Central Refrigeration Service, Inc. - West Valley, Ut.

I drove for them for about a year and a half. I left a few months ago, for a job with more home time. In general I believe they are not as bad a company to start with as many others. The issue right now is that they are in the process of switching to electronic logs, and until the planners, dispatchers, and customer service people get use to it, there will be problems with loads.

There planners are use to just passing out loads to the closest truck. They will at times look at your time of availability, but none were use to looking at hours available. Also they were very bad about not counting deadhead time. Many times I would receive a load where it was not possible to deliver on time legally because of the deadhead and load time. Sometimes it would be close enough that I would go ahead and run over hours a little bit to get it done. Otherwise it is a battle to get them to change the delivery time, or give the load to another driver.

Now that they are going to electronic logs it is no longer possible to fudge the books to get those loads delivered on time. So the planners must learn how to do there jobs correctly for the first time. Fontana dispatchers were really bad about this. They would try to hold on to the best loads for there drivers, then at the last minute, when there was no possibility of getting it delivered on time they would give it to a driver. If the driver was not paying attention they would accept the load, not noticing that it was impossible (like 1500 miles in 2 driving shifts) in a 62 mph truck.
If they accepted the load it was now the drivers fault when it was late, not the poor planning of the planner.

These planners are going to take several months to either learn to do this correctly, or be fired and replaced with people that can do it correctly.
They will probably be a decent place to start again by March.

At the company I am at now I still fudge a little at times, though normally when unloaded heading home. I just do not want to stop at a truck stop 80 miles from home. My truck will go 85 if I really want too, though my max is normally around 71. It is my decision how I run though, not the company's. I know everyone in the office by name, including the owner. No forced dispatch. I can do what I want with the truck. Off on weekends, unless I choose to run Sunday for more money. Home 3-4 nights a week. Free health insurance, ect ect.

 

thanks for all the info. not sure what ill be doing.

 

ok...
to start, the first time i had a problem was a fred meyer load a week after i went lectric. I picked up in chehalis, WA at 3pm and was due in Nampa, id at 8am and logan utah at 5pm. 800 miles, and no way to log legal. Of course I accepted the load, as I always do. I had plenty of hours off my 70.
So at 3pm the next afternoon, after my nampa delivery, and on my way to logan,UT I get a call from safety that I 'Must Shut Down' . I was cordial this time, and said i'm 90 minutes from delivering on a friday night, and there was NO WAY i'd not deliver it. So i did. THe old paper log way, i could smooth out the appearance of hours, as i got a full 8 hours of sleep the previous night at deadmans pass RS. So on paper, i'm legal. Not on lectric! ugh. Mind you, this is an 800 mile run in 24 hours.

What finally killed it for me was the dodge city meat load last week.

I arrived at 11am local after a 140 mile DH from Godddard, ks, dropped my trailer at national beef, and headed up to the flying j for sss, and wait for the drop dead time.
My DDT was 730pm. So later in the day, i drove over, checked in at 5pm, and waited in the bobtail lot. Long story short, the load was still not ready at 10pm. this was a tuesday night, and the 99 was due at 1230am thursday in farr west, UT(Assoc).
I had alerted every hour starting at 730pm that the load was late, and that the 99 on time would be in jeopardy, at 10pm , my qualcomm message said the load was in peril for on time delivery, then i left to grab some sleep. At that point , I knew my best option was to wake up early and tackle the load all in one day.(922 miles )

So Wednesday, i made the hook at 5am local, made denver by 1115local, and got back on the road after fueling. My fleet manager contacted me for the first time after that, and i indicated that my plan was to be on time. No further communication occured with dispatch til 530pm around little america, WY. They said you must 'STOP' as i had 815 miles for the day and 13 hours on the drive line.
The conversation degraded when safety called me on the phone and said 'I' had to call dispaatch to have it repowered. Leaving me in the west wyoming unloaded and having to deadhead to any new PU. I had no intention of loosing the load, and used the term "F*** Legal" i'm getting this load there on time. My trip plan included stopping at TA ft bridger, grabbing a shower, a bite to eat , and resting for a few hours, after arriving at arriving at 630pm. Safety ended up calling dispatch and having it repowered at 10pm.
When I got to central the next morning, they were unimpressed with my terminology when speaking with safety. I got the boot.
I was fine with it.

 

I don't know.
I did that for them very rarely.
Only a few times in my whole time at the company. I would always check to see if I could do the load. If not I would tell them what was up before I took it. Did not cause me any problems. Sure I never had many 4000 mile weeks, but I averaged around 3000, and on Kraft at .38 a mile I was ok with that.
What always scared me was not me making a mistake. It was some 4 wheeler hitting me, but if I was not legal (and regardless what your paper said, they could find out), the accident would now be your fault. If someone died you would be in Prison, and loose everything you own, or would ever own.
Not worth it to me for a few hundred extra miles here and there.
Dispatch never had an issue with me running legal. I just had to be clear when the load could be there when I accepted it.

This is not a judgment thing. We each run how we run. To me 1000 a week take home was plenty. I could do that every week, and never have to fudge more than a few hours a week. And everything they could passably match would match. Even my qualcom location would be within 15 min. most of the time.

 

Just to let you all know, Wayne is now teaming with his trainer. He is much happier not being forced into loads he knows he can't do or are gonna be late. He is on a dedicated Dole route and will be through here at least once a week. They made his trainer goto the paperless logs while they were in SLC. He said the logs were always messing up and losing signal. Nothing but problems with it, but he is more at ease now.

 

HEY, HEY! Wolfden is back!

Welcome back, we missed you.

 

I figured the hubby pulled the plug by his last comment. I was enjoying the reading though!

 

And speaking of people we haven't seen in a while, I was at Johnson's corner and I had to eat lunch ALL BY MYSELF. Where are you, Sixpack?

 

Doesnt central have a terminal in georgia? If so where is it or is it just a drop yard? Thanks..

 

Conley GA.
Outside of Atlanta