CRETE - A Year in Review

a confused troll at that

 

Hey ET, maybe he meant to say that he has 3450 miles to show for the last 7 weeks. LOL

ETA Does anybody else hate these gay smilies they have here?

 

It's a dirty job but someones gotta do it...

 

I've heard some drivers talking about the Pilot's slingshot USB network. Someone said it's connected to all 3 major wireless networks. But I don't know for sure.

And as for things picking up(a comment made by Superiors dispatchers) well........ in spots. I personally have seen an increase, but the freight 'black holes' still seem to be the OKLATX area, the PA/NJ trap door, and the rest of purgatory(all points N/E of PA/NJ). I delivered in Ardmore last Friday and got the 'short on freight' msg... But I expected that. And I did as I was told by my F/M...1st thing Sat. I reminded OP's of my availability (with the disclaimer that my F/M told me to do it so I didn't tick off anybody at the other end of the Q/C) Only to be greeted by a load offer. Muskogee, that P/U Sunday night to N.Platte, NE for anytime. I timed it out great, except for the wind. I missed all the snow and ice(sorry, didn't mean to cuss like that). But the wind knocked me way down on my fuel mileage. With 16,000#'s I only managed a meager 4.88 mpg on the dash counter. Once I made it safely to NE, a whole day early, I noticed the alternate Crete drop yard, which looked like a Flying J fuel stop, except the dozen or more Crete's parked there. So naturally I was expecting to sit. But after running 625 mi in that wind, I didn't fight the 'no freight' msg. So I get in, pick up the only decent trailer(there were others, but all of which needed repairs), all my trailer needed was a major sweep job. (I wish orientation class would show the new drivers which end of the broom pushes the dirt) Then headed off to park it for the night or so and informed Op's of my lack of hours for the day. I get the curtains hung, and get all cozy. Beep. Load offer?.? Surely not... Sure enough, North Platte to Memphis... I peek out of the curtains, and most of the Crete's that were there before me are still sitting there...What gives I asked. It seems as though a load had to be T'called at the W'mart D/C that wasn't a W'mart load...Safety shut the driver down there...why, I didn't know. The load had to be in Memphis ASAP. (actually they wanted it there by Tuesday-1500, but since it's Monday evening and I'm out of hours, they said that the customer was aware of the situation, and I needed to expedite the delivery as early as I legally could.) My kind'a load for sure. So off I went back to W'mart. Once I was there, I was met by a rather puzzled security...oh wait, Loss Prevention Associate, sorry.... He had no clue as to what I was trying to do, but checked me and my now clean trailer in and said to see 'so and so' in the Crete office for my paperwork. Well, I got my loaded trailer, and just like it's suppose to be, the paperwork was in the nose box and off I go. The outbound L.P. Associate was just as puzzled, but extremely friendly. So as my attempt to dazzle her with brilliance failed, I baffled her with B.S. Oh, and a touch of the ole' Snackbar humor didn't hurt either.(hey it works on most DOT officers, it was worth a shot) And out I went. Since I was going to do a pre-trip on the trailer in the morning, I didn't hit all the spots you're suppose to, I made sure the lights and tires were ok, and headed for the 'J', I even backed into the very same parking place I had just left. (even a blind squirrel will find a nut once in a while)I was way over my 14, but since I didn't have to log drive time until after a break, I was still ok in the eyes of safety... Multiple changes of duty status within one city/township may be logged as one(you can tell I've used that one before can't ya'). Upon doing my pre-trip in the morning, I noticed the right turn signal and marker light was gone off the middle of the trailer. Since everything else worked, I would get it fixed en route since one of my fuel stops was Lincoln, the fuel-monitor dude will catch it and make sure I don't try to sneak out with-out repairs...Which I planned on getting fixed there anyway, but it made him feel as though he was doing his job catching it. Sure enough, 3 hours after the shop opened, I was fixed and on my way. There were no directions to the delivery in the computer, but I knew the area where it delivered, and bright and early Wed morning, I was dropped and hooked and ready to move a little more before having to call it a day. And to my surprise, after another reminder beep of my available hrs, a load. Jackson to the Dark Side of the Moon...aka Ennis, TX for Friday morning. That's the bad news, the worse news, once dispatched on it, the load weight shows 47000 lbs on an APU truck, (in the imfamos words of Scooby Doo 'ruh ro') and it doesn't pick up until 9am Thursday. The good news, I have managed to pull an 'ET-ini' (an ET-ini is much like a Houdini but instead of escaping from a death defying situation, it's simply managing to pull a decent week out of what starts out to be a bust of a week, I'll give him the credit for a new slang term, since he seems to be one of the few drivers that manage to do that more often than anyone else I've ever seen) I started out Sunday night at midnite with 0 miles, and by the time I deliver Friday morning, I will have turned between 24-2500 miles, and will be empty early on Friday morning so my name will be a little closer to the top of the list, but it is Easter...So who knows what that'll do to the already bad freight in that area.

A strange thing has been happening lately. My load miles are actually higher than my actual(odometer) miles. Or would have been on this last load except I went a little out of route...I went Lincoln-K/C-St. Louis-Memphis rather than through Harrisonville - Springfield MO and over the river and through the mountains to grandma's warehouse we go..... After all that out of route, I still only was 30 or so miles over what Crete paid. The Lincoln to Jackson last week actually paid me 40ish over what my laptop and odometer said.

Sorry for the long winded post...I haven't been doing much posting lately, needed to get it out of my system..

CYA'll

 

Always good reading your posts, Supersnackbar.

Bummed to hear that Eastern PA hasn't improved...I'm set to deliver in Pittston (near Scranton) there at the end of my best week in a while...2700 miles, and was hoping to keep rolling this weekend.

 

The DOW kinda' matters...to the average John/Jane Q Public... The average person bases their spending on whether or not the DOW is in relatively stable times. This in turn gives the economy what it needs, consumer confidence. When the DOW is on a down slide or on a wild roller coaster trend, people tend to pull back and refrain from spending above and beyond bare necessity...But once it settles, people begin to loosen the purse strings a bit. I just read today, Well Fargo(I think it was Wells) is posting a big profit in the 1st qtr. The latest unemployment numbers posted this morning aren't as high as they had expected. If we can keep Fox News and CNN from looking for the dark cloud around this glimmer of a silver lining, it might be a very small baby step in the right direction.

As for Crete not caring...I have felt both ways in this matter. But I have been talking to many drivers, and have experienced it myself...Crete is going out of it's way to try to keep people that want to stay here, here... I talked to a driver in OK the other day that had 3 deaths in his family within a few months...Even when he tried to return his truck because he was going to take some extended time off to settle family matters, they were reluctant to make him return his truck. And even kept him on the company insurance, without asking him to keep up with the weekly payments for his premiums up front while he was out (they did need him to pay it, they paid it initially, but worked it out so he could pay them back in payments once he returned to duty)

 

Getting as bad as LongBowl

 

That's nice they let him keep his truck while he dealt with the family issues. That way he could do his business and not worry about losing his job, huh?.
The DOW is up today, my online trading is up about $560 since Monday. YEA!! I can't sell quite yet. The 8 months I've been doing it I'm still at a big loss, but it's so fun.
I made it home!! One less truck on the road. So you all can average the 3500 miles a week now.
I get my TWIC card tomorow. Maybe I'll get loads out of a port, while the TWICless are waiting for loads.

EverTrucker, did you get stuck in Michigan with a no freight deal?