CRETE - A Year in Review

WEEK THIRTY EIGHT
Monday, September 21st through Sunday, September 27th


This week started out with a bang. As soon as my 10hr break was complete I had to head on over to Appleton, WI to pickup a late load. It was on a preloaded trailer and ready to go when I arrived and it only took a few minutes to do my drop and hook and I was on my way down the road towards Indiana with a 484 mile run. I wasn’t going to make my delivery appointment and had let dispatch know that before I accepted the load. I was told to get it there as soon as legally possible and they would let the customer know I was on my way.

That sounded good at the time, but when the complete load info came across the Qualcomm I was a little concerned about the final destination because it was going to a grocery store warehouse and they are notoriously famous to not having flexible delivery schedules. I got the feeling that dispatch just wanted this load covered and that they were under the mindset of “get it there and see what happens”. Well, that my work great for them, but the end result could have me sitting around for and extra day waiting for my new delivery appointment to roll around. It wouldn’t be the first time that something like that happened to me.

There wasn’t much I could do about it at the time and I did all that was possible. That was to get the load there ASAP and deal with it when I arrived. All the worry turned out to be for naught though and I was accepted at the delivery point without fanfare and assigned a door. After getting directions to their auxiliary warehouse a couple of miles down the road where the dry freight goes, I made my way on over and was docked shortly there after. Now it was time to start dealing with the lumpers (I hate grocery store warehouses). I still haven’t figured out how this industry managed to incorporate this highway robbery practice.

They order a product, we deliver it and then they insist that a driver unload the product onto their dock or charge the driver (company). I can almost buy that, but this whole breakdown practice is beyond me. How can it possibly be the driver’s (trucking companies) responsibility to stack the product up to the customer’s specs. The driver delivers the product to back door, stacks it on the dock and then is expected to separate each individual product onto individual pallets and wait around for the privilege to do so while constantly battling warehouse personnel for a supply of pallets, a place to put them and arguing about what means they are allowed to use to remove product from the truck. It’s not uncommon to see a power pallet jack sitting next to you while some warehouse commandant insists that you only use a hand jack (oh yeah, you’ll have to wait until the other driver is done using it). Then after hours of throwing freight around and stacking it “just so,” you get to wait around for someone to “feel like” counting it and signing off on the BOL. There have been times when I waited well over an hour for some Union entitled jack ars to grace me with his presence. The only saving grace is that I now only have to deal with this on a very occasional basis, but it is enough to remind my why I so despised pulling refers in my past where it was nothing but a constant battle in these places.

Another fine benefit that comes along with pulling Crete trailers around the country is that I don’t have to worry about unloading a trailer anymore (there are a few rare exceptions, but I’ve never “had” to unload a trailer in 3yrs). All I have to do is ask “how much” and go back to my truck and wait (generally hours) for someone to knock on my door with my signed bill of lading and a hand out for their check. Unless, of course, there is damaged or missing freight which is a whole new rant, especially in the warehouses that don’t allow drivers on the dock, yet hold you responsible for damage and shortages (nice little racket they got going there, eh!)

In today’s case it was an extortion rate of $225 to unload my trailer. Can someone please tell me how they can justify that kind of charge for something that took 2hrs to do? I saw this load and the breakdown. I’ve unloaded many a trucks in my past and even at a moderate pace I could have had the job done by myself in about 4hrs. Just tell me how I can get that sweet job for $60/hr. The sad thing is that the kids unloading these trucks make squat and the Lumper Companies siphon off the good money.

Instead, all I had to do was send in a Qcom request for the $225 and wait for my authorization code. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory and for the most part does. NOT today! The initial request wasn’t being responded too and after 20mins I repeated the request. It was a Monday morning and I had expected a delay of some sorts because dispatch is always buried with the multitude of problems that develop over any particular weekend and what I can only assume to be thousands of drivers screaming at them for loads, miles and various forms of bellyaching. I was now jumping in with me little dilemma.

The first message was ignored as was the second and by this time I was about 45mins into the unloading process and starting to get annoyed by the fact that the world didn’t seem to care about my existence (after twelve years of driving a truck you would think I would have grown accustom to this by now). I hate calling in, especially on Monday mornings, but what choice did I have at this point. I needed $225 and relying on patience wasn’t working out too well for me at this point. Of course, calling dispatch was useless and only succeeded in treating me to the standard hold music for 10mins or so before I was unceremoniously disconnected. A second phone call was terminated in like fashion and I was still being ignored on the Qcom and found myself one hour into the process. I didn’t really know what direction to take next on this one. I’ve had to deal with delays in the past, but never to this extent when it comes to getting lumper approval. This was the first time I was thankful that it was taking a long time to get unloaded. I started taking round about means and called the main switch board in the hopes of getting through. That one almost worked because I was actually connected to a real person who then forwarded me to the appropriate dispatcher for the region I was in, but once again I found myself on hold. I was determined to be a good boy and wait this one out, but once again I hit the 10min brick wall and the call was terminated. Next call was placed to payroll, (they are the ones who actually give out the Comchek code once dispatch authorizes the actual lumper fee).

The first question was, “have you gotten authorization from dispatch?”
As I gear up to explain my situation, “Not yet, I…”
“Where are you delivering?”
“I’m in Indiana, but…”
“Please hold”, click, hold music once again. Uhg!

Some may have been frustrated, but I’m actually enjoying this. I’m starting to win. I actually talked to a real person this time. Next round. I call back payroll once again and when they answer I immediately jump into my sales pitch, beginning with “I’m well over one hour into this, please hear me out”. That seemed to work and I was actually forwarded to someone that “should” be able to help me out. Once again the story was repeated and as I was being told my phone call would be forwarded to Indiana dispatch I managed to get out a “NOOOOOOOO!” just in time to hear the click followed by hold music. SH--!

One more call to payroll and this time I was a little more persistent and insisted that they make some calls from their end to get this worked out because the status quo simply wasn’t cutting it. Someone was going to be knocking on my door any minute now and I needed to have a check ready for them and I didn’t even want to think about what a mess I would have on my hands if Crete deemed the Lumper fee as too high after the trailer was already unloaded. I haven’t had to deal with that up to this point with Crete, but with the way things were working out today, this would be the first time.

Finally, after a little more back and forth this issue was concluded and when the bill was presented I was ready with check in hand. I couldn’t help thinking, “That could have went a little smoother”.

Now it was time to get the MT call in and see where they were going to send me next. Apparently nowhere because my reward for getting dispatch out of a tight spot and delivering a load with a questionable outcome at the customer and a couple of hours of fighting for a lumper approval was to be told that there was no freight available at the moment, “give us 2hrs”. In about ½ that time they sent me a load offer for the following morning. Isn’t that just peachy! Actually, it was. After all, I had already put in almost 500 miles for the day and couldn’t really expect anything else. This load also had just short of 200 deadhead miles on it which would allow me to finish the day off with close to 11hrs of drive time before I hit my 14hr limit for the day. The day wasn’t without frustration, but in the end I was quit pleased with the final result of good miles and a great 800+ mile run heading to Oklahoma ahead of me, not to mention an anytime drop and hook delivery when I got there.

Tuesday was an effortless day of driving, all I had to do was pickup my preloaded trailer and head on over to Oklahoma. My final destination was just out of reach as far as miles that I could drive in a day and I opted to put in for the night at the Downsteam Casino on I-44 just across the MO/OK boarder as opposed to spending the night at one of the Turnpike service plaza. At least I would be able to catch a game on TV instead of sitting in the truck with nothing more than this update to occupy my time.

I started out Wednesday as soon as the logbook allowed and made my delivery by 6am and hoped for a good load out. I assumed my early arrival would facilitate this goal. It didn’t! I ended up with a load going to Louisiana (465mi) that didn’t pickup until 11am with a delivery at 11am the following morning. The delay in the pickup didn’t really matter though because I have once again run into problems with hours due to the fact that I was not able to work in a reset last week (becoming a nagging, reoccurring problem) which has left me in a position where I only have 6hrs to work with today anyways. So, no harm, no foul. I can’t exactly expect spectacular miles when I have no hours to run them with.

I had plenty of time to waist and took my time getting to the shipper. Once there it only took 30mins to get loaded and I was on my way with little more than an hour of drive time left. The remainder of my work day was taken up by a stop off at a nearby Wal-Mart to stock up on supplies and a short hop down the road to a nondescript truck stop where I ran out of hours and called an end to my day at the prime hour of 11:30am.

My forced early conclusion to yesterday due to lack of hours also forced me to get started rather early on this Thursday. Not that I minded, but it would have been nice if I could have driven in yesterday and started today out with a fresh 14hr clock from my point of delivery, but instead I would have to drive out the final 6hrs in the wee hours of the morning.

The delivery went off without a hitch and the MT call garnered me a load that picked up on the other side of town. That was the last thing I had expected in the thriving metropolis of Rustin, LA and I wasn’t going to complain on bit. It was a load of specialized transport pallets ready to go with a final destination of Foxboro, MA (1551mi). Great miles, horrible destination, especially since I had a request in for hometime and Massachusetts was just about as far away from Arizona as you can get. This was obviously a computer generated load offer and all I would have had to do was send a message to dispatch requesting something more conducive to hometime, but with the mileage this load had on it along with the knowledge that I would be almost 3000 miles away from the house once unloaded was very appealing. I didn’t even have to worry about being stuck with northeast freight once unloaded because I would be overdue for hometime and could count on west bound freight.

And to top it all off, I was only gaining 2½hrs on my logbook tomorrow. With this run I had just enough time to fit in my reset and have a fresh 70hrs available to get my butt back to Phoenix without the frustration of worrying about having enough hours everyday not to mention, it should make for a favorable mileage total for this week to boot.

All I had to do was drive across town for a not so quick live load and start my trip towards Beantown. I was all but out of hours for the day once again and shutdown a couple of hours later at 3pm. The following day offered up 11hrs of drive time and I drove as far as I could before once again running out of hours. Tomorrow was the day that I was gaining no appreciable hours and was faced with all of 3hrs available. It was at this time that I had planed on doing my reset and had hoped to spend this Saturday somewhere entertaining, but that wasn’t the case. There just are not many interesting places along I-81 in southern VA to choose from and I ended up parking it in a Petro. Definitely not my idea of a good time, but I didn’t really have any choice. At least I would be saving some money because there was no place to spend any.

It was a bit boaring to say the least but Sunday eventually rolled around and I got back my 70hrs and I was ready to burn up the miles. I got a very early start and made it up to Massachusetts and put myself in position to make my delivery first thing Monday morning.

Good week for a pleasant change of pace!


WEEK THIRTY EIGHT
Monday, Sep 21st through Sunday, Sep 27th
Miles include deadhead

Appleton, WI to Bluffton, IN…………………………………………….484mi
Minooka, IL to Ochelata, OK…………………………………………….843mi
Sapulpa, OK to Ruston, LA……………………………………………...465mi
Ruston, LA to Foxboro, MA…………………………………………….1551mi

Total Paid Miles…………………………………………3343mi
Actual Miles………………………………3376mi


3343mi x .44cpm = $1470.92

 

SuperSnack wrote:

Are they kickin' yet. Hope you are feeling better.

Zero1234 wrote:

I think you might be onto something there. I also think that maybe they have forgotten just how good they have it at the top end of the pay scale and need to look around and see what starting pay looks like around the industry today. I know of one regular on this thread that has made a reassessment of his current situation and seems to see things with a little more optimism lately. If you have it too good for too long you may just forget what "bad" is.

Welcome to the thread Zero.

Mdtruker wrote:

Made it to the Crete side did ya? Good deal, I think you'll be much happy with the dry van end of it. I don't want to put down the Shaffer side, so I'll just leave it at that. To each their own I guess.

I'm fortunate enough to have a APU that powers everything. Before that I was delegated to foods I could heat up in a variaty of DC powered cooking devices that can be found at any truckstop. They are time consuming and require some pre-planing but they were better than nothing. You can even get little coffee makers. Word of advise, don't mess with the DC powered toasters. I don't know what I'm going to do when they want to trade in my truck. It might just be enough to push me into buying my own truck.

I don't watch much TV, but when I take a stab at it the reception is ok and the channels are hi-def. The one problem you will come across is that it's all or nothing. You get a perfect picture or no picture. No more watching a fuzzy station. Reception is better around the large cities as one would expect and there are many more channels available than before because each station can now transmit multiple feeds. When I'm out in the sticks there is basically no reception.

I've also seen an increase in the number of drivers that have a DirectTV dish set up.

Nothing to speak of. The Wilmer yard has a little set up, but that's it as far as I know.


Moonshadow wrote:

There may be something to that because I see a large number of Crete drivers in blue trucks. They are even putting Crete drivers into brand new Shaffer Internationals. There are days when I see more blue trucks than red ones. This was the scene in Columbus the other night.