CRETE - A Year in Review

WEEK FOURTY​

Monday, September 29th through Sunday, October 5th​

Well, another reset is in the books and as I hit the 34th hour I find myself in the drivers’ seat waiting for the clock to give me the green light. I had arrived in Greyling with just enough time to squeeze in my reset and be on my way. I have a little under 60 miles to go and 75mins to do it after logging my PTI. If it was a straight run on an interstate I would be fine, but the remainder of the trip is on two lane roads through the north country of Michigan with the fine community of Elk Rapids as my final destination. It’s a quiet little town situated on a bay off of Lake Michigan in the far northwest part of the state. I have a load of empty cans going to a food plant of some type. I had assumed I was headed to a fishery (based on the odor in the area), but it turned out to be a fruit cannery. I had the good fortune of sitting next to a large pit where all the refuge fruit was dumped and it appeared that it had been fermenting for some time. A rather rancid smell to say the least that I had to contend with for a number of hours.

My first adventure of the week came around rather quickly. I had started my day at 04:30 and it was still quite dark at that hour. I had been driving for about 20mins when I noticed a big truck and a four wheeler were pulled off onto the shoulder on the eastbound lanes. I was a bit displeased with the truck because he had his brights on and due to the slight angle of his cab, they where shining directly into my eyes as I approached and it made it very difficult to see the faded lines on the somewhat narrow road. I squinted as best I could and made my way by. Shortly after that I saw the shadowy silhouetted outline of two people walking along the side of the road (apparently the drivers from the two vehicles I had just passed).

As I was making an attempt to process all that was going on and trying to readjust my eyes (still half blind from the high beams of the truck) on this very dark, moonless morning I found myself looking at a very large and recently dead dear smack dab in the middle of my lane. There was no real time to react other than to center myself on the obstacle and hope that the truck was high enough to clear it without knocking off a chunk of my Freightliner’s plastic bumper. Fortunately it didn’t have a large rack on it to do any damage and I made it by unscathed. OK, I’m awake now. Better to run over a dead deer than hit one that is standing on all four. Much less damage that way. I’m sure which ever one of the two guys walk back this way that hit this deer would agree.

With that little bit of excitement behind me I found myself within ¼ mile of the customer much sooner than I had expected; at least according to my directions. I was supposed to turn right on Hwy31 and look for the entrance ¼ mile on the right. A mile later and absolutely no sign of a business of any type I pulled out the phone and called the customer for directions. According to them I was still 15miles away. With my new directions in hand, I continued on down the road and pulled into their gate at 05:50 for my 06:00 appointment.

It’s obviously a Monday, because it is starting to resemble last week’s debacle. Once again I have pushed the limits of my log to make an on time appointment only to once again find that no one but me was overly concerned about when this load arrived. For the second week in a row I found myself wondering around a seemingly abandoned warehouse for 20mins before coming across someone. When I inform the gentleman that I am here with a delivery scheduled for 6:00am, I’m told that receiving guys weren’t up and running yet and tells me to back to the dock and make myself comfortable in my truck. Sure, why not, I don’t have anything else to do.

I had actually expected this very thing and didn’t let it get under my skin. I was fairly confident that this was going to be an extended stay anyway because when I initially received my load information on this haul it went into great detail with regards to detention procedures. Such things as making sure I arrive on time, properly document arrival, unload start and finish times and specifically, “You must get a signature on the detention form to receive payment” That line in itself let me know that I was in for a long morning.

Sure enough, the wait was extensive. I was under the impression that they would unload me and send me on my way. The fact of the matter was that they were using my truck as a can warehouse and would pull one pallet off at a time. They would then take that pallet to the canning line and load it into the machinery. When that pallet of cans had been filled with product they would return for another pallet. And so it went for the next 5 hours. That’s just what I wanted to do after a 34hr reset.

As if 5hrs wasn’t enough, I actually had a preplanned back haul on this load. Once I was empty, I was to pickup a load of specialized pallets that this company uses and return to the very place I had come from. Oh crap, that’s PA! Considering the fact that in the recent past I had only had two, maybe three loads into PA in the last 6 months; now I can’t seem to stay out of the bloody state.

So, after my 5hr unload I was instructed to head on over to the other side of the plant to be loaded with empty pallets. I do so and spend another hour waiting for that process to be completed which was fine because it took about that long to hunt down someone that would sign my detention form. By noon I was finally loaded up and ready to head on back to my favorite state, Pennsylvania. Thanks to another Monday filled with delays I once again failed to reach the 400 mile mark within my 14hrs, but was able to get another $30 bucks in detention pay. Whoo Hoo!

Tuesday was looking like a pretty good day. I had around 500 miles to run to make my delivery and should I be faced with the seemingly standard in PA, “no freight available at this time” message, I would still have a reasonable day of driving behind me. But in an effort to up my chances of a load once empty I started out at 3am so that I would arrive at a early enough hour to improve my chances of getting a load before this day came to a close.

Even though I had been routed over the Ohio turnpike I avoided it for as long as I could and stuck to Hwy 20 in order to make amends for my unauthorized trip across the PA turnpike last week. It was still very early in the morning and traffic was not a problem, so I didn’t really lose too much time in the process and was able to arrive at the consignee by 2:30 with the grand hopes of getting another load yet today.

Not only did I get a load out, they offered my two different ones and I didn’t even have to wait. One load was going to TN and the other was into SC. Mileage wise, they were very similar, but the SC had a much more attractive delivery time. My one big concern was that being empty in SC would greatly increase the likely hood of getting another load into PA, but I went against my better judgment and took the SC in the interest of saving time on the delivery end of things.

This next load was also a nice drop and hook pickup and I was able to get in and out in a little over 15mins and made my way to our terminal in New Kingstown. That way I could top off the fuel tanks and drop my trailer in the yard, thus making it easy to bobtail around town in the search of a place to eat and also made it possible to find a quite hiding place in the back of a shopping center so I would not have to listing to idling trucks all night long. That made for a nice 600 mile day.

Wednesday was another 3am start so that I could get to the customer as soon as possible. It had an open delivery window, but as usual, an early delivery always bodes well when one is looking for another load before the day is complete. I knocked out the remaining 500 miles and made it to my delivery point shortly after noon. I didn’t arrive quite soon enough however because there was another truck just backing into their only dock as I arrived, so I had to sit while he was being unloaded before I could take my turn. The wait wasn’t so bad, but the fact that it was another Crete truck was the kicker in this scenario. Because he was there first, he was unloaded first, therefore he got the first choice of the loads being offered out that afternoon.

The other driver was given a choice of two loads, both out of Maxton, NC (Campbell’s soup), but one was going to a good place, can’t remember where, and the other was going to a suburb of Philly. Guess which one I ended up getting.

I had a funny feeling that my decision to take the SC load would land me back in PA and that’s just what happened. If only I had made it there before the other Crete driver. I should have because this driver was definitely working at a slower pace. He had actually pulled out to pickup his load as I was backing to the dock. I left that customer about 30 minuets later and ended up missing my turn on the way to Maxton which led me on a scenic tour of the SC countryside (had a hell of a time finding a place to turn around) and cost me a good 20mins of wasted time. When I finally pulled into Campbell’s the other driver was sitting there hooked to his new trailer when I arrived and still there when I left with my trailer. Sure do wish I had his load, oh well, off to Philly I go. My hours were all but up for the day so I shut down in a dirt lot next to Hardee’s after another good day of 600mi.

Thursday was definitely a no hurry day. I only had about 550 miles to go and this load didn’t deliver until the early morning hours on Friday. If the customer had on site parking I could have just buzzed on over, but the likely hood of that was slim and I was headed to a Kmart DC, so an early delivery was also not an option. Even though there was no pressing need to get to where I was going today I did have to take parking into consideration. Options are limited in the area and if I tried pulling into the area at night I would be hard pressed to find a spot, so with that knowledge in hand I pulled out at 3am and found myself in the Newark service plaza by Noon. I had planned on pulling in and making a final decision on where I would park for the night, but realized I was probably in as good a spot as any and shut her down. This way I would have a short 80 miles to finish off in the morning and would be doing it when there was no traffic on the road.

I managed to make it through Philly just as the morning traffic was getting revved up and was able to avoid the traditional nightmare that unfolds there every day. I arrived at the Kmart one hour early and received my instructions. A nice little set up actually. All I had to do was drop my trailer in an open lot and their yard jockey took it from there. I had anticipated a reasonable unload of 90mins or so, but since I had dropped my trailer and watched it disappear around the corner I was not in a position to know what was going on. At least when you are hooked to a trailer you can feel it bounce around and know when the unloading begins and ends. Instead I was sitting in a parking lot with no clue as to how things were progressing and as the 3hr mark rolled around I was getting very antsy. I was antagonized further by the fact that two other trucks that had arrived at about the same time as me where already finished and gone.

I try to be patient in these circumstances, but it got to the point where I couldn’t hold out any longer. I had to know what was going on and headed out on a quest to find some answers. It was a bit of a challenge, but I finally track down someone that knew what was happening and was simply informed that my load had an extensive breakdown and they were still working on it. Not the answer I wanted to hear, but it did help alleviate my fear that an empty Crete trailer was sitting, lost and forgotten, somewhere in the bowels of this place.

It must have been one nasty product breakdown, because I spent a grand total of 5hrs in the place before I finally had an empty trailer attached to my truck. As annoying as that little delay was, I was calmed by the chirping of the Qcomm with a load offer. I was sure that I would be stuck here for the rest of the day because of the length of time I had sat here. Instead, I had a load offer immediately after sending in my MT call and it was getting me out of this awful corner of the world, but only after driving into Elizabeth, NJ first. There is always a price to pay, isn’t there.

I was to pickup a load of beer from the Bud Whse and run it up to Michigan. Although this load got me out of the Northeast, it was far from perfect. First I would have to drive into Jersey, but I had been to this place a few times and knew the ropes. Go to one drop yard to check in, then take the empty trailer to a different drop yard and return to the original drop yard to get the loaded trailer, and don’t go to the office that the Qualcomm tells us to go to. It helps to know these little things at times. So, other than the traffic, which at that time of day wasn’t all that horrible, it was a fairly painless drop and hook and I was on my way down the road.

Now for problem two. It was now Friday, 1pm. This load was to deliver anytime after 10pm Sunday night, but was only 650mi away. Long story short, I could be there Saturday morning. This would actually afford me enough time to put in a reset had I been so inclined to do so, but I would still have around 15hrs available upon my arrival and didn’t really care to do so at that time. I would be much more content if I could run some more hours off.

The delivery time on this load was a bit odd. Any time after 10pm on a Sunday. It was obviously headed to a small local distributorship and these places tend to operate on a M-F, part of Saturday kind of schedule. I assumed that the late Sunday delivery time probably coincided with when the shift started for loading their outbound trucks for Monday morning deliveries. There was also a phone number listed with the load info that showed business hours. What caught my eye was that they were open until noon on Saturday. After running the numbers through my head a couple of times I realized that I could make it there by roughly 10am. Here we go again, off to the races with no stops along the way other than for fuel and my required 10hr break. This is getting to be a habit.

I drove out the rest of my hours for the rest of the day without stopping to help improve my chances of arriving in Michigan in a timely manner and shut down for the night on the west side of PA.

Saturday started with me being in a very good position to make it to the Bud distributor before noon. I actually had more than enough time to make that dead line, but I also realized that if they shut the doors at noon, and I arrived at that time or slightly earlier, I would have, in all likelihood been told “tough luck, see ya Sunday night” I figured I was already taking a chance in showing up on Saturday, but these smaller places are generally very flexible when it comes to receiving deliveries, so I was feeling very confident that I could get unloaded if I showed up at a reasonable hour.

Not wanting to arrive too close to closing time, other than a quick fueling, I started at 3:30am and did the no stop thing, managing to show up in their lot at 10:45am. A little tight for comfort, but I might just be able to pull this off. I was absolutely elated to see another Crete truck backed up to one of their doors. Looks like I’m not the only one that had this idea.

When I walked into the office I got two responses. From the nice girl working in the office, “Good morning, how are you doing today” and from the warehouse guy, “Oh, Jesus Christ, another one!” The pleasant office girl told me, “Don’t worry about him, he has tickets to the game and seems to think he can leave early”. Apparently, this guy was looking forward to meeting up with some local buds to watch the Michigan game down in Ann Arbor against Illinois. I can joyfully inform you that they lost that game 20-45. Go Iowa Hawkeyes! Although Michigan State beat the Hawkeyes on that same day.

Well, I can tell you one thing. When these guys set their mind to it, they can have your trailer unloaded in the blink of an eye. I was given a door assignment and before I made it to my truck the warehouse guy had the door open and was standing there waiting for me to back in. Once I did so, I walked to the warehouse entrance, which was about 10 dock doors away. By the time I made it to my dock from the inside of the building the guy already had six pallets off and he didn’t give a #### where he put them. I’ve never seen a guy drive a forklift so fast or recklessly. He was on a mission and nothing was going to stop him. He was shoving pallets of beer in every little cranny he could find that involve the shortest possible distance of travel and my truck was empty in 7 minutes flat. Holy Cow! I knew these guys were keeping this ability a secret.

What a perfect day, I’m now empty and its not even noon yet. Sure beats sitting around until 10pm tomorrow night. I put in my MT call and waited to see what was available for freight in the area.

While I was waiting I had the chance to talk to the other Crete driver that had unloaded just before me. He was a little distressed because he had been driving all night to make this delivery and had actually run over his 11hrs due to a wrong turn close by trying to find this place. He had only been with the company for two months and was upset that he was going to get a log violation. According to him, had been driving in circles for about 30 mins past his 11hrs. He also said that he was never more than a few miles away, he actually drove past it a couple of times without realizing it. I simple suggested he log the adventure as “on duty” and he would be fine. If he took my advice, he would fine. I hope he did so.

When I returned to the truck I found a load offer waiting for me. Want to guess where it was heading, yup, PA.

And just to rub salt in the wound, it was a load that was scheduled to pickup at 1am in Battle Creek. That’s less than 100 miles away and its only Saturday noon. The trip it self is actually perfect for my time frame. I am once again getting tight on hours and this will work out perfect, but only if I can pickup the load now. If I can do that, I will be able to arrive in PA with about 2hrs left on my 70 and be the perfect position to do a reset just across the street from the delivery point. Due to the timing of things, however, if I have to wait until the scheduled pickup time I would still be able to make my delivery, but without the reset, thus forcing me to sit dormant for a total of two days waiting to gain hours back.

There seems to be a theme to my resets lately, if I do this, and it works out like that, and I get lucky here, I might just be able too, and so on.

Well, if that’s what I have to do it’s fine with me. Even though this load has a 1am pickup time, I know for a fact that it is a 100% drop and hook customer. I just hope that it is loaded and ready to go. I arrived at the gate and let the guard know that I was about 12 hrs early, but if the trailer was ready to go I would be ready to take it. After a little paper shuffling I was given the green light and a trailer number. Lucky me, still going my way.

I drove out the rest of my hours for the day and got a very early start on Sunday morning which made it possible to pull into my favorite PA destination, Breinigsville, in the mid morning, thus making it possible to put in my reset and be ready to burn up the miles once I dropped my trailer just across the road. Very annoying customer by the way, even though it’s a drop/hook delivery, they won’t let you into the gate any more than 2hrs early (may actually be 1hr these days). Not that it makes any difference to me on this particular day; I’m out of hours anyway.



WEEK FOURTY
Monday, September 29th through Sunday, October 5th
Miles include deadhead

Grayling, MI to Elk Rapids, MI (final leg)...............................56mi
Elk Rapids, MI to Blandon, PA...........................................789mi
Columbia, PA to Lancaster, SC.........................................604mi
Maxton, NC to Fairless Hills, PA……………………………………………...636mi
Elizabeth, NJ to Howell, MI………………………………………………….....708mi
Battle Creek, MI to Breinigsville, PA………………………………………..713mi

Total Paid Miles……………………………..3506 Miles

Actual Miles…………….3600 Miles

 

mugzy wrote:

I know better than getting into these little back and fourths, but I'll put one more reply into it and let it be at that. Feel free to reply in what ever manner you wish, but I will refrain from antagonizing you further.

You can tell yourself whatever you want to make you feel better about the situation.

But

You received two speeding tickets, you know you had them and you didn't list them. You also had and accident, you also know this, you where there. You had first hand knowledge of these events and did commit fraud by not disclosing them. "I forgot" is no more of a defense than "I didn't know". Just like ignorance of the law is not a defense.

In short, be a man! Take responsibility for your own actions and stop blaming everyone everyone else for the situation that your actions have put you in.

??????????????????????? Who said they wanted to be an insurance agent?

 

Supersnack wrote:

First, welcome back. We missed you in your absence. I would have replied earlier but it takes some gearing up to tackle your posts.

I like your new tag line by the way, nice and colorful

You know, I tend to go out of my way to ask other Crete drivers about their miles and the answers really don't seem to change all that much. Some doing extremely well, some no so good and most seem very content. Even in your own statement you say that most of the driver that you are talking to are hovering above 10k/mo. I personally don't see that as an awful number, especially with freight the way it is. I've talked to drivers of other companies that aren't coming close to that number and they are doing it for less pay.

I even fell short of 10k last month. 9821 to be exact all though I was at the house for 6 nights too. But even that has never stopped me from get 11-12k prior to this month.

Time are not all that great and to expect the trucking industry to go through it without missing a beat is not being realistic.

Why you are having such an awful time is and entirely different story though. I often wonder if it is because you are at the top of the pay scale, but I continually come across long time Crete drivers that do just fine. I actually sat next to a 15yr man for a couple of hours today who said he was getting all the miles he needed.

Don't know what to tell you. If you do finally give in and find another job, please keep us updated. The few that I know of who have moved on have not had much luck at other companies either.


The Wal-Mart gig.

I was paid for every day and even got a little extra on my next check for one of the days that I ran over the required mileage. I was based out of the Pottsville DC, but did run a couple of trips out of Tobyhanna. I wouldn't want to run out of there as a full time gig, but I have to give it to Wal-Mart. They sure know how to run trucks efficiently.

Trouble just seems to follow you Supersnack.