CRETE - A Year in Review

On the Walmart pay deal, I'm not sure why Crete paid me the way they did. I was dispatched on the popup fleet on a Friday. I ran for them Saturday and part of Sunday which means I shouldn't be paid until I complete the mission. However, Crete paid me the deadhead miles and 1 day's worth of pay on the payperiod that ended on the day I was dispatched...not the short week I need the daily pay to offset the low miles that the popup fleet caused. I haven't figured out whether the daily pay or the per mile pay would have been greater, so I'm not sure whether or not I did ok on the whole deal, or if I got screwed on the deal again.

 

Not always. In some states, such as California, If you live there and report to work in the state you will fall under that states rules. So if you are a crete driver and report to a terminal in california you are considered employed in california.

 

Has nothing to do with right to work, or to be fired for no reason. Employment is governed by the state you are hired in, not where you live.
You have a dispute with crete over labor laws, it will be decided in NE.

Taxes, workers comp, and unemployment are all handled differently.

 

I ran into a 27 year Crete driver the other day who is on RDO 45. He averages about 3,200 miles a week and brings home about $80K a year. My trainer is on RDO 21 and averages 2,900 after 10 years with the co. Our battery pack a/c broke last week and we've been idling all the time (40%), but not one peep out of Lincoln about it.

 

My trainer got chewed out for fueling at the Flying J in Sioux Falls instead of the Love's. We cost the company a whole 50 cents. Apparently they don't think about the fact we would have spent more than that driving from the Flying J where we were parked just to save a penny a gallon. We then got a preplan on a 1200 miler to El Paso, and the fuel solution said to fill up at the same Flying J they didn't want us filling up at just a few hours earlier.

 

Welcome to the wonderful world of micro-management. Precisely why I did not become a company driver there after selling my truck as an owner operator.

 

I wonder if over reliance on computers by the company to determine fueling, routing, etc could be causing a lot of these conflicts with common sense. I watched a Crete video on logging and the lady narrating said several blatant falsehoods (such as "you can only drive 11 hours in a 24 hour period" and "there is no way to stop the 14 hour clock unless you take a full 10 hr break"). Since Crete logs are read by a computer, will it acknowledge all the legal split sleeper birth scenarios as legitimate, or will I be opening myself up to extra scrutiny and penalties?

 

I don't know which system you guys run at crete but if it's QC it will recognize a correct sleeper birth split. I was one of the first drivers at Knight on e-logs. Pretty much same story got a msg from the person admining the pilot program asking me why I didn't take a full 10 hour break like I was "suppose" to. I msg'd back saying so I wasn't late and don't sweat it, the computer in my truck knew I was legal even if you don't.

 

Not just in this industry. Everywhere. Computers are eliminating common sense bit by bit. Glad I'm not going to be around 50 years from now. I do not want to see this world.

 

Hey Ralph, I am not on the elogs and I do the split sleeper from time to time and have never been questioned by the log department so you should be good as long as it is done properly.