Running With Schneider!

So my husband is off to a not-so-great start with SNI. The first load he booked cancelled. Then, he was told they were going to pay him to pick up an empty in Iowa because there were none available in Green Bay. So he booked a load out of Iowa and set out. He just got told that he would have to turn around, go back to IL to get an empty, because that's the only place they had them. This is going to cause him to have to go AT LEAST 140 miles out of route, to which the night-shift guy told him it wasn't his problem, to take it up with his DB tomorrow. Seriously? He just finished orientation today. He has no idea what to make of the whole situation, if he will get paid for it, if he was allowed to flat out say no, etc. That's A LOT of wasted fuel if they don't pay him. If SNI has this much control over you as an IC, you're not really running your own business it seems. Especially if they can make you have to waste that much fuel just to get an empty trailer. I sure hope it gets better.

 

He should be get paid, if he drove more than 50 mi to pick up MT.. I never had to dead head more than 10 mi to pic up MT. They usually will find and MT Enroute to you pick up.

 

Question for you atruckr, are your payments on your truck being reported so that you can help build your credit back up? This would be a big plus for me not really having any credit history, having the chance to really start building it up.

 

As a company driver I can tell you that the empty issue is something that ya'll will have to fight with from time to time. I've literally spent half of a day running all across NC and VA getting sent around looking for empty trailers.

One thing I would recommend is make sure your husband has a list of all of our drop yards... some of them are in really random locations that you wouldn't even think would exist. The box planners (the people that are supposed to, but never ever ever have ANY IDEA where the empty trailers are) will sometimes send you far away to grab a trailer when in reality there is a little drop yard 3 miles down the road from where you are that has a few empties just sitting there. I do this all the time and if I find a trailer at this yard, I just call in and have the trailer directly assigned to me. Also, before your husband goes driving 100 miles in the wrong direction only to get to a customer and find out that they do NOT have any empties, I would strongly suggest calling the customer. Sometimes they will not give you any information about whether or not they have any Schneider empties there, other times you'll get some really nice customer that will be more than happy to let you know if they've got some. Just a coin toss.

I'm not sure if ya'll (as IC's) deal with the same after hours people as us company drivers do, but I'd imagine you probably do. Again, its a coin toss. Either they have a huge attitude and are extremely unhelpful, or they are really nice. Many of them are very new to their jobs and pretty limited in terms of what they can help with as they just don't have the experience.

Don't worry too much yet, leaving out under the "watch" of night shift without an empty trailer is pretty much a guaranteed rough start.

 

As a choice driver I don't think you get paid for looking for a empty out of route. Maybe your dbl will add a payment stop. As you a regular milage ic toy would get paid those miles. Finding empties is a pain in rt he ### sometimes

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Jasbbs,
It is a learning curve, there are certain customers that with time he will learn are not reliable, for example Home Depot here in Dallas cancels quite a few loads so I have decided to mark them off my list. As far as paying for chasing a empty, if the driver goes more than 50 miles out of route based on the miles between his last load and next load he will be paid. Lets say he was driving 100 miles to go get his nest load and chasing a empty made those miles 140 miles total he would get nothing. In our contract we agree go to up to 50 miles for free to chase a empty. Now he can tell them NO and refuse to go get that empty but that could cost him his next load. I have been doing this 4 years now and I still learn new tricks all the time. The beginning is the toughest part because you are learning the customers. Most the time I run the same 4-5 customers loads every week and it works well, I just had to learn who those good customers are.

 

The exact same thing happen to us on our first trip out. Our first load cancelled and we were already in Eau Claire Wi. We has to go to MN to get an empty but they paid us. The miles to the pick up plus an extra 150. Also they don't take a truck payment out of the first two weeks checks. We have never has this problem since. Don't be discouraged !