than normal)

 

Reading your posts supersnackbar puts my life in perspective, thank you. Your blood pressure must be 300/199. I used to enjoy having a chat at the truckstop diner with other drivers but these days there is a risk I could run into someone like you and that would truely ruin a perfectly good pot roast. Chill out man! #### life's too short. This isn't a personal attack SS, just some advise before you fall over from a stress related coronary.

 

This is the same reason I wait outside the terminal while my truck is in the shop, weather permitting.

 

There's a catfish restaurant down here on US-49 about 10 miles south of I-20 where the Flying J and the old Pilot/new Love's truckstops are. They are only open in the evenings from about 5pm until 9pm, and Sunday from 11am to 8pm. It's a little restaurant, seats maybe about 100 people, and they do a land-office business - people will drive from 100 miles away to eat there, and wait in line for an hour to get a table.

Why? Because they have the absolute best fried catfish in Central Mississippi, bar none! They don't spend a red cent on advertising - in fact, their dining tables have advertisements laminated on them, and the tables are paid for by the people who place the ad's.

They have the one restaurant, and have no desire to expand.

What this has to do with trucking is this -- if you work hard to become the very best, you don't have to advertise - people will come to you by word-of-mouth.

If Crete was genuinely sincere about becoming the best trucking company, them IMHO instead of spending beaucoup $$ on recruiting, spend the $$ on retention, and watch the professional truck drivers beat a path to your doorstep.

Crete has changed dramatically since I started here in 1998 - it's become less like a family and more like just another job. It's still a fairly decent place to work, but it ain't nuthin' like it used to be...

 

Honestly, my b/p use to be high. Back 10 or so years ago, I use to be 'Mr. Take-it-all-quietly'. Never letting off any steam, never spoke my mind...just kept it all inside, no matter what. Until one day, a former, bi-polar...borderline schizophrenic friend of my wife came over in one of her negative moods...(don't get me wrong...I'm in no way trying to insult people with those conditions...this woman's moods would swing so dramatically, it was almost like 2 different people.) It wasn't until she started getting threatening and very insulting to my wife that I finally snapped, and went off on here at such a level, she truly felt her life was threatened...(I chased her down the road in my Jeep...and she was driving an IROC Z, not that I would have actually hurt her, I just needed to snap her back to reality) But it solved the problem, she didn't come back for 6 years, and she went to a different doctor and got her med's adjusted.(a couple years ago, right after her divorce, and before she left town, she apologized to us and thanked me, she said it snapped her out of her mood faster than any of the Lithium the doctor prescribed, and made her realize that she needed to see a different doctor)Needless to say, my BP right after that was in the high 200's -over- the high 180's. 2 days later I was at the doctor for my annual physical and I juuuuust passed. After telling him about how high it was after that nights adventure, 89 wasn't that high...he just stared at me in dis-belief and said...'you should be dead...I guess we don't have to worry about any weak blood vessels in you...but see your doctor, he can prescribe some med's that will help bring your pressure down...' Now, I'm not one to medicate...with the rare exception of an occasional Alieve or Ibuprophen for a headache, or an even more rare Daytime cold pill when I get the rare 1st signs of a cold... I have no use for medicine or the medical profession in general. My personal feelings are, that most(not all) doctors are nothing but legal drug dealers sponsored by major pharmaceutical conglomerates. 99.9% of the time, you can deal with what ever is wrong in a natural way...which is the way I chose.

I had always wondered why my dad seemed grouchy or to have something to say, good or bad...may people thought he was a hot-tempered SOB...much like many on here see me. But the night I went ballistic, I had an epiphany (epiphany - n. - a moment of insight or clarity) the reason my dad, and many of the older generation are considered grumpy or grouchy is because that's the way things were in their day, that's the way they were raised...you spoke your mind, you said your piece...If you had a problem with something someone did, you got it out in the open... you didn't sugar coat anything... basically you said what you meant, you meant what you said...and you let the chips fall where they may. But you were honest!!! None of this beating around the bush, or P/C sugar coating crap...just straight out open...and how many of our fathers, and grandfathers had to deal with high blood pressure, or stress related mental disorders (like the alphabet soup of disorders they have come up with today)...the answer....not many. And their lives and the time they were living in weren't any easier that it is today. Since then, I've been doing much of the same thing...if someone pi$$es me off...they know about it...if someone screws me over, I confront them about it...but on the other side, if someone goes out of their way to help, or does something positive...I am just as forward with thanks and praise.....but you know what...after I've said my piece....that's it...it's over, I don't let it sit inside me and gnaw at me, I don't let it fester, building up until I explode. and my B/P now...believe it or not, it's well into the normal range...in fact, when I was home the last time, and since I've dropped 25 or so pounds, it was 116/67...the lowest in the 17 years I've been trucking.

I would truly rather be in a room full of people like me, than in a room full of people who bit their tongue when something bothers me... I expect people to be as openly blunt, brazen and brash as I am...get it out in the open, we'll discuss it...and we will know where we stand....agree or disagree, like or dislike...there isn't any doubts about what each of us were thinking...I have more respect for that kind of person, than the quiet ones...The ones you really have to worry about...you know, like when some 'former employee' goes nutz and comes into work shooting the place up...what's the 1st thing people say...'I never saw it coming, he was always so quiet and kept to himself'...it's never 'he was a loudmouth hothead that beeched and complained about everyone and everything'. With a room full of "me's", you get the whole picture, I hide nothing from anyone, like it or not.

Ask any of the followers of this thread that have actually met me...I am an interesting person to be around...I joke, I kid, and I love to shoot the breeze with anyone, in fact, humor is the way I deal with many adverse situations...but my sarcastic style of humor comes across wrong without seeing me...it didn't come across as well as I wanted it to in print, so I eased up on the sarcasm here....but they will also say, I'm totally straight forward with what I have to say....I'm not a 'CB-rambo' on this forum...I'll say the same thing face to face, that I say here...If I met you in person, I would probably have you rolling on the floor holding your sides from all the laughter...believe it or not.

And Elusive...it's probably best if you do separate from the "me's" of this industry...oil and water don't mix.

If more of us, and even older drivers...excuse me, I mean more experienced drivers than me, would be as openly blunt, perhaps we wouldn't have as many unhappy drivers in this industry...you know the one's, they came into this job thinking it was a cake job...money falling from the heavens, peaches and cream flowing from the sky. Only to find out this job isn't as easy as they thought, and they are totally miserable, but have few options as far as alternate occupations. (not that this job is as tough as it use to be...I mean comparing today's trucks and trucking in general to what it use to be, it's like comparing a Caddy to a Model-T...but where the trucks have improved, the constant attempt by city's/state's to expand the roads, in futile attempts to keep up with population growth. The ever encroaching regulations. The constant JIT-get it there yesterday- freight demands. The bombardment of special interest groups hell-bent on trucking's demise. This job is by no means a piece of cake)If they would have heard a more openly honest evaluation of what this job requires, many would have taken a different path. If a person needs to hear only the good stuff, or the bad stuff sugar coated, perhaps trucking isn't for them. Don't get me wrong, I love this job, it has been one of the most enjoyable and satisfying occupations I've ever had, but it also has been one of the most trying and frustrating one's as well.

Dryver...I don't take it as a personal attack...like I said earlier, if that's your feelings on the matter....I respect it... and that goes for Elusive's comments as well.

OK, I'll get off my soapbox for a while, my 34hr+ wait to deliver is almost over...so I'd better go...

 

Nice post SS, my comments about you were some what tongue in cheek. So, does this mean I'll sit at the same table over lunch.... probably. But if you go off on one of your rants I'll smack you up side the head with a pizza.

 

nicely said SuperSnackbar, I absolutely agree!

 

have been watching this thread for some time now and have been enjoying every post on it to you SS a great post and from downunder here your welcome at m,y camp fire anytime take care out there and god bless

 

I'll take mine with light sauce and Italian sausage please...but just one piece, not the whole pie...I'm trying to drop a few pounds before my physical in August.

 

Greetings.

Well since my last rant, things have improved somewhat. It took them(the customer) 3+ hours to take 21 pallets of water off my truck in Dunn, NC. Then Op's sent me to Lexington, SC to pick up going to Beech Island, SC for an ASAP delivery. Once I was empty, I was thinking that maybe I'd seen enough of the N/E torture chamber... Wrong... instead of picking up a load out of Beech Island, they had me bobtail all the way to our terminal in Spartanburg to pick up a t-called load going to....drum roll please.....Chester, PA that had to be there by midnite Wednesday. Since it was midnite Tuesday, this was going to be a trick...The load originally came from Beech Island, so I'm guessing that it was a load that someone's truck broke down under...it wouldn't make sense to bobtail someone that far to p/u a load that someone else dropped there to get home. Normally I don't really say much about the where, as long as the miles are there, but with all the N/E runs lately, I would kinda' like to see some other part of the world for a change, so I tried my best to convince Op's that I really...really didn't have it in me to go back there...to no avail. So, I headed to Spartanburg. Now in the 7 years I've been here(or how ever long they've been actually locking they yards)I've never been to that yard after hours, so I didn't have the combo for the lock. It took me over 30 minutes, and several messages about the load not making it's del window anywhere near the scheduled time before someone noticed me and sent me the numbers. I actually thought about parking crossways in the drive until morning...just as a little protest, maybe one day I'll figure out which buttons to push to get Op's to stop ignoring us...I figure that'll happen right after I win the lottery, and as I'm coming out the lottery office with my big check, I'll get pooped on from all the flying pigs.

Part of the deal to get me to take this load was that I was going to be pplaned on a load right back out of there...any guess as to that outcome?
It wasn't until later that evening, before I went back through D/C, I reminded them of this...and actually got my pplan. Pick up after my 10hr break at the same place, headed to Mauldin, SC...(Greenville area) for Friday evening. Now if I can get empty early enough, and get to a t'flow before the cut off, it'll put me close to 2900 for the week, and that was after only having 1158mi as of my empty call at noon on Tuesday. Needless to say, my logbook is a little off balance again...but I managed to get a decent week out of it after all.

ET---where are ya' dude? Either they're keeping you really busy, or you're home doing another major remodel project...I figure if your new horse was in the shop, and you were teaching your trainee how to kill seemingly endless amounts of time in one of the company's approved motels, you'da had time to visit with us.