Crete Carrier - A Year In Review - Fall 2013 Going Forward

Heckuva day today... 604 miles. Woke up at the J in South Beloit to a preplan for a load going to KY. 600ish miles, not bad... except like all 3 of the previous loads I've been dispatched on this week there's no flippin way it'll deliver on time unless I get those JATO rockets I've been asking for from the shop. Oh and the fact that there's 240 miles between me, the delivery for the water load I had and the shipper. 4pm pickup, due at 10am tomorrow. I called my ASSet Manager and he gives me the same response I've been getting all week... go get it and "do the best you can with it". 4 hours go by, I make my drop delivery and he calls me back asking if I'll deliver the next one on time. Did I mention he's brilliant? I tell him, just like I told him earlier there's no way it's happening but since I'm feeling particularly charitable I'll go get it anyway and drop it somewhere enroute. That somewhere he decided on was the Indy yard (because Chicago traffic is never bad at 6 in the evening and doing it 2 days in a row isn't a problem). Luckily I managed to get into the yard with exactly 6 minutes left on my 11 hour shift. I have no idea how I made it work but some driver will get a nice 185 mile run out of here early in the morning.

Oh, and my reward for busting my tail and making sure there's actually a chance the load will deliver ontime? A 2 stop 197 mile load going to... Kentucky.

 

Well I was told if I put my truck in the shop at my home terminal and go home. ...no breakdown pay! So I told her to get me a hotel room. I mean I would have went home anyway. I just had to tell them I wasn't going home

EDIT: So I told them to fix my truck. Call me when it's done. Pay me; don't pay I no longer care! Well I didn't know who the lady was but it turned out to be the temp terminal mgr from New Kingstown. She had a pow wow with someone else I had never seen before who turned out to be Leonard the new maintenance dude. He took me outside to the service writer and pushed my truck to the front of the line for diagnosis. So maybe I will be rolling tomorrow. BTW, they still don't know if there are any unassigned trucks on their property. Since they have put a temporary halt to the orientation at Wilmer there should be some around. Like I told them in the office...I no longer care!

 

That would be JR. She is cool as h*ll. She was promoted to oversee all the terminal managers. John Foster is TM at New Kingstown now.

 

Joe. You still here in Wilmer?

 

That ought to be what mine looks like next week...3399 miles just in, and a NV level 2 inspection with no violations.....

 

After getting a "slow freight" message in Nampa, ID this morning, I get a pre-plan for 2100 miles, only to have it quickly yanked. It picked up in OR, and I suspect they elected to have a driver who was already permitted there to get it. I ended up deadheading 290 miles to P&G in northern UT to deliver it Cheyenne on Sunday (load won't be ready til the morning).

 

I had some success with my Florida terminal manager (Rae) going to JR to resolve some concerns. Like overriding the truck exchange scam Janelle is running at SLC.

 

my truck is but I only live about 25 miles away so I'm at the casa!

She seemed to want to help but it was past due for what I was looking at doing so she really didn't have a chance. What I was hoping to do was roll in last night, swap over to a truck and haul buttocks. I guess I'm in the wrong red truck for that to happen

She did say they are wanting to start a loaner truck system where that scenario will be readily possible without getting Lincoln involved. Truth be told I do firmly believe that's where this whole thing was stalled. Lincoln assigns trucks not the terminal so that's an email followed by waiting on a response and so forth. Phones don't seem to work in Lincoln....haha Everybody's too busy CYA'en themselves with emails. I know when I worked at Cummins emails were never deleted! So I can empathize with their situation.

 

What's this all aboot, eh?

 

Janelle jacks you up for a clean out/detail fee when exchanging trucks unless you can somehow please her which my wife and I found unlikely after we put in 4 hrs of trying. JR already knew it was going on and got me reimbursed the 140.00 or so Janelle tried taking.