Schneider

Hired for bulk tanker division in CA. First got on with no training on deliveries and routes. Just sent me to the railyard to pick up certain chasis and trailers. I hit the ground blind and went through hell to figure things out. Never quit. Finally started getting the hang of it.

Then they wanted me to park a tank in a certain spot that had barely any room to back into. It's 2am pitch black. I backed up and ding a trailer next to me. Small damage to the metal wheel guard fender. Goes on my record as an accident 3 weeks later.

Since then there's been many crazy days in which their equipment was malfunctioning and just causing whole work days of pure stress. I neve quit and just fought through it all. Never hear a word from management.

Now I'm about 2 months after the little backing incident. Somehow I hooked to a chasis and the king pin went into the handle of the 5th wheel release arm. Causing it to bend. Was gonna take it to repair shop to fix it the next day. But my driver leader tells me she scheduled extra training for me because of the little backing incident from 2 months ago.

The trainer comes in from Houston and notices my 5th wheel release arm. He says I high hooked and now I have to call accidents.

I call accidents and now it's a whole big deal.

Safety department, my driver leader and another higher up all on a conference call letting me know it's a serious offense and asking for details.

I hung up the phone. Didn't finish the discussion. Figured I'd be fired anyways. It's technically 2 accidents on my record already and I've only been driving for 4 months.

So I hung up and said "F em"

The good news is I've read that those accidents are not recordable on my DOT record.

But it still sucks big time to have no income for however long it takes to find another job.

So I'm back to looking for another job.

 

How were you so far away from center that you ran the kingpin into the release handle?

Have the same distance looking at the tires in relation to the sides of the trailer for center. Once you back under it, you should feel the truck squat some, and see the trailer get lifted. If you don't, just assume it's high hooked, and get out and check.

Not saying you were high hooking in the first place, but if the kingpin is hitting the release handle, it's worth mentioning.

 

Stay away from these megas. They will ruin your career.

 

Didn't realize this was posted in two different threads. Thought my original post was deleted

 

Your resignation may have been premature. Schneider was my first company and I screwed up a lot. They brought me in for training each time but didn't fire me.

 

Thanks I'm glad you asked. I honestly 100% don't believe I high hooked, because I got out and lowered the chasis down to make sure it wasn't too high.

As far as going off to the side, The empty chasis is a little tricky. I can't line my tires up exactly where the side end of the chasis is because it misses the king pin. So I decided to back in to where my tires were just 1 inch underneath the side end of the chasis if that makes sense. Kind of hard to explain. Anyways I backed up. Gave it a tug and noticed it wasn't hooked. I then pulled forward, moved over and attempted to back into it again. For some reason it just wouldn't connect. I then got out to check and noticed the handle of the release arm completely bent straight. It's one of those things where I really don't know how it happened. I could have very well high hooked. The only reason I'm in denial is because I remember lowering the chasis before I hooked and looking to make sure it was low enough. So that could have been a miss judgement on my part.

 

When I worked on the Bulk side the one big no-no was high hooking. Was told from the Houston terminal safety guys that there is no second chance. Maybe they lightened the rules last 3 years.

They do or did preach their method of backing which was to get up close but stop before the wheel go under the trailer and get out, go under, and check alignment then finish backing. This way you will never high hook and why they say if you did then you didn't follow procedure.

Many other options out there tho so finding a new job won't be hard. Finding a new TANKER job however might be more difficult until you get more experience but I'm sure Chinatown can help you.

 

Yeah that's kind of eating me up. Another driver told me the same, that it's possible I wasn't going to be fired. But he also told me previously that high hooking was a fireable offense. Well if somehow they call me back and want to continue, I'll stay on forsure until I find something else.

 

Sorry about that. I was trying to move the post from the other thread to this thread.

 

Seems crazy you can be fired for a high hook. Sure if you cause damage to the back of the cab/front of the trailer, but a basic high hook is a 5 minute job to figure out. I carry a chunk of 4x4 just for high hook situations and can't recall how many times I have used it