CRETE - A Year in Review

RiverOtter,

I know we are on very different sides of the debate, but I do wish you the best of luck and hope you can keep the OTR life out of your blood. I've tried a couple of times, but somehow keep getting sucked back in.

Better luck to you!


WEEK NINETEEN
Monday, May 9th through Sunday, May 15th


The week started out pretty good, other than cutting my home time short because there was a trainee sitting in a hotel room and I didn't want to strand him there for too long. Plus I had actually been able to spend a night at the house on the way through with my load gong to California. I also knew that I would probably be loosing a day along the way this week in an attempt to get my B service taken care of. So it was a short weekend home stay.

Prior to dropping the truck at the yard last Friday I was given a preplan out of Phoenix for Monday morning. It's always nice to know when and where I'm going out of the house so that I can plan my time out instead of just heading on down to the yard and hoping they would have something for me when I get there.

Monday's load had me pulling a load of copper out of one of the mines up in the mountains and it went pretty much the way all of them go. Slow. For starters, someone at this particular Asarco mine has recently decided they any truck picking up a load on their facility must now supply their own wheel chocks. Who knows what incident spurred this new policy, but whatever it was, some union hothead has done what most union guys do. Abused his powers and made a rash decision that makes him feel like he's in charge.

The result is that we must now stop at a wrecker service station in the nearest town where Crete has made arrangement for each driver going into the mine to stop by and check out a pair of chocks. After picking up our load, we then drive back to the wrecker service and turn the chocks back in for the next driver to use. This is a fine little arrangement until someone like me gets an 8am live load appointment at the mine, but when I show up to get my wheel chocks at the wrecker shop 15mi from the mine at 6:30am I find myself reading a sign that says they open at 8am. Perfect.

I did make an attempt to call the number on the sign that said "24 hour service", but only got a voice mail. All I could do was park next to the "No Parking" sign on the side of the road with the other two Crete trucks, inform dispatch of the situation and wait, hoping someone would show up to work early on that fine Monday morning. I wasn't going to get my hopes up, but it wasn't much after 7am when someone pulled up and beat the pitbull guard dogs back. A few minutes later I was headed down the road to get my copper.

The loading process moved along at the normal union snail pace and I was eventually backing up to a dock with my shinny new wheel chocks. I couldn't help notice a very large box full of their orange wheel chocks sitting next to the shipper's office as I was checking in. But I eventually pulled out of the mine by 11:30am and pointed the truck in the direction of Amarillo. It was a nice 900+ mile run and I was thinking it would be the start of a good week.

That turned out to be some wishful thinking and the headaches started shortly thereafter. The copper cable was delivered Tuesday morning and the empty call was answered with a load that wasn't scheduled to be ready until midday, the first delay of many this week that would have me sitting around for hours after making my delivery. Generally speaking it is a very good idea with this company to deliver early in order to get a reload that same morning. But this week would throw a number of midday pickups at me after my early morning deliveries. It really beats up on my 14hr clock.

My next load wasn't suppose to go out until the middle of the day, but luck was with me and it was loaded much earlier, but it didn't really make all that much difference because it was a crappy little 340mi run that didn't deliver until 7am the next morning. That was a bit disappointing because I generally get healthy 1000mi runs out of here going to SC or other points east. Not today!

That load was delivered at 7am and very shortly thereafter I was empty and wondering what my next load would be. Apparently a 850mi run up to Milwaukee, but don't get too excited just yet boys and girls because I get to sit around until Noon to pick it up. But I've been to this particular shipper a number of times and know that if I show up 4hrs early they will get me in a door and load me ahead of schedule. So I show up early and get my door. An hour later I'm on my way to Wisconsin, but the goodness doesn't last long.

Not to long after this I get a message from breakdown or someone in the service department informing me that my truck needs to go to a Detroit shop to get some recall work done. I was also in serious need of a B service and made a call to the KC shop to find out what their schedule was like. I was somewhat surprised to find out that they would be able to get me in late in the afternoon or early evening. That sounded pretty good and my plan was to get the B service done that night and get the truck to Detroit early the next morning. According to Crete, it was only a 1.75hr job. Even with a delay the following day I would still have enough time to make my 7am delivery in Wisconsin the following morning.

Well, from reading my earlier post you know how that worked out. That 1.75 hr recall job turned into 4 recall jobs that took 17hrs or so. That left me calling dispatch from the Detroit shop to tcall my current load that still had some 600mi on it. After endless hours of watching "Sons of Anarchy", I let dispatch know I was back on the clock and I was put on a 187mi run that involved repowering a tcalled load out of the KC yard going to Omaha instead.

That was an insanely tight and difficult dock followed by a fun little live unload that drained another couple hours out of my life and after I put in my empty call I knew where I would be picking up a load because I was directly across the street from Kellogg's where we have a large number of preloaded trailers. It was just a matter of "where would I be going with a Kellogg's load"?

The answer to that question was Breinigsville, PA. That makes for a nice 1200mi run. Finally, things are starting to improve a little bit. It was short lived! After putting in my loaded call I had sent off a message to the training department to get a definite date for my trainee's completion of training. I had picked him up from his home after his first 4 weeks or so that he had done with another trainer. I didn't know the exact completion date, but knew it was about 10days out or so. Two hours later I get a message that it was three days, not ten and he was due back in Lincoln by Monday, if possible. Golly, isn't this a fine time to be telling me that?

Well, not with this load it wouldn't be and I started sending off messages to dispatch and about an hour later I get a message to Tcall my current load in Ottawa, IL and repower a load sitting there that delivered back in Lincoln the following Monday and it was currently Friday. Now that really doesn't work for me. Yes, it will get the trainee back to Lincoln, but it will have me sitting around for two days waiting to delivery a load and result in a depressing 2500mi week for me. But that's the cost of being a trainer some times. Of course, as always I was harboring plans of a Tcall upon my arrival in Lincoln.

That's what ended up happening. All in all, I wasn't all that upset about not going to Pennsylvania. I haven't really been up that way for months with the exception of a very few hit and run deliveries before heading back in a westerly direction. Instead I Tcalled my Lincoln load and was put on a run going to the east central Illinois for the following day. Once that load was delivered I got a massive 341mi run back to the St Louis area for a Monday morning delivery. Not the greatest run in the world, but based on my available hours it was about all I could hope for. I was able to park for the night at the customers dock and found myself empty by 6am.

Only to be followed up with a 13:00 pickup that afternoon a mere 12mi down the road. Ugh!

WEEK NINETEEN
Monday, May 9th through Sunday, May 15th
Miles include deadhead


Kelvin, AZ to Amarillo, TX..................................................................923mi
Amarillo, TX to Hoisington, KS...........................................................341mi
McPherson, KS to Kansas City, MO(Tcall)........................................260mi
Kansas City, MO to Omaha, NE(repower)..........................................187mi
Omaha NE to Ottawa, IL(Tcall)..........................................................400mi
Ottawa, IL to Lincoln, NE(repower)...................................................456mi
Bern, KS to Richmond, IN...................................................................755mi
Indianapolis, IN to O'Fallon, MO.........................................................341mi

Total Paid Miles.............................................3663 Miles
Actual Miles...............................3629 Miles

3663mi x .45 = $1648.35 + Short Haul $15 + Training $175 + Detention (previous week) $73.50 = $1911.85 + (possible $100 breakdown pay, but haven't received confirmation on that yet.)