CRETE - A Year in Review

Yup. Dead-on analysis.

I got home about 1030. Head back out around 0800 Wednesday. Merry Christmas everyone!

 

was anybody else stuck at social circle this past weekend waiting on a load. I deliverd there friday evening around 1700. sent empty call. got ppl around 1.5 hrs later. pick up sat. 1900 to 2200. going to pageland sc walmart dc. this is my home load. get back to social circle sat. 1800 load not ready. so i go up the street to that little store on corner to wait. with the other 7 crete bobtails already there.

call them at 2100 trailer just went in door to get load. told to call back in a couple of hours. Let dispatch know of delay in loading. told them i would pick up in the morning on sunday. they said to keep them posted. so i go back at 0530 surly load would be ready. wrong. load still not ready.

told to go ahead and back up to trailer and wait for green light. finly got green at 0700. atleast i got home on sunday around 1700 after del. Got to deadhead home from pageland to greenville sc for home time at christmas. wife was very happy. but i could have been home 12 hrs erlier if load had been ready on time.

 

Story of our lives. Your in Greenville, I see. We currently live in Clinton, but will be moving to Columbia in the next 90 days.

 

I didn't like having to leave at the time, but after reading about everything these guys are going through...I'm glad to be gone before all this crap started. Reading about ya'll sitting here and there for hours or days just makes me cringe...because I've been there and can still feel the pain. I really liked Crete when I was there(mid 2008 ) so I guess it took a nose dive since then. My current company is great and the APU and 67mph truck are just the tip of the iceberg. Still...respect to all you guys.

 

If they would just learn to actually PRE-plan you, like before you're actually ready, this place would improve exponentially. Miles are still decent, equipment fine. Shortsightedness is rampant, however, and it costs drivers and the company money in the form of lost productivity.

 

I am leaving Crete for a much different reason. 3 yrs OTR is enough, but also have medical issue requiring bi-weekly treatments. Crete has been very fair bout everything. For those thinking that this company is unusual, I believe they are no worse than anyone else, but far better than most. Despite their size and relative inability to understand the human element...aka drivers, they do try to maximize the miles. It keeps the company, and thus the drivers, profitable. I wish all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, no matter where or for whom you drive. It is a living, but also critical to our economic engine. We need to kick start the engine and get this country percolating again!

 

I musta mis-added somewhere. I entered all my current loads in my spreadsheet. Even with this load which delivers on the 26th, I will be 1700 miles short of 120k. I need to go back through and make sure I've entered everything correctly.

I was in Social Circle Friday morning picking up, but my load was suppose to be ready Thursday(according to the q/comm) so it was ready. I have had good luck out of there for a half dozen loads or so. Ready and loaded right the 1st time.

 

Hope everyone had a decent Christmas...I did even though I wasn't able to get home (will be home this weekend).

We've all been put through an extra spin cycle what with it being am election year and all, and this one was rougher than most. One way or another things will stabilize soon, and even if they don't necessarily get better at least we can get our bearings and adapt to conditions, like we always do.

Good luck to each of us in the coming new year...I'm going to keep on plugging and I hope all of you do the same.

We are downtrodden, regulated and taxed into oblivion, disparaged by the general public, ignored or treated as an afterthought by our employers, treated as an interruption by our customers, and in some cases we are our own worst enemy as some of us do or best to live up to every negative stereotype held by the masses. We are also necessary for the survival of this nation in the style and at the level to which it's citizens have become accustomed. The small child who never thinks about how that can of Spaghettios got to the shelf depends on me to do my job, as does the ER nurse who grabs a roll of gauze. I carry on!

 

I stayed out over Christmas hoping to catch up on miles but a few glitches kind of spoiled it - and I can't really blame it on dispatch, lol. I had a load that could deliver at the earliest 12/26 0001 when they opened after Christmas. I didn't want to unnecessarily blow my 14 unless they had other loads ready. I explained my situation and shot a qcom message. No response. Another message. No response ... etc. After the 5th message, they finally got back to me, but with a vague answer about loads.

Finally after several more messages they sent me a pplan so I could see. I was very happy, so made the early delivery and headed over to the next shipper. That's when I found out they were closed until later that morning (6 to 7 hrs later) thereby throwing my 14 out the window.

i went nuts and finally dispatch gave me another load: Indy to New Hampshire. After I got going, that's when I realized the load is exactly tracking that giant blizzard, lol. So I've been in wretched conditions all day ( and looks like for two more). This is one time when I really wish I was back on paper logs. It's been super slow going and hard to get the usual miles in. Plus the e-log hrs ran out 18 miles from a decent truck stop so I had to stop at a small rest area where now I'm literally buried in snow. I notice the grill is iced over solid so I'll have to clear that too.


Do you guys have any tricks to use on the wipers? Mine would get iced up and become useless in just a few minutes. At my fuel stop I switched them out with some RainX wipers (super expensive) but even they get clogged with ice. Dreaming of summer already.

 

You're in a Prostar right? The wipers suck in winter. I've tried lots of heat, no heat, visor up, visor down...makes no difference. The aerodynamics cause it. I wish I could afford a set of those 12v heated wipers. I just got good at timing reaching out of the window and grabbing the wiper and lifting it away from the windshield and after a couple whacks...the ice was off the wiper, but the windshield took some work and parking.