Schneider's Off Duty Practice"s On Driver's

Wow that sucks. I leave for orientation there soon and if they pull that on my, the phone is getting turned off and they can complain all they want. It's not important enough for me to be falling asleep at the wheel.

I am a complete newbie but I am curious. Was he checking in with dispatch enough? If he wasn't, they may not have known they were intruding on his rest. I don't know anything but from what I have heard from a lot of drivers and some of the trainers in my CDL schooling is that most problems with the company come from a lack of communication. Again, I'd like to stress that I don't have any experience to go off. Just speculation.

 

Another reason to not drive for schnieder! thanks

 

Thats why when I go to bed I turn my phone off!

 

Im tossing the B.S. on the whole "calling while on break" thing. I have been with Schneider for over 11 years and the only time they ever call me at home is to let me know I have a load the day before I am supposed to head back out. (and then only if I didn't call in during normal working hrs). They have NEVER called me while on my 10 hr break...we have qualcoms in the trucks. (and you can turn the volume down and ignore it till morning). Besides you can just turn the phone off and check voice mails in when you wake up. Nobody is going to get upset with you for getting rest. (now if you are supposed to be making a p/u or del while you are sleeping and didn't let anybody know you would be late....well that is a whole different kettle of fish)

Schneider is, if nothing else, very anal about safety. They have their issues just like every company but being unsafe is not one of them.

 

As a driver for Schneider I can say that I have rarely ever been called by my dispatcher, but I think that's because of the type of person I am, my work ethic and the relationship I have with my DBL. I'm not saying your friend has a bad work ethic since I do not know him, however I will say this. I have spoken to another Schneider driver before who complained a lot about his DBL calling him on his time off during his break. But the vibe I got from this driver was that he was lazy and that if he was given a load that he had enough time to safely and legally get it there, but you would have to drive hard for a day or two to get it there, the driver's attitude was "it'll get there when I say it gets there". In this industry, and especially as a company driver, some people dont like having to submit to the fact that some loads will have you drive all day (legally of course) or at odd hours to ensure an on time delivery or pick up. This guy said he would stop and take an hour or two lunch break during his work day and dispatch would call and ask why his truck was stopped. Sounded like it was a tight delivery schedule as is but he said he was hungry and was gonna eat anyways and didn't really care if the load was gonna be late or not. Maybe your buddy just had a bad working relationship with his DBL, or maybe he didn't have a reliable record, I dunno only your friend can answer that.

 

The only time I got calls from my DBL asking why I stopped was if I was under a "critical" or "high value" load and time was a little tight but that usually happened while I was driving. Other than that, I had to call him about stuff.

 

I don't recall ever being called like that, although I had heard of 1 or 2 that claim they had. My phone, like most, has voice mail, the qualcom had a volume control. My DBL's, three of them over 1 1/2 years would leave a message to call when I was able, that meant safely parked.
If I was sleeping, I'd call when I woke up. No one ever forced me to drive when I was fatigued, just like no one can force any one to do anything.
I suspect there were other problems as well, could be wrong though, sorry if I am.

 

Always the companies fault

Yet over the years I have constantly seen drivers show up to head out that just finished bing part of a 14 hour Fastball tournament , just drove 3 1/2 -4 hours hours from the cottage after water sking all day , helped the father in law build his new garage.