Profile For Jamie

While I was in the office yesterday talking to some office folks, the fleet manager over heard how highly I talked about the Walmart account either as a dedicated driver or helping out as a national driver and I was asked if I wanted to be in kind of a recruitment video they're planning to make this Thursday when the COO's of Crete & Shaffer come by to visit and talk to drivers.

Well congratulations!

I'm doing the same thing out of WM DC 7077 in Cheyenne, mainly to have my terminal assignment switched from New Kingston. I am loving it so far, despite every load being a refer.

Thanks! I always wondered how that DC was, I’ve heard mix reviews about it. But you can say the same about this DC, but I like it.

Well I decided to go back to the Walmart account out North Platte, NE for Crete. Came here to help out and forgot about how much I missed it here, excluding the home time problems I’ve had in the past as I explained in another post.

Been running meat and produce overnight to the Walmart stores we cover.

Yep, sometimes one must force their way in otherwise some arsewholes would never let us in.

Yeah, I’ve done it some, but not this time.

What's the outcome?!

Crete believed my side of the story, and even said how they get quite a few calls with all kind of stories. But they did say they keep these calls on file for two years just to ensure it’s not common occurrence. But then they are removed assuming people aren’t calling in all the time.

Nothing else will happen, doesn’t count against my safety bonus, no safety points, etc.

I had someone call into Crete today to report that I almost ran them off the road.

I didn’t remember the driver when risk management called me, but shortly after I remember who she was talking about. Traffic was stop and go basically, and my lane was backing up since the right lane was ending, so I turned my turn signal on to merge into the middle lane since there was a big enough gap. But as I was merging a car in that lane tried to speed up as I was merging, but I was already basically in the lane so I kept merging the rest of the way.

About 10-15 minutes later I got a call from risk management asking me about it since the caller said something along the lines of me merging from the middle lane into the right lane, pushing him off the road. When I would never do that, I always watch my mirrors like a hawk, especially when merging and backing.

I’ve been at Crete for nearly two years now, and I’m loving it, making some very good money and average around 2500-3000 miles a week running off recap hours.

I’m going to take a wild guess here going off of both charts and say drivers feel that recruiters are lying to them about home time. I felt mine was pretty straightforward.

Mine as well. I earn one day off for every 6 days on the road, and have to stay out a minimum of 21 days because that’s the fleet I joined. While being OTR with Crete, I have never been late getting home. No misunderstanding, etc.

Also another concern is that I’m a bit overweight, so I’m worried I wouldn’t pass the physical test they do(Not the DOT physical).

I’m just curious those that started out pulling a van, and switched over to flatbed. Do you have any regrets?

I’ve considered switching to flatbed for awhile now and did a small portion of it while I was working for Schneider on the Home Depot account.

My only problem is, although Crete owns Hunt Transportation (A flatbed company), I really don’t want to quit Crete just to go work for their flatbed company since on paper it’s a separate company.

This was just the other day, I was 0.8 miles from my customer, i had no way to turn around and the police wouldn’t let me go around on the left. It ended up causing me to be 25 minutes late, since time was already tight. But I would’ve made on time delivery.

I can’t catch a break lately, I swear sometimes.

I just got off home time, picked this load up from our yard in West Memphis, AR. I get about 100 miles down the road when boom a trailer tire blows out, not even a little bit. Fully blown out, if I would’ve kept going, the rubber around the rim would’ve just flew off, and it’d be just a rim.

Currently waiting for roadside assistance. What a great way to start my day.

I’ve been wanting to have some teeth pulled since they are chipped badly and hurt most days. But I didn’t want to take the time off work and figured I probably wouldn’t be recovered during the 4 days I’m normally home for. 😂

Another tip, when you do find yourself in a bind or that you missed your turn. Pull over as soon as you possibly can to figure out a solution. I’ve saved myself so much time and headache by pulling over and pulling up something such as google maps, etc to figure out a good plan on getting back on track.

Especially out east where there are so many low bridges, I’ve been to a few customers where there is only one route into the customer and any other way has a low bridge. One time in Buffalo, NY, I actually went past my customers entrance and not even 150 yards ahead was a low bridge. But I simply stopped before getting myself into a service bind to think of a plan. Of course my plan was simple, backup when the lane was cleared. Which took longer than expected due to high traffic in the area.

But basically, just don’t get ahead of yourself and keep driving because you don’t think you can stop to figure out a plan. Because I’ve done it, even right in the middle of my lane. Just put my flashers on and stopped.

So here it is almost 11 hours later, I’m still at the shop. They talked Crete into doing other work on the truck, after 7 hours of waiting, I was finally told they had the wrong mirror for my truck. So they literally did a lot of other stuff before even attempting to fix the mirror which is why I’m even here. They said the mirror will be in stock in the morning, so we shall see.

Which terminal are you visiting for repairs? Not SLC I pray!

They sent me to a dealer close by where I am, near the AZ state line on i15, my current load goes into CA. Hoping they have the mirror in stock.

Sorry Jamie!

Was it a Volvo?

Surprisingly it wasn’t! Looked like a Freightliner.

Just beyond ****ed, anytime I make plans to stop by a Walmart, boom someone delays me.

The driver 1/2 of my household said either duck tape, or better yet, GORILLA TAPE.. 'until' ..LoL

Yeah, that’s the plan. But the shop doesn’t open until 0700 so ruined my plans for tomorrow. But only about 14 miles away from the shop.

It’s also possible the driver pulling out didn’t feel it. Maybe and maybe not. I wouldn’t know.

He was backing in beside me, after hitting my mirror, he instantly pulled forward and drove off, exiting the pilot. Almost certain he knew about it but wanted to avoid having it on his record.

Sorry that happened - at the same time. Backing up a truck is hard for new drivers and we don’t get any real training or time under the wheel to have any real skill to do so. Just like when you started.

Though - running someone down to own up to their accident is not right. 🙏🏼

For sure, I have no problems with new drivers we all start somewhere, the main issue is about him running after hitting me. His company is from Canada, so not sure if anything is going to happen but oh well, another day out here.

I’m honestly not even sure how he hit my mirror other then if he was tryin to blind side into the spot on my passenger side.

Now I have to wait until the morning to even get into a shop since it’s closed on sundays, which I’m either going have to get towed or I’m tape the mirror down to drive the 14 miles to the shop.

I meant his trailer number and company name.