CRETE - A Year in Review

If I'm reading things right, it looks like there are angels in the outfield... Put in a good word with God for me would ya?

 

ROFL, Ever! You pulled words out of my mouth... I actually had to bite my tounge......... There is a reason why they call "W" Blue Screw!

We ran into a Crete buddy of ours on the West coast. It was quite a surprise. He had a load out of LA going to WA... He's was sitting for 3 days waiting for a load. I hate to hear that about Crete. Hopefully the economy will pick up and keep you Cretins moving! <G> We are doing pretty well with our new company... Last week, we put in 3100 miles and did our reset at home! I like the fact that we are home weekly.... That is a positive compared to Crete...we were out between 4-7 weeks. I didn't mind a few weeks but there were times we both wanted OUT of the truck to stretch our legs.

I'm gonna head out and talk to the Shaffer driver next to us. See how he's doing.... Have a good day. Drive Safe!

 

Thank you for the facts.... USMCDevil Dog

 

That brought a smile on. Hell, ET has all the pull. They did not offer me a trainer position. I just know about his situation because I made it my business. I hope he does not mind.
From what I know about CCC so far is that they are pretty straight forward. What they tell you is gospel and they have done me very well so far.
Although one thing that may be negative for the company and drivers that I heard is that the old man Akel and his wife might be getting a divorce. Anyone else hear this?

 

Hey Evertruckerr, great posts, very informative and as one who is starting my orientation with KLLM tomorrow love to read your posts. Just graduated from school and got my CDL, I was looking to start with Crete but was unable because my school didnt meet the number of hours criteria. I'm looking to jump to Crete after getting the appropriate time OTR. My brother drove for Crete a few years ago and had nothing but good to say about the company. Anyway, again, thanks for your posts and infomative information. Hope you continue to share your wealth of experience.

USMCDevilDog

 

Greetings, I'm baaaaaaaaaaack

Had another wonderful time. Been so irate I haven't even tried to use the computer for fear of saying something that gets me banned from the forum. (sorta' counting to 10, again and again and again)

Since a week or so a go, I got out of PA to TN, then from TN down to the papermill outside Rome, GA for a load to Toledo. It had a 2300-2359 delivery for the next day, but in comments it said that customer was open from 2200-1330. No one home between 1330 and 2200. Well I made it up there early at 1300. Only to just about get ran over from everyone leaving. Except 2 people. One of the last people out said that the boss would be there to unload and go ahead and back in. The bad news, it was 5000# rolls of paper, and the boss didn't find out until the end of shift that the squeeze lift was down. So we unloaded rolls of paper with a fork lift and a 2 x 4. He would lift the roll with the tip of the fork, I would stick the 2x4 under the roll, then he could get under it to pick it up. Then I would lean against it when he was trying to drop it in the warehouse. All in all not a bad deal, and the boss was pretty cool for sticking around and unloading me. This was Tuesday afternoon. Only offers, a load that del's in Stevens Point, WI for Thursday nite 2300, or a drop/hook to Gouldsboro, PA.(I-380 south of Scranton) Great.... I figured I wasn't going to get anything else that week anyway, take the longest, which ended up being the PA. Well......they had a surprise snow storm there Tuesday. I picked up the load Wednesday, and delivered the same day. I figure the sooner I get there the higher on the list I would be once they found freight. Well, I wish I could have gotten pictures. Schneider does the local del's out of there, and any of their trailers that were at the dock when the storm hit, had a 4 - 6 foot snowdrift on the roof, and no roof plow to clean them off. Some of them were pulled out to the lot that way, and someone said that the yard dog flipped one on the way out to drop. The roofs were so bowed that they couldn't close the doors. One driver for another company was waiting for the roof cleaning crew to get there. Had been waiting 3 hrs. And since PA passed that new law about roof snow I found myself in quite a pickle. I decided not to wait, and hauled out. Now for the fun part of this story. No freight. It's Wednesday night so I went to bed, didn't have many hours to run anyway. Thursday morning we (the dozen or so Cretes in the area) got a message that they were 200 loads short for the rest of the week and through the weekend. So... Walmart came through and put some of us to work hauling dedicated out of Tobyhanna. The good side, $175 a day (or mileage which ever was higher) and I wasn't sitting. The bad side....Jersey, Jersey, and more Jersey. I have to say, the folks at the Tobyhanna D/C should get a pat on the back. They treated us like a part of the company, were always friendly (and this close to NY an NJ wow) never took more than 30 seconds to make a decision when you were outside the D/C. The only delay was when you checked in at the start of the day. The longest wait I had was for about 40 minutes, and the supervisor come out and saw me still sitting... And got on the dispatch for making me sit!!!!! MY HERO. I wish they could teach our people how to do things. A comment I made to dispatch when I had to sit most of Monday waiting for a load once I was back on Crete's dispatch. I was actually treated like a person, thanked repeatedly by both office and drivers at Wal-mart. Now after sitting all Monday, I have been given a whopper of a load. Tobyhanna (not W-mart) Pick up after 2300 Monday, deliver in Indy 6 a.m. Wednesday. 656 mi by Wednesday. That was after a 2100 mile week last week. I am not sure whether the Walmart pay will go on last weeks or this weeks miles. But dispatch isn't happy with me because I started on them about their inability to do their job after sitting most of the day. I had a 8700mi October, and I don't know how they'll credit miles for the Walmart dedicated runs. But November isn't starting any better. I have got to get out of here before I go postal or my BP goes too high. Any place is better than this!!!! DO NOT APPLY TO THIS COMPANY THEY ARE THE BIGGEST BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES THAT GOD EVER PUT A GUT INTO!!!!!!!!!!! I have never worked for a more useless bunch of cow tipping idiots in my life!!

Guess I'm glad I took some time to cool off. huh?

And ET... about your comment a few pages back about spending money when home, I have to agree totally. I spend far fewer bucks out here than home, and get more rest. I can run out of hours out here (rarely at Crete) but I can't at home, my wife just hands me another honey do log book and cracks the whip, then I meow :smt102:smt079and get back to work.(not really, she save the whips and chains for later)

Congrats on the Driver of the month. I was one last year. You get a fancy plaque and a letter supposeably signed by Tonn. (honestly I was suprised it didn't come COD for the postage....Was at the beginning of my fall from Crete grace last year... I had thought about sawing it into toothpicks and sending it back in protest)

And about the tone of the posts having something to do with enjoying one's job... I use to be like ET... But it's tough to go with the flow and enjoy a whopping 9000K month, month after month. Still putting the same time away from home in the books. All the while hearing them claim they are short on freight with one side of their face, while pushing to recruit more drivers with the other. When I am running hard, and pushing myself as hard as I can log, I am a very pleasant person, complaining about very little. I haven't been this grumpy all my life. But it's when I hear the ad's on XM and see all the BS ads about this company claiming how 'we love our drivers' and see how fake they are, that is what has pushed me to be such a negative person when it comes to Crete. Especially when you see how some companies truly treat their drivers so much better. I may have to apply to the local Walmart D/C when I get home. At least down there, Miami is in another D/C's delivery area, and there is no Jersey to have to deal with.

Hope I haven't been too negative for ya'll but... when you cross bummed out with p'd off...you get......ME

 

Thanks for the post Supersnackbar! We have all missed you!

 

SUPERSNACK, welcome back, I havent seen you this happy since your last post!!! Hosnestly, some people arent happy unless there angry so you have something to be happy about. And Im still waiting for you to pass down a couple pennies per mile. We have to get you away from the east coast (NE), how about requesting a sunny Cali load, that should cheer you up, just dont tell your wife I said that. DRIVE SAFE

 

Ah shoot! And here I thought you were a HO insider

Well I got a call from recruiting today, safety had put my file on "hold" due to a speeding ticket I got in 2005 and a minor parking lot accident I was involved in in December of 2003. I guess I was supposed to "remember" those, but the MVR I received only went back for 39 months. Recruiting says neither of these should be a problem, just that they want to know why I didn't list them I guess. (I would have gotten the 5 year report but the "W" company said they only care about 39 months) - ah well. Hopefully it won't be a problem.

So, I'm waiting another day for the decision...

Speaking of divorce, did you hear about the new "Divorced Barbie"? - (She comes with all of Kens stuff...)

 

Thats a good one. I'd tell that one to my 4 year old daughter but it would probably break her heart and make her cry. I'll run it past my wife and see what she says.

I see you heeded what ET said about that other company. If I knew a little more about you I could probably scrape up a few things bout' ya with the recruiters. You'll be alright though, they seem to like "seasoned" individuals like you with life experience. (thats a nice way of saying they like to hire older people)