Schneider Diary from the beginning.. Pay, orientation, schedule, miles, home time

All companies that recruit new CDL graduates are short on drivers.
A few cents-per-mile don't mean much, if anything, if the accessorial pays aren't there. I made .36 cpm but annually made $65K due to acessorial pays.

 

You just reminded me of my first forays into stock trading. I was working heavy construction in the San Fran bay area around the early to mid 90's when I got into it. My coworker who ran the big 30,000 pound capacity Pettibone forklift always carried this litte AM transistor radio with him. There was local AM station that had an hourly stock report about 50 minutes after the hour every hour. This guy was always tuned in to the stock report. We all laughed at him but he drove to work every day in a JR Ewing Mercedes. Anyway, one day he gives me a stock tip and I mentioned I had no idea how to capitalize on that. He explained how easy it is to set up a brokerage account and buy and sell stocks. So I went home and got ahold of Merrill Lynch and set up an appointment. I walk in there with $2000 those young slick haired custom fitted suit wearing punks just about laughed me out of there. One of them took pity on me and spent some time going over some options. These guys were definitely not used to dealing with small timers. But this guy did me right, got me hooked up with a Roth IRA and I would send him a thousand or so bucks every now and again to invest in my coworker's stock tips.

So a couple years later the internet blew up, times were really good, everybody had a job who wanted to work, the government was swimming in tax surplus money and gasoline was $0.99 per gallon. Now these discount equity brokerage firms came online and for as little as $500 any joe blow could open an account and trade.

It has always been my theory that this is what caused the stock market to really take off in the late 90's because people who in the past were typically no able to have access to buy and sell equities all of a sudden had a superhighway access point to buy and sell. What I liked about it was there was nobody judging my buy and sell orders. With a few clicks of a mouse I could order up x amount of shares and a few minutes later sell it, nobody arguing with me. Remember, we could open the account and have the first 20 trades free. So buy 2 shares of this 7 shares of that, who cared the stocks were doubling every day even though the companies were turning no proof of profit. After a while the free trades went away and it became prudent to only buy in 100 share lots as the $19.95 fee for buying 2 shares at $10 bucks would create the need to sell really high to cover the buy and sell commissions and come away even with a dollar. As I got more money together and studied more I would only buy in 1000 share lots.

In the old days stocks traded on 8ths. So conventional day traders would sell only on a movement of and 8th of a dollar or $0.125 cents. Against 1000 shares that would be $125 bucks. Since they now sold on decimals, I would only sell on $0.14 cents positive movement to clear $100 bucks after commissions. Then I discovered this wonderful tool where you can put your buy order in to fill at a certain price. So set the price low and wait for the stock to dip like they do during the day. As soon as it would fill I would set a sell price about $0.50 above what I bought it for. I felt in my own small way I was a redneck market maker lol. Surely someone is seeing that stock offered at $0.50 premium and will snag it up.

Somehow it worked, that first year my portfolio had a gain of 48%. I recalled my Merrill Lynch guy saying the past 60 years average was 10%.... I got my first cell phone in 2000, not too long after that I got one of the first Blackberrys and was able to trade at break time and lunch time on the dirty dusty jobsites. I had studied the markets, my discount online brokerage even opened me up for a margin account, my mortgage was paid a year in advance and my pickup truck and Corvette were paid off. Long story short, basically got married and the bubble burst lol So here I am trucking.

 

I am definitely subscribed

 

Good luck!

 

Looks like a good thread here, Intrinsic. Am looking forward to some 'in depth' reporting in regards to Schnieder's pay, policies, and overall conditions.
Thanks for the thread!

 

I hear exactly what your saying. maybe because im a female i dunno but i find myself in a similar position as yourself...stupid mistake 3 years ago...im a veteran of the army 9 years and i drove fuel tankers. I cant find a company to sponsor my training and its really starting to p#ss me off. my voc rehab councelor at the va refuses to pay for me to be a truck driver because i hurt my back in iraq but heres the kicker she will pay for me to be a frigging chef??? how the heck can she justify me standing on my feet for 8-16 hours a day lifting 75 pound sacks of potatoes and not be k with me driving a truck?? i drive for a local delivery place here in georgia and i love driving but no civilian cdl....ive also been reading these posts for a year now and im even more convinced that i want to drive!!! im going to call scneider tomorrow and see what they say...i know for a fact that carolina cargo will hire me if i ahve my cdl....is just the cash flow isnt available for me to pay upfront like that....any suggestions??

 

Hope scholarship will pay for your schooling as long as you are a Georgia resident for 2 years.

 

Wow, I have a VERY similar story and while not as 'number smart' as you, I definitely learned from your postings already. THANK YOU.

 

Do you have your gi bill?