CRETE - A Year in Review

It would seem as though they are making a major effort for me to make it home on time this time. I would prefer to be home a little early, do my honey-do's, help with my in-laws anniversary party, and be back on the road before Thanksgiving. I'm not too picky about being home on the actual 'Thanksgiving' day...we usually celebrate the closest weekend I'm home...plus if I'm running, others can have their time with their family to celebrate. I was actually pre-planned on a load from Lee, FL to Pageland, SC, deliver tomorrow before midnite. Looks as though they are going out of their way to help me. (The FL dispatcher is one of the people I'm referring to when I say ''some of the folks in Lincoln know how to plan'' - he's always treated me good, and planned me right, and he's one of the folks I'd go out of my way to help if he needed it)

 

Hmm.. I guess I live in a good place.. They got me home a day before my hometime last time.. But our planners are completely diffrent I guess.. Well they made up to me I guess.. I got a 1117 mile run from kansas city over to just south of harrisburg that delivers tom from 0001-2200.. But then I guess ill be stuck in the northeast... I hope I can get a hersheys outta hershey there.. From my experiance their usually a high altitude load and head over to ogden,ut... But then again that was with central.. I dunno if shaffer even does the high altitude loads.. Sorry if I'm cuttin in on ya creteins.. I just figured crete and shaffer go hand in hand.

 

I had started keeping a journal for this month with which I was going to start another thread entitled, "Crete - A Typical Month," but this month is turning out to be pretty atypical. I'm actually sitting in Colorado waiting for the chain law to lift over Vail Pass. Just being this far west is almost unheard of in one of my typical months, so I'll just post my book of last week's results here. Sorry for the length, but here goes ...

Saturday morning, I drove my car to the Spartanburg terminal since I had put the truck in the shop to have a recurring problem with the exhaust system fixed while I was at home, registered the car for the lot and put in for a load. The beep came quickly with a 771 mile Kimberly Clark run from Beech Island, SC to the Walgreens in Mt. Vernon, IL. This would have been great if it’d been an any time drop & hook, but it couldn’t deliver ‘til 0600 Monday since the customer is closed on Sunday. I checked with Dispatch to make sure they knew I needed to get the truck to Lincoln for a trade-in and that I was in Spartanburg which is not my normal launch point. Of course they knew and there was no way to escape this straight-out-the-house-with-fresh-hours, overscheduled p.o.s. because it was “the only thing we have going that way.”

So, I decided to try to make lemonade out of lemons and plan for the best by making the pickup and driving just enough of the loaded miles to put the consignee within fairly easy reach. My reasoning for doing this was that I’d rather have a short day on Sunday than Monday if I got lucky with some productive loads later, but couldn‘t get a restart. Besides, I needed to get to Lincoln to get rid of that flea bitten tractor and there are typically a lot of loads going to NE from IL and I had no reason to believe I couldn‘t get one.

I shut down that afternoon in Thomson, GA and ran the additional 600 miles to the consignee the next day. It’s not optimal, but it beats running it even and only getting 6.5 to 7 hours back for two days in a row the next week if things manage to get hot. There are three truck stops within two miles of the consignee, so there wasn’t going to be a problem with having my clock already started Monday morning after the unload. I always try to get within seven miles of the customer or park there overnight for this reason. It was especially important this time because of the inevitable detention/extended load count that comes at Walgreens … even if it’s all the same item. This time, that one item was toilet paper I wish I’d kept to wipe the next three off my shoe and, yes, the unload took over two hours.

Next was a 441 mile run from the Graphic Packaging in Centralia, IL to the GMLS in Kentwood, MI that was scheduled for pickup at 1300 and delivery at 1200 the next day. I received it around 0845. At least I didn’t already have my clock started … Upping my blood pressure more was a note from Dispatch that they were going to adjust my given PTA from 1200 to 1400. “NO,” I said explaining that Michigan was on Eastern time and asked for an earlier pickup and delivery to begin with. The reply was “1200 is the time given. Sure can try” with nothing more about the PTA. I headed over to the Pilot to Transflo my trip report, got something to eat, said to heck with it and went over to the shipper who seemed glad to see me. I got there around 1000 and they had me loaded by 1100.

It would have been easy to deliver that evening, so I decided to do what Crete doesn’t want us rude, unwashed truck drivers with no business etiquette doing and called the consignee to see if they had overnight parking with the subtle suggestion that I could have it there that evening. The pleasant lady in receiving said they couldn’t take it that night and didn’t have overnight parking, but VOLUNTEERED to reschedule delivery for 0800 EST. Yesssssss! I got moving and sent Dispatch a note updating my PTA to which their response was, “Are you trying to get home?” Huh? I just came out of the house! I told them as much and reminded them that I needed to get to Lincoln. I never received a comment on the new PTA. It apparently got overlooked or ignored.

I got up Tuesday morning at the closest truck stop in Byron Center and had to start my clock because it was about fifteen miles out. While happy to be getting the load off and hopefully on to better things, I was a little chagrined to notice trucks parked on the street with curtains drawn. I’ll have to remember that if I ever go there again. It ended up being a quick and easy drop & hook. Did it matter? Did this hustle do anything to alleviate my recent mileage deficit and get me moving for real? What was my reward for this resourcefulness?

A 200 MILE RUN from Wyoming, MI to Minooka, IL that was scheduled for a 2100 delivery at the Kellogg‘s that will not let you drop more than an hour early!

ME: Is that all you have? I need to get to Lincoln and that would be the third time in a row I’ve been put on substandard miles or overscheduled loads.

DISPATCH: Yes. And definitely all I have going in that direction.

I rightfully could have refused it since the delivery time would put me past my 14, but I’d danced that dance several times before trying to get out of these overscheduled Minooka loads. They know there are two truck stops off that exit less than two miles from the customer and that you can park on Internationale Street just around the corner when they‘re filled up. They would have just told me to pick it up and deliver the next morning or, in the alternative, stuck me on something worse - most likely a load going to the same place that couldn‘t deliver ‘til the next afternoon or some such. Been there, done that. So, I went ahead and accepted figuring I could at least try to get Customer Service to reschedule for an earlier delivery time. I sent in my loaded call 1.75 hours after arrival at the shipper followed by a request for a new time and hightailed it on over to Minooka stopping only once for a pit stop. I never received a response on the delivery time.

Just for “its” and giggles, I took it on in to the customer hoping to get lucky and drop early, but no. Brick wall. They told me to come back at 2000. Then, figuring I might as well go ahead and get fueled up hoping for a better tomorrow in which I would not need to spend time fueling at one of the way-off -the-road, hard-to-get-to Pilots to which they always send us, I called the terminal to see if they could get me a fuel stop at the local Pilot since I was clearly going to be sitting around awhile. Nope. The system wouldn’t allow for it although it can‘t seem to resist fueling me at that nightmare of a time-waster when I‘m just passing through. So, it was go to the Pilot, watch the daily circus of rookie backing and truck dances accompanied by angry air horns and sit, sit, sit. At this point, I sent a reminder to Dispatch that I had never received a response to my request for an earlier appointment. I got an apology, but the best they could do for time on this drop & hook was 1900. Of course, this was around 4.5 hours after I made the request … I dropped at 1900 to find no empty trailers.

My first load offer was apparently something that had been t-called at the Romeoville, IL drop lot that needed to be in Columbus, OH by 0800 the next morning which would have amounted to about 396 total miles. I obviously couldn’t do that due to hours of service and, again, reminded Dispatch that I needed to get to Lincoln. Then came one straight out of the Minooka Kellogg’s going to Boone, IA. This was a 333 mile run that was scheduled to pick up 11/10 at 0900 and deliver on 11/11 at 1000. I took it without complaint hoping to get it off early and then quickly get something I could t-call in Lincoln and trade in the tractor.

I got up around 0530 on 11/10, bobtailed over to the Pilot for a shower and called the shipper to see if the load was ready around 0630. Nope. I went over to the shipper at 0800. Nope. They just told me to park it in front of the trailer and hook up when they announced it was ready on the CB. I sat around there waiting and chewing the fat with a Canadian driver who seemed a bit shocked at how little protection we Americans get under our labor laws. 0900 came and went. Still nope. It was ready at 0945. Typically, I sent in my loaded call and …

ME: Can we try to get an earlier delivery time? Can easily have it there by 1630.

DISPATCH: They don’t rec past 1300. Best time they had available.

Indeed … So, doomed to another substandard day, I skulked on over to Boone, parked at the Wal Mart near the customer and settled in for the big sit. Then, just for more “its” and giggles, I sent a message to Dispatch requesting a preplan to the Lincoln area that I could drop the next day or something I could t-call at the terminal to stop the bleeding and get me in my new tractor by Friday. Of course, I received no response.
Thursday morning, I moseyed on over to the customer a couple of hours early hoping to get lucky and get worked in. It was a Fareway grocery warehouse, so I was thinking no such luck, but they got me in at about 0930 and, unbelievably, had me done by 1000!

The load offer came quickly and was a 1236 mile run from Knoxville, IA to Socorro, TX that could pick up as early as 1400 and deliver between 0800 and 1200 on Sunday. This obviously wasn’t getting me to Lincoln for the new truck I was expecting, so I messaged Dispatch suggesting that I pick it up and run it there first since it would still be relatively easy to deliver on time as long as I got moving again within a reasonable timeframe on Friday. They okay’d it and even added on the extra miles in the load assignment without me having to ask.

I got moving towards Knoxville and got a message from my terminal manager about halfway there saying that they were NOT going to be able to give me a NEW truck. It was going to have to be a trade-in for one with a previous driver. Greeeeaaaaat ... Having heard horror stories from just about every other driver I’d talked to who, like me, had one of the first batch of ProStars, I knew this could potentially be stepping out of the frying pan and into the fire. A lot of them have been having problems with heating and A/C system failures and other assorted mechanical problems that would leave you sitting on the side of the road as opposed to my problem with the exhaust regen system that was mainly a p.i.t.a., so I politely declined. We agreed we’d look into it again if/when the problem resurfaced. After all that crawling around trying to get there …

My consolation in all this was that I was on a 1236 mile run with enough time on it to potentially emerge Sunday with a fresh 70 in Socorro/El Paso if I hustled. I wasn’t too sure about the Sunday factor, but I saw this as enviable since I’d gotten something coming a long way out the few times I’d been there. All I had to do was get within reach of Socorro that night and run ‘er in Friday to take a restart. It was a 3M load which I had always known to be drop & hooks, so this should be a milk run with any luck. Right? As my countrified secretary in my old career would have put it, “Cain’t nothin’ be easy …”

It was a live load … This was okay as long as it didn’t take too long since it would give me time to figure out exactly where I could get that night with a couple of drop-off points if I ran into any big backups. They got me loaded pretty quickly, but guess what? I got the green light and went into the shipping office to find that the entire 3M computer network had crashed! The clerk, who strangely reminded me of my old secretary on a bad day, finally decided to start pecking out the bills on an old timey typewriter. Fortunately, she did mine first and I got moving with just enough time to make it to the truck stop in Mullinville, KS where I’d been a couple of times before and knew I could get parking late. Then I immediately got stuck behind a school bus making frequent stops on US 19 heading out … Then I got to be amazed at the number of 4-wheelers who’ll slow you down in a 61.5 mph truck in a 70 mph zone on I-35 … Then I hit fog that gave way to rain on US 54 and ended up pulling into Mullinville in the damnedest November thunderstorm I’d ever experienced JUST BARELY inside my 14 hour window.

Friday started late, but went off without a hitch and I pulled into the Socorro Flying J at 2330 for a restart at the end of a 2981 seven day period.

 

A note of thanks to ET, SS, and Upsizer for taking the time to detail their weeks. It gives me, as an outsider, some good perspective in dealing with many of the common issues where I drive.

I have to say, however, that my weeks are a lot less chaotic than what you all have described. I try to avoid driving all night (which I think all of us hate), my appointments are usually solid with only the typical times for live load or unload, I rarely have trouble finding an MT on-site, I can fuel whenever I please, and am generally kept moving by dispatch (who generally responds to every qualcom message that requires it).

My 2007 tractor runs great and I run it hard and wide open (although I do take good care of it. Its name is "Baby", for "C'mon, Baby!" as I'm cresting the hill not wanting to downshift again). I managed to turn 3100 last week seemingly with about half the grief, aggravation, and hassel (and entertainment) that you all have described. By comparison, I'm probably doing better than I thought.

My biggest consistent gripe is the running reefers that flock to my truckstop parking spot like moths to light after I carefully choose a quiet location to settle in for the night. Or the Freightshaker that just now decided he has to start up and regen beside me right at bedtime, etc., etc. Where are the etiquette police when you need them?

 

I may wait around and give the elogs a try. Then again, maybe not.

 

I’m still sitting west of Vail Pass waiting for the chain law to lift and watching my chances at making pay raise become more and more remote. I draw the line on chaining up and taking a light load over that kind of grade. I was trained to consider those things to be a decoration anyway, so I figured I’d put up my 2010 numbers to pass the time:

January - 8,656
February - 9,868
March - 9,674 (vacation)
April - 10,306
May - 10,779
June - 10,408
July - 10,398
August - 9,127 (Truck in shop 3 days not including services)
September -10,210
October - 8,608 (Truck in shop 3 days not including services)

98,034 dispatched miles for 2010 as of the end of October.

Now, you’ve seen ET’s gaudy numbers; but, as he has said, he usually gets a big run straight out the house and another one going home since he lives in Phoenix. I also hope my previous post shows that I don’t differ significantly in the way I think, plan and run to make the best out of what I’m offered. As far as I can tell, there are two other big differences that can be quantified:

1. He typically stays out longer than I do. For me, three weeks in a truck is about all I can take given the fairly constant amount of frustration I suffer trying to keep my miles up vs. the single-offer “Optimized Loading“ system we now face. Those short, overscheduled runs I was getting in my previous post are a constant of late and usually take place along the east coast. Sometimes I can beat them through being resourceful, but it only works out about a quarter of the time. More often than not, I end up maxing out my 14 hour clock for less than 400 miles in trying. That combined with the isolation inherent to this lifestyle makes for a pretty irritable me by the time week three rolls around and I need to decompress. Quality of life has to factor into all this at some point as well.

2. He is blessed with a dependable tractor. I‘m not. I have lost seven days on the road since I got it in June including the day I lost the first week of November on a load that was actually dispatched at the end of October. That’s just luck of the draw.

The reason I post this is as a warning to those who might be thinking of coming over to Crete with visions of ET’s numbers dancing in your heads. If you live in the west, who knows? Semi-regular 12,000 mile months might be a possibility. However, if you live in the Eastern Time Zone, you’re probably going to be in for a rude awakening and end up feeling like Longbow who has apparently left the building ...

Now, some may ask why I’m posting this here instead of on the “Bad Companies” forum. It’s because Crete is NOT a bad company. I’m not really satisfied, but I also spent six months driving flatbed for McElroy Truck Lines where I was lucky to get 2000 miles per week and a few days for another company that will go unnamed where I was expected to run outlaw on a daily/nightly basis for not much more money than I make now keeping things 100% legal. I also know of no other dry van companies where a fourth year driver can make 42 cents per mile. Beyond that, I spent fifteen years in another profession where I made less money and had about ten times the stress …

So, come on over if you‘re looking for a change. It’s not that bad if you‘re somewhere that completely sucks. At least Crete pays more than most of the other big dry box companies. Just don’t expect TOO much and take lightly any insinuation on this thread that you‘re being lazy or “doing something wrong“ in the months you end up with substandard miles and end up fighting just to make the pay increase as your anniversary date approaches.

Hope this helps!

 

I'm delivering to Buckeye Az...any good places to eat there?

 

should be a mcdonalds nearby

 

I'm sure lol. Igot the msg that there isn't any more freight today. I fine with that, I bobtailed to the walmart on exit 117. Rotissere chicken and potato salad....yeah

 

You're not to far from ET's house...drop by...just remember to replace the beer's in the fridge before you leave.

By some miracle...they got me a 2615 mile week, and home a day early...I guess the old saying is true...a blind squirrel will find a nut once in a while