CRETE - A Year in Review

WEEK EIGHT
Monday, February 23rd through Sunday, March 1st



My THREE days of layover have finally come to an end. It wasn’t exactly a solid 3 days, even though I delivered my last load at 07:30 last Friday morning and my next load was scheduled for 10:00 this Monday morning. There was a 100 miles of deadhead between the two. I could have stayed where I was at for the entire time and then drove over this morning which would have made it an entire 3days of sitting, but I chose to mosey on over (I’m in Texas, gotta Mosey) Saturday afternoon to break it up a bit. It seemed to help alleviate the perception of being abandoned by my company for the entire weekend by taking two 34hr resets in a row with 2hrs of drive time between them.

I initiated part one of my theoretical vacation (it makes it sound better that way) last Friday at a Loves after making my delivery. At that time there were eight other Crete drivers to commiserate with along with a few more just up the road. A handful of us spent about an hour or so inside exchanging stories and grievances and pretty much came up with the same conclusion, “This Sucks!”

For the most part it was the same story across the board. Everyone’s miles were suffering significantly of late, some more than others. I did learn that I was fairing better than some. After all, I manage to clear 10,000 miles last month (barely) and managed to spend four days at the house in the process plus another four layover days.

Surprisingly though, I wasn’t experiencing the anger that is often associated with this frustration at many of the terminals that I’ve wondered through. Those that have stuck around are beginning to realize it isn’t entirely Crete’s fault that we are sitting around, but the economy as a whole (although I’m not willing to completely absolve Crete of all responsibility). There is no shortage of stories about drivers that are being laid off on a daily bases and just how hard, or pointless it is to look for another job. It’s no secret that turnover rates across the board are at an all time low.

Many companies brag about their drivers averaging 10,000 miles a week during the good times, so I probably shouldn’t complain about getting that now. It’s just that I am more accustom to running in the 14,000+ range. I shouldn’t complain, but I will most likely continue to do so. I don’t mind being on the road for six weeks at a time when the wheels are turning, but camping out in the back of a truck when I have a wife at home waiting for me is a little hard to swallow.

When Saturday rolled around I had received a load offer that picked up on Monday Morning. There were only three Crete trucks left in the parking lot at that time and they appeared to be quite envious as they watched me pull out. What they didn’t know was that I wasn’t exactly thrilled about my assignment. I was to pickup a student in Atlanta on Wednesday afternoon and dispatch had put me on a load that would get me there. The problem with that from my point of view is that instead of getting a load out of the area on Saturday or Sunday like the others had, with the exception of a short 100 mile hop up the road, I would be sitting around until Monday morning only to pickup a load going another 700 miles to GA. I would have it there by Tuesday morning and once again find myself sitting for close to 34hrs while I waited for the student to get out of orientation. Just one of those weeks.

Part two of my layover took place at a Pilot close to my Pickup. It was scheduled to go out on Monday morning and even though it was Saturday I was so close I headed on over just in case there was a preloaded trailer waiting for me. No luck, just a solo empty trailer and a warehouse devoid of any human life. Looks like a Monday through Friday operation. Back to the Pilot where I joined a truckstop full of waiting trucks (only two Cretes at this one)

Having nothing better to do, I wandered around the lot and counted parking spaces. Hey, it’s REALLY boring around here. The final tally was 82 parking spot. It was currently 2pm on a Saturday and there were 15 open spaces. Ouch! There was some in and out traffic as far as short term parking went, but for the most part that ratio was maintained during the early afternoon hours and by 6pm it was just a steady stream of truck pulling in looking for parking and leaving. Sunday was even worse, nothing but trucks sitting around waiting to pull out Monday morning.


Crete drivers definitely aren’t the only ones parked at the truck stops.

It was a long three days, but they eventually faded into the past and it was time to get my load. A phone call during the weekend let me know via recording that they opened their doors at 7am. My appointment was at 10am and I had no intentions of waiting that long. I did hold out for a little bit and pulled in at 8. There was one truck pulling out and one more at a dock. I knew I should have shown up a little earlier. I went inside to check in and was promptly assigned the only open dock door.

As I waited for the other truck to be loaded three more pulled into the yard and queued up for their turn, including the other Crete truck that was parked next to me at the Pilot. She was the last one to show up.

It took the better part of an hour to get the other truck loaded and about the same for me. By the time I was ready to head on out it was 10am, (my original appointment time). If I had waited for my appointment I would have been there until well after noon; that being the very reason I always show up early. I’ll leave the waiting to those less motivated than myself.

It sure felt good to be rolling down the road again. My load was an anytime drop delivery at a Wal-Mart DC and I had no intention of wasting any time getting there. I didn’t have enough hours to get there today, but I would pull in first thing Tuesday morning. I figured if I got there soon enough I might be able to get a short run out of the area that delivered Wednesday morning and then pickup a load that would take me back through Atlanta later in the day to get my new student. I didn’t know if I would be able to swing such a thing, but I was going to do my best to make it a possibility.

I did as planed and dropped my load at the Wal-Mart on Tuesday morning. The MT call went in along with a message to dispatch to make sure they knew I was suppose to pickup a student the following day. Shortly after that I was given a load going to Wilmington, NC. Doesn’t that figure? In all this time I have never run a load into my beloved Wilmington, now that I finally get one going there the wife is sitting in Phoenix. I’m still excited about getting back to town and spending a night in my long lost house.

The load info came through and I was on my way. It was a short run of 440 miles and I would have plenty of time to get to town and park the truck for the night, call a friend to pick me up and bring me back to the house. That was the plan anyway. It started to unravel when I pulled into the shipper. They had three docks and they were all occupied along with three more trucks lined up to back in after them. Most of the trucks were flatbeds and not only did I have to wait for each truck to be loaded one at a time, I also had to wait for the flatbed drivers to tarp and secure their loads before pulling out. I had a window of about 3hrs in which I could still make it to the house tonight before my hours ran out, but I couldn’t really see that happening at this point.

Well, I had a three hour window and the shipper made it a point to use every bit of it plus a few. There was still a marginal chance of making it to the house before running out of hours but it would be incredibly tight. If everything went without a hitch I might just be able to make it.

I pulled out of the dock and took my best estimate as to where the tandems needed to be for the 44,000# load of paper rolls and got my trip under way. I had to make time to scale out somewhere along the way before I got to the GA state scales near the SC boarder, but that was about 200 miles away so I had plenty of time to find a truck stop along the way. Hopefully one with a McD’s (I needed my weekly fix) so I could kill two birds with one stone. I also had a fuel stop scheduled along the way. As short on time as I was I figured I could pass on fueling on this trip. I had more than enough fuel to not only to make it to the customer, but plenty to get me back out. I assumed I would be dispatched back to Atlanta to pickup my student anyway, thereby taking me past the same truck stop so that would save me at least 15mins tonight and I would still be filling up at the same place. That should make everyone happy. I’ll save time and the company will still be buying fuel at the same place.

All this was going through my head and by the time I had settled on a plan of action, and day dreaming of spending a night in a nice comfy bed I completely forgot about scaling my load out. Until I was about 40 miles from the GA scales and then it hit me up side the head. Oh Crap! I grabbed the ol’ truck stop guild and took a quick glance. Lucky me, there was one more place left between me and the chicken coop. I was feeling fairly confident that my load was legal, but I sure didn’t want to be preying for a green arrow without knowing for sure. I pulled into the Loves (not my first choice for a quick in and out scale) and went through the routine. Final result; rear tandems were at 33,850#. I would have been fine, but it doesn’t need to be quite that close. I notched the tandems back a couple of holes and went on my way (oh yeah, no McD’s). Bummer!

Back on the road again with a close eye on the clock. As much as I wanted it to happen the numbers didn’t lie. I still had 240 miles to go and if I made no stops and averaged 62mph I would arrive just as my 14hr clock expired. If it were interstate the entire way I might be able to swing it, but I would be hitting a few hills that would knock my speed down and there was a good stretch of 55mph four lanes ahead of me once I made the turn on the final homestretch and NC Highway Patrol are known for being sticklers about their speed limits when it comes to trucks on the back roads (I think it’s where Ohio trains their boys in blue). Some things just weren’t meant to be. When the days driving had come to a close I was just over fifteen miles from the house as I once again drifted off to sleep in the back of my truck. Did I ever point out just how much I love running 100% compliant? It feels good to be legal, but there are times it can be a tab bit annoying.

In reality, it didn’t bother me all that much. The delay at the shipper had cost me so much time that I would have been pulling into town around 11pm and I wouldn’t have had the nerve to bother any friends at that time on a weeknight anyway.

I started out as soon as my log would allow me on Wednesday morning and arrived at the customer’s 20mins later. I soon realized that I timed out the forklift operator’s morning break perfectly and was told that he “should” be back in 15mins “or so”. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that followed was derived from my 3yrs of living in this town (ok, my truck, but I have to call somewhere home). One of the hardest things for me to adjust to when I moved here was the pace of life. Even though I had grown up in a small farming community in Iowa, the last twenty years of living in Phoenix has worn off on me and the faster pace of city life had become a norm for me. I had always thought Iowa living was laid back, hell; they got nothin’ on them southern folk. The “we’ll get around to it” attitude is what eventually endeared me to Wilmington, but the learning curve was mind numbing until I was able to learn to slow down and take a breath to enjoy life.

Upon returning from my year and a half sabbatical from this fine profession I found that truck driving quickly returned me to my original self, but with a very different way of dealing with stress. I’m alive and doing well, life is good.

Back to the original point, I was informed that the one person responsible for unloading trucks had just gone off on a 15min break. Translate that to NC time and I figured I’d be in pretty good shape if I saw anyone within the next hour. That was at 9am and the last time I checked the wall clock it was 9:38 and counting. Another 10mins or so had passed when I finally heard the tall tail beeping of a forklift and I was in business. The pace of the unload was classical southern style as was the hospitality and I eventually found myself in the truck putting in my MT call along with a message to dispatch reminding them of my student who was no doubt anxiously awaiting my arrival. I don’t know about you, but I was petrified of who would be greeting me as my cell mate for the next 8 weeks when I was a nervous newbie.

I had mentioned this earlier, but I had assumed that dispatch wouldn’t have sent me over here knowing I had a trainee waiting in ATL without some plan in mind as to how they were going to get me back before days end. You would think I would have learned by now. Do I get a load offer? No. Do I get an “extremely short on freight”? Of course. A few messages, a couple of unanswered phone calls and an hour later I find myself without a load. The only thing I could be certain of was that I would not be picking up a trainee today. You might think something like that would bother me. On another day, perhapes, but today I’m in Wilmington. The jokes on them.

It wasn’t an entirely peachy (oops, that’s Georgia, don’t know what NC calls it) day though because I found myself a prisoner in the truck waiting for a load offer. This is the one thing that just drives me crazy. There are no loads and you have absolutely no idea when a offer will appear. All you can do is sit and wait. I can’t do anything else but camp out in the truck because if I’m not around to accept the load it will be pulled and passed on to the next one in line.

I don’t like getting a load that picks up in two days anymore than the next driver, but at least in that situation I know where I stand. I can get out of the truck and make use of my day in some manner to help the time pass. Much like last weekend when I was stuck in Texas. The difference there was that I knew when I needed to be and where. I was able to break up the monotony by taking a 5mi walk and exploring the fine community of Fairfield, TX and get some exercise to boot.

The frustration was amplified by the fact I was “home” and had plenty of places to spend my time. Specifically a nice little golf course that I am rather found of that is conveniently located mere steps from the front door of my house. OK, maybe the jokes on me.

This unbearable wait lasted until 5pm when I was finally dispatched. I got my load going to ATL, but it didn’t pickup until the next day. I may have lost a student, but I certainly enjoyed an evening with old neighborhood friends.

I had also sent a message off to the training department to let them know that I was indeed headed back to ATL and soon there after was reassigned to another student. So when all was said and done everything worked out just fine, if not in somewhat or a hap hazard way.

My Thursday pickup was scheduled for late in the morning so I was able to sleep in and wonder on out of town at my leisure. I’m usually inclined to arrive at a shipper more to the side of early than not, but this load was scheduled in such a way that no urgency was necessary and I arrived at the appointed hour of 10am. The NC pace of life was ever present and I had to remind myself to take a breath. “They’ll get it done, eventually”

The delay was compounded by the fact that the load was located at two different warehouses and neither one of them seemed to know what was going on. But I didn’t mind in the least bit. I had 440 miles left to go and this load didn’t deliver until the following morning. “Knock yourself out; detention pay is now in effect”.

The rest of the day passed painlessly enough and I made it to the customer in a timely manner. They had parking available just outside of the gate and I settled in for the night. It would have been nice if I could have delivered my load at that time. I mean, here I am with their load. It’s a drop load and there sits 3 empty trailers, but this is one of our finicky customers that require a set appointment for drop deliveries. “No early delivery,” and there I sat. Again, not a big deal because the only place I had to be was at the terminal to pickup a student, but he wasn’t going to be ready until 4pm the next day anyway. The only pressing need I had to get there ASAP was so that I could get my truck on the shops waiting list. I have a bunch of bad batteries that need to be replaced and pulling in the following morning would just make it that much harder to get it taken care of before the trainee was ready to go. Not a perfect situation, but I wasn’t all that concerned about it. The APU makes it a minor concern, at least for the time being because they were still holding a charge for a short time and the APU fires up when the battery levels hit a certain point to charge them back up.

Friday started with an early morning drop/hook that took all of 10mins (would have been just as quick last night, grrrr). I followed up the MT call by asking dispatch if they wanted me to deadhead to the yard so I could get my student or pick a load up from the area and bring it with me. It only took a few minutes to get a load offer that was destine for north central Illinois and it had enough time on it for me to burn a day at the terminal. I didn’t really relish the idea of another down day, but I had to wait around for most of the afternoon anyway waiting for the orientation class to conclude. I would also be able to get the truck into the shop (hopefully).

The load wasn’t going to be ready until early afternoon, so I went back to bed for a bit and putzed around for the rest of the morning. When I got to the shipper the load was ready to go and before I knew it I was in our yard waiting for the trainee to get out of class. We spent a little time going over the basics and since the truck would be in the shop until the late hours of the evening he decided to spend one more night in a hotel and parted with instructions to return at 4am. A little earlier than necessary under normal conditions, but it looks like my recent stint of Southern driving is about to come to an end as I head back north with what appears to be a nasty little snow storm brewing on the horizon. Maybe this one will miss me.


Saturday started nice and early in a somewhat heavy rain storm, not a downpour, but steady enough to make things unpleasant. The trainee showed up as scheduled and we got ourselves underway. I had been keeping and eye on the weather and didn’t like what I had seen. There was a large swirl of snow covering a good portion of the Mid-West and there were rumors of it heading this way. It ended up nothing more than a continues band of rain for the better part of the day, but it sure wanted to get ugly. The temperature continued to drop as we went northward to the point where it was bouncing back and forth between 30-33°. I kept expecting the road to freeze over but it never happened and shortly after crossing the Illinois state line the roads dried up and I was once again on solid footing. From the sounds of things we got out of there just in time because later weather reports where not as favorable.

That evening ended about 100 miles short of the final destination and the following Sunday began with another early morning start. We had a 6am appointment to drop the trailer and I pulled in about an hour early to find the receiving office open and ready for me. Fifteen minutes later the MT call went in and I waited to see what would happen. With the way things have been of late I would have expected a “no freight” message, but today I was hoping that a load might pop up. It seems like the Chicago area is just about the last place I can count on getting a load without too much of a delay.

It only took 5mins to get my load offer and it was a nice one too. Looks like we will be heading back ATL way (997mi) with another 6am appointment delivery on Tuesday morning. The one little drawback was that it had a pickup window of 19:00-23:00. Not ideal since it wasn’t even 7am yet. But like I had explained to the trainee, an open window pickup like this on a Sunday night tends to lead me to believe that it just might be a preloaded trailer. But then it could always be a live load too, just can’t always tell. The pickup times on these weekend loads are often set to optimize productivity of the prospective driver. This way a driver isn’t dispatched on a load any earlier than necessary, unless freight is light, in which case it was probably the best load available at the time.

At times like this I would generally call the shipping department to ask if the load was ready but the instructions on this load specifically restricted me from doing so. My next option was to look for a truck stop in the area of the shipper incase we were turned away in the event our trailer wasn’t ready. The address for this place was in the middle of nowhere and it didn’t look like parking was going to be easy to come by. That problem was solved shortly there after as I was jotting down the load info. Right there at the end of the instructions was a nice little note, “overnight parking avail”. That works for me and after a pit stop at the nearby Wal-Mart to replenish supplies we where on our way to the next pickup point.

Upon arriving and checking in I was entertained by the idea that the trailer was ready to go. The guard checking me in was telling me where to drop my trailer. This is good because it means it’s a drop-n-hook (yeah, no live load). Those instructions where quickly followed with the trailer number that I would be pulling out and what door I could find it in. I just knew it, a preloaded trailer ready to go. This would work out great for the trainee because the load was running past his home and because the trailer was ready to go we would be able to get down to the ATL area at a reasonable time to allow him to spend a night with his wife and daughter. If we had to wait until the scheduled time to pickup the load it would have resulted in a late arrival down Georgia way that would have made it impractical for a one night get away for the trainee. All was going good up to that point.

Then the bad news was just kind of thrown out there. “Put your CB on channel 2 and we’ll let you know when it’s ready”. Hey, that was just plain mean.

We ended up sitting around for another 4+hrs, but it still beat the heck out of sitting around until 7pm. There was still enough time to knock out another 200 miles or so for the day and off we went. The 200 mile idea was shot down because I just couldn’t find a place to park as far as truck stops went. We were running around in central Illinois and I had hoped we could make it to Mt Vernon for the night, but back road two lanes where take a toll on the ol’ log book and it was apparent that I would come up about 15 miles short of that goal. The big problem with that is there is no other parking available short of that mark and I eventual had to settle on a truck stop that was 75 miles closer. There just aren’t a whole lot of choices in these parts.

No big deal however. We put in enough miles so that we could make it to a truck stop near his home tomorrow night and pull out early enough on Tuesday morning to finish of the rest of the trip. It will mean another 3am start, but he didn’t seem to mind one bit. This goes against my “get as close to the customer as you can the night before” methodology so that I can maximize miles on the following day, but in this case I think I can make the exception. I’m getting tight on hours anyway. Wow! I haven’t said that in a while.

Not exactly a stellar week, but considering the fact that I was able to spend an unexpected day in Wilmington to visit friends and had to hold up a day in Atlanta to pick up a student and get some work done on the truck I guess it worked out OK. If my last load would have been ready when I pulled in this morning I would have run 3150 miles for the week, but the delay burned up too much of my 14hrs, so those last few hundred miles will have to be knocked out first thing Monday morn.


WEEK EIGHT
Monday, February 23rd through Sunday, March 1st
Miles include deadhead

Sulphur Springs, TX to LaGrange, GA (last leg)..…………………..695mi
Austell, GA to Wilmington, NC..........…………………………………….521mi
Smithfield, NC to Gainesville, GA.........………………………………….523mi
Oakwood, GA to Princeton, IL........……………………………………...846mi
Mt. Sterling, IL to Litchfield, IL(first leg)....…………………………..261mi

Total Paid Miles……………………………………..2846 Miles
Actual Miles……………………..2815 Miles

2846 Miles x .43 = $1223.78

 

SuperSnack wrote:

Ouch, that's painful!

I just ran the numbers.

JAN
10,049 Paid Miles - 4 Days Home - 4 Days Layover

FEB
9,035 Paid Miles - 6 1/2 Days Home - 5 Days Layover