THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE - DFO gets a truck and hops on Schneider's IC Choice Program

It's ok, I'm just touchy because I'm gonna have to explain to bill collectors tomorrow that they're not getting the payments I promised.

I think what really bothers me on this is lack of consistency. I'm confused as to why, three weeks ago, I delivered a load and completed a workflow at 11:53pm EST and it made it to that week's check, but this time I delivered over an hour earlier and it didn't. I can't plan ahead for something that isn't even remotely consistent.

Maybe in a few months when I get caught up I'll be able to save and not be caught by surprise by this stuff, but right now I'm still catching up from everything that happened in November.

Quick and dirty version: I was a company driver (Not Schneider). Drove for them for 18 months. Made good money, $800 - $1100 per week. Never put back a whole lot into savings because it was always consistent and I never planned to move anywhere else. Then November hit and there was a fleet manager change. It all went downhill so fast I couldn't event react. Went from $900 per week to $300 per week instantly. Bills piled up as I attempted to work out the situation from within. Started having trouble delivering loads on time because a new account decided to make us wait 24 - 36 hours to load or unload and managed to weasel out of detention pay on technicalities. Trying to solve the situation by going up the chain ended up earning me service failures because I didn't "harass the customer into loading me faster"' despite having a perfect record of deliveries for 18 months. Funny, that was highly against company policy when I started. Anyways, bills piled up so much that I had to leave and find something else. Doing this was a last ditch effort to prevent becoming basically homeless, and an attempt to cut out the middleman dispatcher and be responsible for my own income.

I know that no one likely cares about that story, but it's a quick explanation as to why I jumped into this without tons of money in savings. It was this, or starve to death on a Walmart salary. I was guaranteed to lose in the company situation, I figured at least this gave me a fighting chance to recover. And I'm so close now, and every time it looks like I might make it, I suddenly have a $0 paycheck and fall behind again. Planning ahead only works if the system is set up to work the same way consistently.

I think what I'll end up doing is just stop delivering loads on Mondays. That's probably the easiest solution.

 

Just call in after you deliver your last load on Monday and ask whoever answers the phone to make sure your last load cleared out correctly. That's all it takes. Good luck.

 

Can't say I didn't warn ya dfo! But hey, at least you got to experience it!! LMAO!

 

I hate to say this after reading that, except to say I hope that you can catch it up soon and start getting ahead. Just got approved to choice program and they've approved me for a 2012 Cascadia. Wish me luck, wanted to say, as I did in Sadwars thread, I appreciate all the information in these threads. Not only good reading, but educational too. Wish me luck.

 

Where's the other yard at in Houston? Is it close to the bulk yard?

 

Like everyone told me, make sure you get the ecm report on it as well as an oil sample. What type of apu are you getting? I really wanted a diesel powered tripac so when taking a 34 I can run it without idling the truck to charge the apu batteries. My truck looks just like sadwar's minus the chrome bumper lol

 

I would have them change out the black box for your Qualcomm. Could be a glitch, it only takes 10min to change out the box. I have delivered loads late around 2300 and 2345 est, and still got paid on time. Maybe there is some kind of lag on your system. Just my .02

 

I won't know till tomorrow. The csr didn't email me, the recruiter called and said the csr emailed her I was approved on it. There were only 3 trucks that weren't in Green Bay. I wanted one local and as of now this was the choice. If I don't like it I'll get one in Green Bay I guess. I'll talk to them about the oil samples and ECM, do I have to get the sample tested elsewhere or do they just give me a print out on what's in it? Thanks. Btw, are the 2012's ok?

 

Mr.Graham,best advice for you is that after you clear your bills..............start saving.

Any succesfull O/O will tell you that you need at least 10 000$ in savings to have a minimal safety net.

good luck.

sorry DFO for this sidetrack.

 

I'm sure the 2012's are fine. The ones already there can tell you better, but I think they give you a print out of the sample. You getting your truck in Charlotte?