Maverick Here I come !

Congrats on your being accepted to Maverick Orientation Jack! You are jumping into Flatbed at just the right time too. Take it all in, give 110% every moment thru your time in NLR and with your trainer, and you will be getting your truck right as the busy season begins. I don't know about the wifi at the Maverick hotel tho. It is pretty baren there FYI.

 

I'll see you there. I just got my final approval tonight the head down on the 27th as well. I'll be going into the glass division.

I'll be driving down from Milwaukee, WI myself on Saturday because I don't feel like taking a bus. They are going to pay me the cost of the bus ticket instead which will cover almost all of the gas cost to drive. I will have to fly back on my first TAH since my pickup will be stuck in NLR after orientation.

I started the application process right after the beginning of the year. I started out by just calling them after reading about them on the forums and looking over all the information on their website. After about 15 minutes of talking with Caleb on the phone I was fairly happy with what he had to say and sent in my application.

I quit my job at Schneider yesterday after sitting for 9 days while the truck was in the shop. This was after several weeks of low paychecks, as in less than $500 a week with one even going as low as $200. They also started this new Ambient Temperature Sensor thing recently that doesn't even function properly.

I was with Schneider for about 14 months. During that time I made what I feel was good money for my first year in the industry. It was a good place to get the experience I needed. I wouldn't hesitate to do it all over again if I had to either.

 

Ambient temperature? You have piqued my interest. This is something i havent heard a company doing, what is it? Also the old joke thats not really a joke here at Maverick, stay off the grass! Yes they mean it.

 

Basically it's a sensor they install into the truck that prevents it from idling between the 20-70 degrees outside. No APUs though. The problem comes in that they aren't working. There are many reports of the sensors preventing trucks from idling below 20 degrees outside. When this happens trucks with older batteries don't have enough power to run the bunk heaters for a full 10 hour break.

The sensor is the thing that pushed me to leave finally. I woke up after about 4 hours of sleep and it was below 40 degrees inside my sleeper. Outside temperature was 14 degrees. The only way for me to get heat was to start the truck and push the gas pedal every 5 minutes to keep it from shutting down. But let me tell you, I had nothing but my boxers and a comforter on because it was 75 inside when I went to sleep. I froze for 20 minutes until the engine warmed up enough to give me heat. The Maintenance guys and my dispatcher had the balls to tell me that I should've put more layers and blankets over me before I went to bed.

It's a decision made by somebody in an office that affects the entire fleet. There was no test group to see if they were even going to function properly. The whole plan is to save fuel by not allowing trucks to idle. While the drivers are left freezing in the trucks the people who made the decision are at home sleeping in their warm beds. It's causing a lot of their experienced drivers to leave.

All this penny pinching has come after the Schneider family stopped taking interest in the operations of the company. It started when Don left and it only getting worse. A bunch of guys in fancy suits that have never been in a truck in their lives are making decisions that are affecting quality of life for every driver in the fleet.

There's ton's more info about it in the Schneider section on this forum.

 

Hmmm that dont soujd good.

 

I'm not a fan of going along for a ride, I just prefer to drive myself. I would make money on the trip if I had a more fuel efficient vehicle, my Pickup only gets 14-15 mpg on the highway.

As for gaining weight, I gained one notch on my belt and 1 size in pants in the time I was a van driver. I was always really active before that and the sudden slow down didn't help. I enjoy working so that's why I'm moving into flatbed.

 

Welcome rol maverick!......9 deg outside..... Slept with just a sheet and light blanket.....you will love the apu!

 

When I was at the Maverick Motel, there was no WiFi. If you get sent to the other Hotel (too exhausted to remember it's name) it does have WiFi. As Jim said, the APU is all that and a bag of chips. When I was at Schneider (only briefly, but that's a long story) they wouldn't even let us put in an inverter. Could only use those little 75 watt deals.

Not to fling crap or any of the "Company X verses Company Y" mess, but I will say IMHO my current truck and company are in an entirely different league than when I was at Schneider. ymmv.