CRETE - A Year in Review

I do miss the load select. I'm sure it saves Crete some money with DH.

That computer can do a lousy job of picking the next load. A case in point:
Monday I delivered to Bedford Heights, OH, a suburb of Ckeveland (snowed like crazy all day) I was mt at 1400 and got an offer that picked up in Talmadge, OH Tuesday at 1000 and delivered in NJ Wednesday at 1600. Considering that I still had 9+ hours on my 14 a 440 mile next 40 hours didn't seem like a very efficient use of time or equipment. I ask if there was anything more productive and was told "sorry, that's all that's left" so I asked of I could deliver early. Didn't wait for an answer and headed towards lodi for the rest of the day. I get to lodi and they had taken me off that load and offered me 2 other loads, one an Alsides load in Ashtabula with 3 stops heading to Maryland, another picking up in Beach City, OH heading to Ennis, TX with an open delivery. Computers are great but the still can't reason like a well intentioned human.

 

I never drove for Crete, but in my 3 1/2 years at Shaffer a lot of old timers told me that the biggest problem with Shaffer was Crete. I could see that myself. Good jobs get better as time passes, it was the reverse at Shaffer. Every month there was something new to screw the driver, slow the truck down (62 is ridiculous), reduce pay, reduce bonuses, crack down on fuel solutions, more log BS, regional dispatch system (one of the dumbest ideas in the history of trucking), and my personal favorite, keep hiring loads of drivers while the ones you have sit around waiting for freight. Pay was good, I left at .46, but way too much micromanaging. One of the benefits of driving is the degree of independence. You lose a lot of that when you have to deal with all the petty crap.

Crete suffers from the same problem that has plagued a lot of companies. The company is built up by a smart man who realizes that his drivers are his bread and butter, then the son (or son-in-law) who couldn't back a truck into a hole and has no idea how things work out there takes over. Then implements all kinds of ignorant policies because he thinks he is so smart.

On a personal note, I never drove for the real crap companies like Swift, Werner, JB Hunt. I drove for 3 OTR companies in 9 years. Millis, Landstar and Shaffer. Shaffer was definitely third place. It wasn't too bad in the beginning. Probably a lot like the old timers knew it.

 

Interesting you feel that regional dispatch is one of the dumbest ideas. I am a rookie. Please explain.

 

I couldn't agree more!

One thing - slowing the trucks down to 62mph...

If a truck gets 6.0 mpg at 65mph, and runs 120,000 miles/year, then in theory it will burn 20,000 gallons/year. If slowing the truck down 3mph results in a .3mpg improvement, then the truck should in theory burn 19,047 gallons/year (120,000/6.3 =19,047)

A 953 gallon improvement in diesel fuel equals - at the current average nationwide price of $3.197/gallon - a savings of $3,046.74 per truck. If there are 4,000 trucks in the fleet, then in theory a company would save $12,186,964 per year in diesel costs.

A $12.1M savings, and it costs them nothing but their driver's time.

I understand why they do this. I don't agree with it, but I understand.

 

Which of course, they are not paying for.

 

Crete's zone dispatch means that the country is sliced up into zones, and each zone has a dispatcher and load planner...you hit that area, and get an offer out of that zone, but once you leave that zone into another, you deal with a different dispatcher/planner team...instead of many company's dispatch system where the driver deals with his/her assigned dispatcher every time, who then handles all the communication between the load planners and driver...The positive of a dedicated one-on-one dispatch system is that the dispatcher gets to know the drivers habits, ability to run, likes or dislikes...and is in charge of handling problems...and is usually at the ready to answer the Q/comm when the driver has a problem or question. Here, when one zone gets unbalanced (ie more drivers than usual) then those messages stack up and many times go unanswered making the driver feel as if they are ignoring him/her. Zone dispatch systems are the old fashioned way things were done decades ago...It's scary that Crete still uses it, and recently switched Shaffer to it...

Since we rarely have a choice, I don't see why they don't just start preplanning us one load ahead all the time, and go to the one-on-one dispatch system. It simplifies the freight hauling, makes all our jobs (office and driver) much more efficient...none of this 'flying by the seat of our pants' feeling all the time.

(One on one is where there is one dispatcher that 30 or 40 drivers he or she is responsible for, and every company I worked for that had it, paid their dispatcher bonus' based on their driver board average miles, driver retention etc...that way their efforts and ability to keep the driver moving and happy paid off every month)

 

I hate to be a cheerleader for the company, but my YTD gross pay this year will be similar to '07, which was my highest grossing year so far. In fact I may be slightly higher this year. My '07 ending miles were 130,241...this year I'll end up in the mid 120's...and have been maxed out at .47 since '07... I don't see a drop in gross pay, just miles...which means, I worked more for the same money in '07...I don't really see a problem with working less for the same... (I'm guessing it's detention, stop, shag and breakdown pay that made the difference because making the same CPM and running less would result in less gross pay)

As for the load select and the mileage bonus...after the wonderful '09 season the industry had...I'm #### glad that we did away with the mileage bonus and raised the pay across the board...just remember, when we lost the bonus(or the last 1/2 of the bonus), we gained practical miles...which has more than offset the bonus for me...I mean as of my November MMR, I am around 3% OOR, prior to the practical miles switch, that OOR would have been 8 or 10%.

Crete still has it's faults, and is by no means the company they were, or the king of the hill company that they believe they are, but I can't imagine working anywhere else, running legal, and still making $60k+ 4 out of the last 5 years without running 150-160,000 miles a year...work harder for same or less just doesn't make sense to me.

 

Hey ET...I hope it doesn't take long for you to regain your hearing after I talked your ear off the other day...was cool to be able to sit and chat for more than 5 minutes.... Hopefully I didn't further convince you that I'm really as crazy and grumpy as many of my post's here make me out to be...Cya' in the funny papers

 

au contraire mon ami, we have profit sharing...you may not see it now, but in the long run, when you leave and/or retire, your profit sharing balance will have been increased by the higher profit margin...maybe not as much as we'd like, but when you retire, and there isn't any Social Security anymore...every penny counts.

(Holy Crap....I'm starting to sound like I like it here>>>>Go Crete Go, Win Crete Win...If You work for us, you'll Grin Grin Grin.....ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...bang)