CRETE - A Year in Review

I get into Primm, NV late last night. Whiskey Pete's is doing a lot of construction, so I go all the way to the back behind the hotel. It's dark and there are quite a few trucks there, so I pull up next to a flatbed carrying big boxes. I kept the nose of my truck about 10' behind his so he could get around an obstruction (so my sleeper is directly next to his 'boxes'). i wake up to do my pre-trip and notice the flatbed's boxes are all giant totes labeled "CAUTION - RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL INSIDE".

I get down to Victorville and am super happy when they take my load 12 hours early. Then I notice my qualcomm's not working. I remove the fuse for 30 minutes, but still not working. The screen says a sensor has failed. Anyways, 2 1/2 hours later of hold time and various conversations, I find out I will have to go through a terminal to get it fixed. In the meantime, it's back to paper logs and getting all my trip info by phone. What a joy, lol.

*on a positive note, the Sunday night dispatch people were super nice. I'm in Phoenix now. I spoke to the planner and said I would like to go through Wilmer if possible (and avoid SLC at all costs, lol) to get the qualcomm fixed. The guy was so nice, I actually felt totally disoriented for a while. It was around 11pm Lincoln time and I had to call about 3 times to get trip info I kept forgetting to write down (since I have no qualcomm), and they answered the phone within a few *seconds* each time.

 

I had my last truck do something like that a time or two, although it didn't completely quit, it just didn't automatically go from off to on when the truck started moving. Everything still worked as far as send/receive and elog except it had an exclamation point and a notation about sensor fault/failure when you looked at the one daily log screen. It eventually fixed itself and I never had to hit the shop.

And I've noticed some improvement in weekend dispatch's speed and demeanor as well. Quite refreshing I have to admit.

 

I pulled into the Flying Peelot up near Cedar Falls, IA last evening(I think they call this town Elk Run Heights). At 730 at night, I actually found a spot, backed in and went in to scan my last load in. Walking across the lot I noticed a bunch of Shaffers parked there. It almost looked like a company terminal. Either they have a delivery customer that everyone delivered to, but didn't have any freight, or everyone was waiting on Monday to go pick up. I never realized that there was anything up there besides a small retail area and a Target D/C.

 

LOL, how quickly things change. I wake up and call dispatch to find out if there is an earlier load to Wilmer to get my qualcom fixed. They put me on a load last night, but it doesn't show pickup until tomorrow and the customer won't open for several hours (when i could find out if it can load early). All this had been arranged last night with those 'nice' people. I had given them my hours and every possible data that would normally go on the qualcom - also getting directions, phone numbers, load #'s, etc.

i talk to my AM and find out .... absolutely NOTHING had been documented (or she doesn't know how to access it - which wouldn't be surprising) I cross out all the load info I had been given last night. Now I'm put on a multi-stop load taking me back to Calif because they are routing me back to ........ SLC! - where no doubt i will told to move into a different truck (or some worse scenario i haven't even imagined). The comedy of errors never ceases. When I expressed my frustration to my AM about all the hours on the phone I had spent, she just kept saying "oh that's not a problem" not making any sense. It's just so frustrating because when the screw ups are on their end and you have to suffer for it (hours on the phone and no sleep), they just brush it off.

 

There is a large Tyson facility not far from that truck stop. A lot of loads go in and out of there. You should see some Tyson trucks,KLLM Trucks,Prime Trucks and some Stephens Transport. K&B and Maverick Reefers also pull out of there. I've pulled a few loads out of there. Sometimes a quick drop and hook and sometimes an all day pain in the rear. I've spent a few days at that J. I drove for Tyson for 3 years before my Crete days.

 

Depending on what's wrong with your Q-Comm, you will most likely need to go to Lincoln to get it fixed. There's very little ANY of the terminals, besides Lincoln, can do to repair them. Lincoln has the ONLY qualified tech for those issues.

 

The incompetence of weekend shift has carried over into today for me....bobtail to shipper if no empties. Shipper has no preloaded trailers here. So I sit and wait for the location of an empty.

Update: None at Council Bluffs, none at Shopko. Gotta get my plans accelerated...shooting for the first week of October.

 

Exactly! That's what breakdown told me - so I was trying to head east. But my TM keeps intervening to pursue some whacked personal vendetta. The whole thing has become surreal.

 

I wonder if the investment firm of The 3 stooges, The Keystone Cops,
and The Barnum and Bailey Circus have bought controlling interest in this company. This is starting to be nothing but a bad comedy mini-series. I think I would go over your F/M's head to the head of maintenance in Lincoln. Explain what is going on, what you were told to do by all parties, and get a final plan from the bigger boss. Then have him explain it to Janelle. I honestly think you should also stop using your prepaid minutes and seek out the crappiest payphone you can find every time you have to call either of your two circus clown managers.

 

Ralph, have you tried unplugging the cables on the unit under your bunk one at a time just to see if one is loose? Two are thumbscrewed in, but a couple are like a Cat-5 cable and just plug with a little plastic latch. I just did a quick google search on the mcp-200 problems. It said there should be 2 led's on the unit, 1 should be blinking blue, the other solid green. If either are red(or not on) then unplugging the power for at least 5 minutes is the 1st thing, then there are other options. The man that does q/comm diagnostic(or use to) is Lee Hoffman. I think there use to be a q/comm problem option off of the menu choices on the lincoln swichboard number (###-###-9100). He had me walk thru a full system reset on my last one, but it turned on and ran, it just had more connection and lock up issues than most. If you get it to boot, there is a "diag" option under the "system" tab on the next screen to the right from the home screen.