CRETE - A Year in Review

That is why I am hourly on a mostly local route. Traffic is just more pay and often overtime.......and not in New England!

 

ahhhhh... home time!

 

I am beginning to take this crap personally. Got out of Indianola yesterday. Picked up in Crossett, AR...aka BFE, AR, headed to Clarksville, TN for 11 am today. I inform them that 11 impossible, more like noonish. Load rescheduled for noon. On the way up there, a preplan. Clarksville to Sarasota, FL for Monday.(not real good timing I know, it's only Thursday). I get to my delivery just after noon, get unloaded, Then head for shipper. Turns out, someone messed up the pick up date...this load doesn't pick up until tomorrow. Load voided...now I sit and wait for my next load. I'm running around 80% of the loads I get having problems...

And if I disappear for a bit, I didn't fall off the planet...I broke, make that shattered, the touch screen on my 8th phone in 2 years. Not sure how long it's gona be usable.

*update*
I got a load that picks up Friday morning going to Atlanta for Friday afternoon. A short run, but it ends up giving me a good week after all this. I can say without a doubt, this company and it's customers are some of the most stress producing places I've ever been associated with. I've been getting decent miles, but I feel like I'm swimming upstream. Working hard, and getting nowhere fast.

 

Got caught up in another snafu. Had an 8pm delivery appointment at Birdseye in WI. Been trying to contact them ever since I picked up the load since I'll be there around 2pm. Finally got them on the phone and they said "8pm is much too late. That dept leaves at 4pm". So I race on in only to be told that the delivery is to some associated company next door (even though the bills & Qcomm say Birdseye name, address, and phone). They take my bills and say "it will be a little while". 4 hours later I'm still waiting. Another day unpaid, roasting in a parking lot.

UPDATE: finally got unloaded after 5.5 hours. Next pplan doesn't pick up until noon tomorrow! Called shipper and they said don't arrive early (many other trucks ahead of me). I've been having 13-16 hour days with only 300-500 miles. The only thing positive I can add is I'm waiting at the Beloit Piot where there are tons of restaurants, a Walmart, and a movie theater within walking distance. But the way the parking is setup, I can almost guarantee my truck will be hit before the sun comes up. Have a couple of bottles of that winter additive under my bed that suddenly decided to start leaking. Man that stuff is pungent (probably toxic too).

 

I did make a disturbing discovery on the MCP200's security. Even after you log off, your user ID and full SocialSecurity number are visable. I can see the last driver's full name, user ID, and SS#. I won't go into detail about it here for fear of a less than honest guest trying it and using it for evil...but it wasn't anything too technical to find. Makes one want to invest in credit protection services...(my personal one is called BAD credit Inc.)

 

I've had a rough week also. SHort loads that required running in the middle of the night to accomplish on time, and of course the idiots in lincoln can't understand that if you start work at 0100, and deliver at 0700-0800, they come to work at 0800, and don't they start waking up or planning until 1000......then try to give you a 300-400 mile load that picks up and delivers the same day....you can't do it legally.

Why do they spend all the money on this computer/electronic crap if they don't bother to look at it?

I'm at the meltdown point.

Yesterday, I had 5 hours left on my logs...what do they offer me?
The first load as a total of 640 miles, pickup and delivery, that had to deliver by 1800, that day. That would give me 7.5 hours total to run it in. Impossible even if I had the hours. Hello?

The next was not much better, impossible to run. Only would work if they gave it to a driver who had not logged any hours that day, had plenty of hours, and was just waking up to start work.

The third offer? 98 mile load that cancelled before I could accept it.

Finally the 4th popped up, no miles but could be run legally.

The dispatching is getting worse, and it's not just the night/weekend culprits. It's all of them.

Go ahead, Crete, put some smarmy slogans on the side of the trailers, and hand out more stickers to slap on the side of your empty, parked trucks. That's the solution for a good trucking business.

 

And the worst part, it's only gona get worse the more we are affected by the new rules. Maybe thats why they were pushing for new recruits so hard.

 

I didn't add correctly I'm sitting at 117,813 miles with two weeks to go

 

You'll make it. RDO21 drivers only have to get 119,000 now according to Crete's website. Even on home time now, that's only 1187 miles. If they don't get you that in the remainder of the 2 weeks after you come back, they should have their butt hole enlarged by a size 13d boot.

 

yah, shouldn't be a problem just feel stupid about the adding thing. I was always good at math when I was younger.

BTW, there's a whole new office crew in Wilmer. Bernie( she's really nice) is the only familiar face. Ms. Tea is still there of course.