CRETE - A Year in Review

Yes it is, and yes you can.

 

The operative word being: Jest. It's a pleasure to see someone capable of taking a ribbing without getting angry, defensive, and resentful. After all, this is a trucker's forum, not a spelling bee.

 

Well here’s one for you… I’m sitting at the Pilot in Kanona, NY - 75 miles South of Rochester where I deliver and it‘s raining non-stop. All of the sudden the dash instruments come on and smoke begins to fill the inside of the cab. After opening the windows and airing out the truck, I see that the smoke is coming from the electrical compartment from behind the driver’s seat, and a lot of it. With fire extinguisher in one hand and a screw driver in the other, I pry open the electrical compartment and discover that everything is drenched from the rain leaking from the outside and apparently has shorted out most of the cab’s inside services. None of the cigarette lighter outlets work, no inside lights, qualCOMM is down, air conditioning knob will not switch over to heat and for the grand finale, I can’t turn the truck off.

I call breakdown and tell them that the dash instruments went bizerk and everything shorted out behind the driver’s seat. The first question they ask me, “is it raining out?” Apparently many of the newer freightliners all have similar issues and according to breakdown, I was very lucky. I’m not sure what he meant by that other than I was sleeping when this happened and it could have been worse… he didn’t go into details. The cab now has a fragrance of burnt wire and I’m sitting at the Rochester Freightliner, what are my chances of picking up one of those new Prostars or better yet, a Lonestar look‘n like I just came from the future… at least I won’t have to wear snorkeling gear to bed.

 

I've got an '05 and it has never broke down on me, Not looking forward to getting a new truck when the one I have has never let me down. I've heard horror stories about those Cascadias.

 

And I'll back you all the way...if it weren't for my Firefox's spell check, I'd be making up a bunch of words myself - thank you Mr. Spell-check inventorsmt035real American hero:smt034 ----kinda' sounds like a commercial for Bud Lite doesn't it...'Anheuser Busch - St. Louis, MO...please drink responsibly') Ohhhh, sorry, got carried away.

Looks like I'm stuck with the 1500mi week. Load offer 1 -nothing for 2 hours. Then a 180mi run, that dels 30 min after my 14th hr, and not enough time to get an 8hr sleeper split or a 10hr full break. Then an offer an hour later from Cincinnati to DeSoto, TX that delivers Monday.... I offer to pull that one to either Wilmer or Memphis and T-call...They decide Memphis, but once I accept, the delivery changes to Saturday morning, and no mention of t-calling or response to my question about 'what happened to the t-call?' I think once I'm there, I'll get Deland to route me home and start looking local...I can't take this crap of staying out 4, 6, 8 weeks for an 8000 mi./month average anymore. With this average, I will be taking a $10,000+ cut in pay this year. I can stock shelves at the local Wally, and work security on weekends and make this kind of money, plus sleep at home and eat real food every night....(I am starting to fade to the dark side again) That's all for now before I start getting nasty....again...

 

I here you SSB, right now I am on track to end up my year (ends 10/14) with just under 112,000 miles. That's 25,000 miles below my next worst year. Even if I decide to extend my time out to 6-7 weeks at a time instead of 4 I still won't come close. I rest part of the blame on my terminal manager who has not lifted a finger to try to improve things. I was told in orientation that the number one function of a terminal manager was to ensure the productivity of each of his drivers and in that regard mine (Scott Clay in Columbus) is a miserable failure.

 

Your "forgetfulness" (is THAT a word???) is duly noted!! Have a great day!!

Boo