CRETE - A Year in Review

I would have been content not knowing that considering the fact that I've been here since Friday Noon and don't have a load until Monday morning. If in fact we are dispatched on a first empty first dispatched (I have always had some doubts about this) I would certainly like to know how you where dispatched on a load before myself and others in this lot when you have been sitting for less time.Although by the time Monday rolls around neither one of us are going to be rich from the fruits of our labor. May I ask how many miles you had for the week prior to this load and where you spent your empty time and where are you on the pay scale if that's not being too intrusive.

Beings how I have absolutely nothing better to do I might be able to pass a portion of that time discussing this interesting development with dispatch. I'm sure they would love to have yet another driver busting their chops.

 

Here's a first, I'm actually going to post an update early. I would love to wait until Monday to post this so as to tell you all about my exciting weekend of driving. But since that would entail little more than "I sat in the truck stop for three days" there is no reason to not put it up now.


WEEK NINE
Monday, March 2nd through Sunday, March 8th

Well, it looks like another week has passed by the wayside. Considering the way things have been going of late, this one has been stellar in comparison to recent weeks. I began my Monday in Litchfield, IL with my new student in tow. We were in the middle of a run that was destine for SE Georgia and still had a fair amount of distance to go. Due to a lack of parking options the previous night I was forced to shut down with over an hour of drive time left on my log. This ultimately made it impossible to make it to my delivery destination today by about an hour and would prevent me from delivering this load early.

Not an ideal situation because freight in that part of the country has been very hard to come by and putting in my MT call the following morning was almost sure to cost me dearly in terms of down time. There wasn’t anything I could do about it though and we set out to get as far as we could. During the first few days with my new student the subject of home time had come up. He wanted to know how often he could expect to get to the house. I went into some detail about my success, and lack thereof, in regards to this but also pointed out that he lived in a prime location as far as home time went. He lived just outside of Atlanta and I pointed out that he would have many more opportunities than I did. This trip would prove my point.

Many of our loads have an open window delivery and afford some flexibility. This one was one of those loads and it just so happened that we were passing through Atlanta. Since we didn’t have enough time to get to where we were headed today anyway I told him to call the wife and we would arrange a nice little layover so he could spend a little time with the family. It would only be a 12hr visit, but it beats spending a night in the truck.

There was a Wal-Mart a short distance from his home where I could spend the night. It would mean that I would have to hold up about 3hrs from our final destination and start out at 2am the following morning, but he was all for it and I spent the night just outside of Atlanta (and found another covenanted out of the way parking spot).

Tuesday started out early as planned and after some back road driving to get us back on course to avoid out of route miles we made our drop delivery and put in the MT call. As suspected we got the “no freight” message, but it was much more promising than some of the recent messages. This one told me to check back in 4 hours. Now, that doesn’t mean that there will be a load at that time, but it sure beats a message telling me to check back in tomorrow.

All I had to do now was find a place to park and wait. This usually isn’t a big deal, but today I was in the middle of nowhere and the closest truck stops were 20-30 miles away. The trick was picking the right one. Each was in a different direction and depending on where our next load took us it could result in significant our of route miles. I wasn’t overly concerned about the miles as far as the company was concerned. After all, they sent me out here and couldn’t fault me for those miles. My sole concern was the wasted log time that would be associated with a fruitless, unpaid tour of the local country side.

It was basically a crap shoot as to which way to go. I almost never win in these situations, but today would prove otherwise. I had been sitting at the customer for about an hour before they kicked me out and after a 30min drive to my chosen truck stop I pulled in to park for what I assumed would be a lengthy wait. Not so! Within minutes of shutting the truck off the Qcom came to life with a load offer. Wow, that was unexpected. And to top it off, I actually picked the right direction and was only 30 miles away from the pickup.

We were to pickup a preloaded trailer that was scheduled to be ready later in the day, but as usual I headed on over to see if it was ready. If not I would be waiting there instead of in a truck stop. However, if it was ready to go we would be on our way to AL(465mi). Not the longest run in the world, but it was a drop/hook on both ends and I could deliver it ASAP. Many drivers complain about short runs, but I’ll take ‘em all day long when they are set up like this.

I was hoping we would be able to get this load to AL before the day was done. We would be completely out of hours after dropping this load, but it would at least put us on top of the load list for the following day’s freight. But too many things were stacked against us. Things like the delays between loads and more so, our little stopover in ATL that resulted in starting the day 2hrs earlier than would have been necessary if we had driven out all of our hours the day before. I didn’t bother me because the trainee was able to spend time with his family and I know how important that is, but it does demonstrate how a decision made the previous day can effect productivity in the future.

The final result of this was that we came up about 30 miles short and put in for the night at 4pm. We were still in a good position to get to the customer very early in the morning, but now I have to worry about showing up to early to drop our trailer. Delivering yesterday afternoon would have been the perfect. In doing so I would have been able to park for the night at a local truck stop and wait for my next load offer. That would mean that I could pull out at the optimum time and not start my 14hr clock any sooner than necessary.

But this was not the perfect situation and I now had to time this load in such a way that I would hopefully arrive early enough to get a load out, but not so early that I would have to wait for many hours before picking up a mid-morning delivery should that end up being the case. Many times in the past I have delivered very early in the morning hours only to get a load that didn’t pickup for hours which basically makes it impossible to put any miles in for the day.

I eventually decided to show up at 5am and hope for the best. Freight in this area is usually good, but recently it has been very hit or miss. The MT call went in and within moments I received a single load offer going to my childhood state of IA(669mi) with a 10am appointment just outside of Nashville. Sweeeeet! That gave us just enough time to stop along the way to fit in a shower and arrive one hour before our appointment time.

This was a live load, but I wasn’t going to complain. Sure beats sitting around waiting for a load. There were a number of trucks getting loaded and we had to wait for our actual dock time, but once in the door it didn’t take more than 20mins to get the green light and we were once again on our way to make yet another drop delivery.

That day ended in a truck stop on the back roads of MO and Thursday began with a short hop up the road to make our delivery at a Wal-Mart DC. The subsequent MT call was quickly answered with a single load offer destine for Roanoke, TX (769mi) with the luxurious drop/hook designation on both ends of the run. Drop/Hook, absolutely wonderful. Texas as a destination, especially on a Friday; potential disaster. It’s no secret that outbound freight from Texas is hard to come by to say the least, but over the weekend, a layover of some duration it is all but a certainty.

This load was actually scheduled to deliver Saturday, but I was in a position to have it there by Friday morning and intended to do so. When we pulled into Joplin for the night on Thursday I actually considered putting in a reset to clean my slate of hours because I was at a point where I would be bumping my 70hr clock for the next few days, resulting in shutting down after 6-7hrs. In good freight times I would have done just that so that I could put in some solid miles over the weekend, but knowing where I was going I had to assume that a 34hr reset wouldn’t be a challenge.

With that in mind I pulled out for Texas first thing Friday morning and dropped my trailer before noon, only to get what I had fully expected, but to the far end of the spectrum. “Extremely short on freight, find a place to park and check back after 3pm tomorrow.” As bad as that sounded I realized that was probably an optimistic estimate and I hold out little hope of getting a load out before Monday morning, as was the case two weeks ago when I found myself with an empty trailer in Texas on a Friday morning.


My fear of being abandoned in Texas for yet another weekend came to fruition as I had suspected. I had been instructed to check back with dispatch after 3pm the following day when I dropped my trailer Friday noon. Well that sealed my fate for at least a day and by the time 1pm rolled around on Saturday my impatience finally got the best of my and I sent in a short query as to my situation. The reply was amazingly quick, “May be Monday morn”. Although that was not unexpected the confirmation of the situation was unsettling to put it mildly. The utter frustration was emphasized further by the load offer that eventually presented itself to me hours later in the form of a MMA punch in the face. I guess that statement isn’t entirely true, for had that been the case at least I would have been mercifully unconscious for a good portion of the time. Not only was I in the midst of mind numbing three day layover, but now I had the prospect of a glorious 135mi run to look forward to first thing Monday morning. That in itself wasn’t the real stinger as much as what I currently assume will once again find me in the grand state of TX with an empty trailer mere hours later with a very strong possibility of yet another “no freight” message.

Dispatch did say that I “should have no problem getting a load out when empty”, but I’m not quite as optimistic as that fine dispatcher who spends each of his nights after a days work in his own bed. Monday will eventually play itself out and the final results may make for an interesting story. I have never called dispatch out on the matt, but should my suspicions develop into reality it would certainly be a catalyst for just such a confrontation. I’m probably getting myself worked up for nothing, but with so much time on my hands and mind there is little else to occupy my imagination.

There is one other little development to address before bringing this weeks babble to a close. My trainee, a gentleman in his mid fifties, who had decided to get back into truck driving after his business had failed in this dismal economy had decided to get a hotel room for the night. He had offered to share the room with me, but I was looking forward to some solitude. I also needed to stay with the truck to wait for my load offer, although in hind sight I wasn’t missing anything.

Anyways, I called him on Saturday to let him know we would be sitting until Monday morning only to find out, as he put it, “I’m pulling the plug”. Apparently he just couldn’t handle this fine lifestyle. Something about not being comfortable not knowing where he was going from one day to the next and spending so much time away from the family. I can’t help but wonder just what it was that he expected when he accepted a job as an OTR driver. He had come to this conclusion sometime during the night before (I suspect much sooner) and informed me that his wife was already enroute from Atlanta to pick him up. He also let me know that he planed on showing up at the terminal Monday morning to lay down his demand. He wanted a regional gig, take it or leave it. I’m sure that is going to work our just fine for him.

I can understand his discontent but must admit that I lost my respect of the man with the way he went about things. Not only did he jump off the truck knowing full well that he would not return, he had his wife come by to pickup his belongings. At that time I informed her that he still had my spare key and asked for its’ return before they left town. That was done, but he didn’t even have the fortitude to do it himself and once again sent his wife to return the key. I could see the shame and anger in her eyes. I have little doubt that a somewhat heated discussion was in the works between them.

This job certainly isn’t for everyone.

This week was going so good until it hit the skids in Texas. I had grand hopes of a 3000+ week. Even though that didn’t happen I am somewhat content with what will be a decent paycheck.





WEEK NINE
Monday, March 2nd through Sunday, March 8th
Miles include deadhead

Litchfield, IL to Vidalia, GA(last leg)………………………………736mi
Statesboro, GA to Cullman, AL…………………………………….465mi
Franklin, TN to Mt Pleasant, IA……………………………………669mi
Hannibal, MO to Roanoke, TX……………………………………..769mi


Total Paid Miles……………………………………..2639 Miles
Actual Miles……………………..2686 Miles

2686 Miles x .43 = $1154.98 + $125 training pay = $1279.98

 

I suspected as much. You dedicated guys operate within your own system and the regional drivers get preferential treatment to facilitate weekly hometime. In the past the regional drivers always got substantially fewer miles, but when freight is slow like this it tends to effect the OTR guys in a detrimental way and the difference in miles are not what they once where. Not only do they get the freight to get them home, they also flood the board on Monday morning when they come back out. I sure wish this economy would stabilize again.

If this keeps up I'm going to take a good look at the Western regional. The miles would drop a bit, but at least I would be spending the weekends at home instead of in a truckstop.

 

I guess it all washes out in the end. You ran 3500mi and grossed around $1300 and I put in 2600+mi and grossed $1279. Now if I could just get 3500mi I would be grinning ear to ear.

Thanks for your reply by the way.