CRETE - A Year in Review

I thought working the oil fields is where all the money was?

 

We use to be able to work 100-120 hours a week, not any more, DOT is cracking down and if I have to deal with that then I will go back to doing what I enjoy. Sick of the dust and wind anyway, it was an expierence I will never forget though, I will miss it in a weird way.

 

I had thought about doing the exact opposite... Tell Crete where to shove their pos International, their micro managing attitude, and their incompetence where they had room for it and go oil welling in the great white north.

 

I drove by Lincoln last week, sure were a lot of empty trucks parked on the East side of the lot.....

 

That is because they are trading the '09 Internationals as fast as they can. By what I heard from Lenoir City's shop 400k miles is the max. They have orders from the new Maintainance boss in Lincoln, on weekends, no normal service and repairs are to be done, only emergency work... The rest of their time is to be spent preping new, then inspecting and decomissioning old. They said that terminal alone must have 400 done by the end of May. Shows you where Crete's priority's are...forget customers...we have trade trucks... In fact that terminal was no longer trading in Shaffer trailers, they are selling them directly to the public. It has almost started feeling more and more like Prime here. I guess the remodel in Wilmer is building an 'in house' medical clinic. So now it's not just sleep study, but a place to get a physical once you have been forced to buy a CPAP.... Prime (who is closely associated with the owners of Sleep Pointe sleep study clinics) has had all their stuff in house for ever...now we are doing it.... Real SCARY trend!!!

 

Well, it turns out that International had to replace the entire oil pan on my truck. The rocket scientists who designed this engine have built the engine so when you use your jake...it closes the breather tube on the passenger side of the engine and pressurizes the block (you'll see a 2nd little hose hooked to the big hose by the oil pan). This somehow is used to govern the amount of boost when the jake spools the turbo(s). The problem, they didn't design the oil seals to withstand that much internal pressure. In fact, if you don't latch your oil cap and dipstick tight...it'll blow them out and shoot oil out of them. I sat from Saturday morning thru Monday afternoon. Then Tuesday, I get beeped about my excessive idle time... Since they wouldn't put me in a motel, I had 2 days driving, and 2 days sitting. With the cooler running and my tv on(limited time since I spent a lot of time inside running my yap and trying to warn new hires of the joy they are about to endure) my idle time was 26%...they're lucky it wasn't 50%.

These new cornbinders can be loaded heavy...after I was done in the shop, I got a t'called Bud-dummer load off the yard going to 2 stops in Michigan. 46200 lbs of beer with 3/4+ tanks of fuel I was 79860.

 

Does Crete own Sleep Pointe?

 

I got a "happiness is in this truck's ignition" trailer or whatever it says. I guess Happiness is dropping in Findlay, OH and picking up 25 hours later in Fostoria for a 327 mile run.
These Cummins are no better, every 15,000 miles I need an oil filter, really the truck needs an oil change. I'm overdue a B service and the 16,000 on my oil filter has it running low on oil pressure. So I'll deiver in DeKalb tommorow afternoon and head to Ottawa for a B and a couple other problem like the air conditioner and the reed valves in the air compressor are thirsty for some transmission fluid.


And SSB, you might try Farm Bureau for health insurance. They used to have a real good, real cheap insurance plan. But it was only good for 1 year. It's for people that got laid off or was switching jobs.
If any of you or in Ottwawa I'll buy you a beer. After sitting for 24+ hours for this POS I might take the weekend off there.

 

No they just have several terminals w/sleep pointe test centers. Based on some low level digging, the owner/founder of Sleep Pointe is business associate of the owner(and most of the senior management) of New Prime(a.k.a. Prime, Inc.)... This info was provided by the Dunn & Bradstreet Corp. How involved Prime is in Sleep Pointe's corporation I am not sure, but sounds fishy to me when our competition's business associate is directly involved w/any other business that may have a direct affect on the operation of the competition. This would be like NASCAR being business associates w/the referee's union in the NFL.
Or maybe it's my paranoia springing up again.

 

Thanks for the info...I think my home is insured thru them, will check into it.

Unfortunately I am headed the opposite direction. Delivered my 1st stop Wednesday (set appt on a Bud load) at 8 am, 2nd stop was done just before noon. Next load p/u 120 miles away at 1900 w/instructions to not arrive early. So I had just enough time to get load and get shut down before the e-nag started nagging. The load delivers any time in Lancaster, PA. I will have 2100 miles for the week +2 extra stops(even with the carry over of the 2 stop screwed up load from last week, this week sucked). Not sure how long it'll take them to pay me for the 2 days sitting in Lenoir City waiting for Interational to fix my POS. But last week was a 382 mile week, and 2100 this week, that is 2482 miles in 14 days(with 4 of those days at home). This weeks paycheck was $16... Does Crete have a 'will work for food' sign in their company store catalog? I may need one soon at this rate.