CRETE - A Year in Review

WEEK THIRTY FIVE​

Monday, August 25th through Sunday, August 31st ​

Another Monday has rolled around with the hopes of a better week. Not that last week was all that bad, but it didn't exactly end the way I had hoped. I was currently under a less than desirable load that didn't deliver until 3pm. I had already wasted a couple of days on it and was anxious to get rid of it. I had strict instructions not to deliver this load before its' appointment time and I had also been informed that this load could not be Tcalled. I was none to please with either directive, but there are times when nothing can be done to improve the situation. This was one of those. When I was in the yard yesterday I did a quick check of the trailers that had been Tcalled and was a bit surprised to find another load there that contained the same product going to the same place with a delivery time that was a four of hours ahead of mine. Apparently they were willing to Tcall these loads and I saw a little glimmer of hope. With that I had sent in a message requesting a Tcall so that I could keep moving, but I was told that no other loads were available. Next I asked if I could at least pull out the other load with the same payload going to the same customer since it had an earlier delivery time. That suggestion was also shot down with a "that load has already been assigned to another driver", so I was stuck with what I had. Given no other option I resigned myself to delivering this load and putting it behind me. Even though I had instructions not to deliver this before its assigned date and time I figured I could get away with showing up 2 hours early without ruffling any feathers and went over to the yard to get my trailer.

Once there I spotted my trailer (number 2180**), right were I had left it, and hooked up and prepared to head on down the road. I was going to pull the lock off of it before heading out so that I wouldn't have to deal with it when I got to the customer, but the end of the trailer was backed up into a bunch of tree limbs that made it impossible to get to without pulling the trailer up and I decided to put it off until I got to where I was going. I also did a hap hazard pretrip, you know, kick the tires and make sure nothing is hanging from it. This would prove to be my undoing a little latter in the day.

Anyway, down the road I go with my very light trailer. This was a load of plastic catsup bottles going to a Conagra plant and weighed a whole 5000#. At least that's what the BOL said; I wouldn't be surprised if it was less than that. Sure made the hills easy to get up, it's not very often that I can pass almost every truck on the road going up hills. Does anyone see where this is going yet?

With my late delivery appointment I hadn't exactly been in a hurry getting out of town and by the time I made it to Conagra I was about an hour and fifteen minutes early instead of my planned two hours which was no big deal. I didn't really want to push my luck that much anyway. I pulled into the gate and headed over to the guard shack to check in and got my instructions which amounted to "pull over on the side and we'll let you know when we are ready for you. Back to the truck I go. As I approached my truck from the back side I pulled out my keys with the intention of taking my lock off on my way back to the cab. I was still a fair distance away as I started to set my sights on the lock. But even from this distance the confusion began to set in. There is no lock, "What, where, who took my lock off", were some of the first thoughts. Next I started to get mad, someone from the shop must have pulled my lock off thinking I had tried to save an empty trailer (has been know to happen in Crete yards). My mind was racing and then I looked at the trailer number. Oh my God! It's the wrong trailer. I had dropped trailer #218064 last night. Now here I am, 60 miles away looking at trailer #218053. "This can't be happening!" Oh, sure it can.

I have been driving for over 10 years and have never pulled a bonehead move like this. Well I guess there was that time I left my Enforcer lock on and had to rent a car and drive 175 miles back to get it, but I'll go ahead and rank that one at #2 now. I was so annoyed at myself. As soon as I had realize what I had done I did a flip and let the guards know what had happened and tried not to look like a total tool (with little luck) and let them know that my load would be a little late. If I had arrived 2hrs early I would have been a little better off, but as it stood, I told them I was headed back to get the correct trailer and would be back about 1½ hrs past my original appointment.


Now it was time to fess up to dispatch. I wasn't looking forward to this little chat. I put the call in and let them know what had transpired over the recent past. I let them know that my loaded trailer was still sitting in the Knoxville yard and if they had someone nearby who could pick it up the load could still be delivered on time. If not I would be able to do it with a minimal delay. I was surprised how understanding they were and was told to get it there as soon as I could and that was the last I heard of it. I was some what expecting to be back charged for the additional miles, but they told not to worry about it.

Back to Knoxville I went. I was still confused as to how this trailer ended up in the spot where I had dropped my trailer, but upon arriving at the yard I found that my trailer had been move to the other side of the yard sometime during the night and by some amazing coincidence, an empty trailer with almost identical numbers had been dropped in its place. I clearly remember looking at the trailer number as I pulled into the yard earlier that morning and saw the 2180 before my mind wonder off to other things. Also, if my load hadn't had such a light load I would have noticed it immediately, but as it where all the ducks feel in a row and the result was a very embarrassing conclusion. All in all, just plain stupid on my part, at least I wasn't hundreds of miles away when I made the discovery.

Back to Conagra I went, this time with a loaded trailer. I arrived 1 1/2hrs late as promised and waited for a door. There was one truck being unloaded in front of me, but he was almost empty and the fork lift driver was working at a good clip. As I sat there I got a message from dispatch, "have they started unloading you yet, when will you be ready for your next load?" This means that there is a load nearby that needed to get going. Very encouraging given the events of the day. It was starting to get late and I was worried that I would be stuck here until morning before getting a load out. I let them know that I would be ready to go within the hour, but that apparently wasn't soon enough and I never heard anything else from them.

I was unloaded within the hour (after the fork lift driver made it a point to ask me if I was the driver that brought the empty trailer) and sent in my MT call hoping I would get a load out of here. We have a number of preloaded trailer going out of this plant and it would be nice to get a quick drop and hook so I could get out of this mess and put the last few days behind me. Whatever hot load dispatch had going must have been given to another driver because I was sent a load offer that picked up 120mi from here anytime today or tomorrow morning(no urgency in that) and it was headed to the freight waist land of PA (768mi) with a 9am appointment delivery Wednesday morning. Not a bad run considering this day was already shot due to my incompetence. I could run over and pick it up tonight and put in a good run tomorrow and have it at the customer Wednesday morning and be ready to go with most of my 11hrs of drive time available.

Back through Knoxville I went for my forth time today and on to Calhoun to get my load. As a final insult for the day the skies opened up and I did my drop/hook in a nice little downpour in a horribly lit yard. My trailer wasn't where it was suppose to be and it took me a good 30mins to track it down (but I got the right trailer, #### it anyway). It was in an overflow lot that the shipping office failed to tell me about. Not a pleasant experience, but I finally manage to get everything in order and drove a short distance up the road and shut down. I actually had a number of hours left on my log, but I was a whipped pup for the day. Enough is enough; I couldn't stand the thought of driving through Knoxville for the fifth time in one day. Good night!

Tuesday was a fresh new day and I started it with a new attitude. As the Jamaicans like to put it, "Evrytings Irie" I had a solid 600+ mile day ahead of me and set out to put it behind me. I decided to hold up short at our New Kingstown terminal and dropped my trailer in the yard and headed over to the local Outback for a nice steak dinner. Little did I know that would be my last decent meal for some time to come.

Wednesday started out innocently enough. I had a short hop to get my load to its final destination and was there within an hour. I had arrived a little better than an hour early, ever hopeful of getting my day under way. The forklift driver was quick to point out that I was early and he was expecting an 8am truck, but if that truck was late he would unload me when he finished with the truck in the dock. That was fine with me. The other truck never did show up and I was allowed to take his appointment time and I found myself unloaded shortly there after. The MT call went in and I waited, and waited and waited. I'm really starting to dislike PA. I had been sitting at the dock door and realized I needed to get out of the way. There were no truck stops in the area and I pulled out into the street and parked next to a "no parking" sign and hoped for a load offer soon. About 30 minutes had passed when I noticed another Crete truck parked in what looked like an employee parking lot off in the distance on the other side of building and decided to join him. What he told me sent shivers down my spine.

According to him, he had delivered his load at 9pm the previous night and he was still waiting for a load offer. Ouch, this isn't going to be a good day. He then informed me that he was waiting on a load to get him home. That eased my worries a little. If he was waiting for a load going in a specific direction, maybe the situation wasn't quit as bad as I had first though. Wishful thinking on my part. Time was passing slowly as it usually does when one doesn't know his fate and it was approaching noon. I felt a little twinge of hunger and it occurred to me that the other driver might be getting a little hungry too, after all, he had been here since last night. He was also a very large man who I assumed was used to eating on somewhat of a regular schedule. Well, here I sat with my newly acquired microwave and a fully stocked pantry. I hollered out the window to get his attention and asked if he was hungry, stupid question, more of a formality really.

Not that it was a gourmet meal, but I cooked up a few hot dogs for him and threw on some cheese, chili and chopped onions. A large handful of chips and some pickles on the side and lunch was served. He appeared to be very grateful in any event.

It was another hour before I heard from dispatch and it wasn't what I was hoping for. Apparently Crete was looking at a severe shortage of freight over the holiday weekend. Something in the neighborhood of 200+ loads short over the next four days. As an alternative to sitting around waiting for something, I was offered the fine opportunity of spending the rest of the week running dedicated loads for the Wal-Mart out of the Pottsville DC. I've been stuck with this kind of thing when we had the Sterling account and I didn't care for one bit. The actual work wasn't a big deal, but the hours and miles were horrible. There was one difference this time around however. Crete was now guaranteeing $175/day, regardless of the miles run and if I ran more miles in any 24hr period to garnish better pay, I would get the extra money. It sounded better than sitting idle so I said sure.

I received the load info and directions and was told to arrive at the Wal-Mart as close to 6pm as possible and be ready for dispatch when I arrived. Oh, that's just great. I'm going to be wide awake all day and then be expected to run all night long. I was also forced to sit where I was at so that I could fit in a 10 break before heading out so that I would have as much of my 14hrs available as possible. One last note, "pick up a long shank paddle lock before you get to Wal-Mart, you will not be allowed out of their yard without one."

Definitely not the kind of thing I had in mind to finish out the week, but at least I would be relatively busy. I got what sleep I could during the day, nothing more than a short nap, and pulled out when my ten hours were up. My first dilemma was in choosing a route to get me there. The interstate would be the easiest, but it was about 60 miles out of route. The more direct route was through the back roads of PA. In the interest of keeping my out of route miles in line I went with the back roads and regretted every mile of it. This was a great route if you were on a sight seeing tour, but not all that pleasurable from the seat of a big truck. Things really got interesting when I came across the small town of Cressona, I believe it was. As I approached the fine little community I was greeted by a very large warning sign that informed me of a low clearance bridge 2 miles ahead at the trailer shaving height of 11' 6". Panic set in shortly thereafter, very shortly, and I started looking for an out. The whole thing made no sense to me, the map showed this as a truck route, but this wouldn't be the first time I was mislead by go ol' Rand McNally. There was absolutely no place to turn around so onward I went. The next sign gave me some hope however, because after the low clearance warning was a "follow detour" sign. That's a relief!

Sure enough, just before getting to the bridge there was a truck detour. I've been on narrow roads before, but this was by far the narrowest track of asphalt that I've ever had to navigate as far as a "main" thorough fare goes. There were a number of places where I had to pull over so that oncoming cars could squeeze by and this was also were I meet a truck for the first time in 30 minuets. Wow was that a squeaker. I saw him coming and pulled over as far as I could when he was still a couple of blocks away and even with that effort there was little more than a couple of inches between our mirror. It was about that time I heard the QualComm beep. Dispatch wanted to know if I was lost. Arg! It ended up being a 65mi trip and I made it there in 2hrs flat.

Upon arriving at the Wal-Mart I made a bee line for the short line (Wal-Mart trucks only) because that's the lane I always used when doing the dedicated thing at the other DC and was immediately approached by the guards and told I was not allowed to use this lane, it was for dedicated trucks only. My attempt to explain that I was in fact here to be just that didn't seem to have much of an effect on his temper and he repeated his demands. At that time a real Wal-Mart truck pulled behind me. Now we had a problem, I couldn't back up and the silly guard was still refusing to let me in. After a short stand off he relented and punched my truck and trailer number into his wand of power (taking all of 10 seconds) and I was on my way. I just love Wal-Mart.

Once in the gate, I dropped my trailer and headed into the traffic office to start my little stint as a Wal-Mart dude. Dispatch had made it sound imperative that I be there by 6pm and ready to roll, but upon checking in I was told to have a seat, "orientation would start in 2hrs". Of course it will, why would I have expected anything different? There were 4 other Crete drivers there and some one of them had been there since 4pm and were waiting for the same orientation class. So much for the hurry up and get there.

The orientation was as exciting as you might imagine and an hour latter we were ready for our first dispatch. With that we were sent to our trucks and told to turn our CBs to channel 7 and wait for our truck to be called. OK, it's 1:30am and I'm finally hooked to my first load of the night. The only thing keeping me from loosing my mind at this point is that I'm basically on the clock. $175 a day, guaranteed. (Much better than what the CR England guys were getting. There were close to 20 of them as best I could tell and they were all there for one week stints and were only being guaranteed $850) So I figure they can have me sitting around all they want. It's all the same to me. My first load had me going to a Yellow Freight yard to pickup a loaded trailer and bring it back to the DC. This load was sitting less than 2 miles from where I had delivered my load this morning and sure enough, they had me routed over the exact same Hwy 61 that I had traversed to get here. Guess what route I took this time around, lets just say I wasn't overly concerned about the out of route miles.

The rest of the week went by doing the same old thing. Work all night and sleep all day. I will give Wal-Mart a hand for their dispatching system. All I had to do was let them know when my 14hrs were up and how many driving hours I had available and they put me on loads that fit my schedule. Once I got going they kept me rolling and used every bit of my 14hrs. That's a very efficient little system they have going. The deliveries were all but painless; all I had to do was bump the docks and watch the store employees unload the truck. The only effort I had to put into it was the task of pulling little stickers off of each pallet and sticking them onto the load sheet to prove it was taken off the truck were required.

The routing left a little to be desired, however. Each load sheet had directions to any given store with all directions originating from the DC. That worked fine for the first store, but getting to second and third stops got me into trouble more than once. You see, just because the map shows a Pennsylvania road as a truck route, it doesn't necessarily mean your truck. I kept running into weight and length restricted roads (not listed in the back of my atlas) and of course there are no signs to warn you in advance, they like to save them for a little later on, like when you are already on the road with no options for turning around. I had one particularly bad night when I found myself on a 10ton limit road for a good 30 miles. I didn't doubt for a moment that I would have a local yokel behind me looking for some revenue enhancement for a nearby municipality, but luck was with me. The fact that it was 3 in the morning might have had a hand in the luck.

And so my nights went for the next four days until I burned what remained of my 70hrs. Once I was down to about 7hrs they refused to dispatch me and released me from service. I can say that I wasn't all that upset; I was more than ready to rid myself of that fun. One thing I did find very enjoyable was the sight seeing I got to do (as limited as it was by darkness). I would like to revisit these back roads at a more leisure pace some day in the future. There is a lot of character in all of those little towns.

Well, my release left me with no place to go on a Sunday night. Tomorrow was Labor Day and I wasn't under any disillusions of actually being able to get a load going anywhere in the near future. None the less, I sent in a message to dispatch to inform them of my new found freedom and went to bed, which was a pointless endeavor considering my body had become somewhat accustom to sleeping during the day. Something told me I would have plenty of time to readjust my sleep pattern before I would have to worry about driving anywhere.







WEEK THIRTY FIVE
Monday, August 25th through Sunday, August 31st
Miles include deadhead

Knoxville, TN to Newport, TN (final leg)..............................................52mi
Calhoun, TN to Lancaster, PA.............................................................768mi
Lancaster, PA to Pottsville, PA.............................................................70mi
Mindless wandering delivering Wal-Mart Dedicated........................1651mi (or so)

Total Paid Miles................................... 2541 Miles (I was actually paid for more miles than I ran thanks to the guaranteed daily pay at Wal-Mart.)

Mileage pay would come out to $1092.63, but my actual pay for the week was $1161.30.

Actual Miles............. 2738 Miles (130 mi due to my trailer blunder plus additional miles bobtailing to and from Wal-Mart during off time)

890 x .42 = $373.80 for miles

4 days at $175.00/day plus extra mileage pay during days that I exceeded the minimum mileage = $787.50 for Wal-Mart

$373.80 + $787.50.00 = $1161.30 (My lowest mile full week ever with Crete and I still managed to gross over $1100.)