So you want to drive for Schneider?

Why do you want to team? Why put up with stress of having a unknown driver? Single otr is much better. Unless your scared to be on your own in a big truck no need to team..

 

I had the experience with them the first year I drove and that was fall of '95 to late fall of '96. Back when they had those flat roof 55mph cabovers. I learned quickly why companies like this are always looking for new drivers, and from the looks of it they haven't improved...though some of the micromanaging expert lackeys that I dealt with at Schneider moved on to Veriha where they prey on smaller, almost bankrupt companies and gut them like vultures.

Back then they required drivers to attend "make it your business" meetings, which I call "corporate brainwashing sessions". That was where every image that was presented to you about being a trucker by recruiting, the media, or other "trucker" images is destroyed..,or at least they try to. They will feed you garbage like "there is no such thing as runs over 600 miles". Basically it means you will be told you're driving their national "system" , which is actually regional but they will quickly rebuke you if you dare question any of the BS spewed at you during the meeting. At Schneider you are not allowed to have a mind of your own. If you are lucky to get anything over 600 miles they will tell you to take it into a nearby rail yard. If you are sent to pick up a load out of a rail yard, there's a good chance that a. you'll be sent to the wrong yard and b, you'll be dispatched on that load a couple days after it was supposed to have been delivered. The planners and dispatchers at Schneider are completely inept, and anything that goes wrong at all will be blamed on the driver. Back when I was there the dispatchers were called STL's, which drivers called "Schneider trained liars". Also everyone there is called an "associate"... which is meant to make you think it's all warm and fuzzy there. WRONG. After you survive Schneider's 90 day training dispatch period, you will be treated like the lowest form of dog #### on the planet. And god forbid anything goes wrong, they will put you in a room with your "STL", and couple of higher ups at wherever "operating center"(politically correct BS term for terminal) you are assigned to, and anything you tell them will be used against you. And god forbid you use phrases like "that's pretty much it" or they will jump on you like cops trying to frame you for capital murder. Like I said, at Schneider once you get past those 90 days anything you tell them is wrong. Oh and anytime you get sent to find an empty trailer they will assign one to you and it will NOT be where they say it was.

And lastly, home time is completely at the whim of Schneider's planning and dispatching "system". Back when I was there any time I had a major family event and tried to apply for that time off was met with "the system will get you home when it's time". Basically any requests were ignored, and the policy back then (I'm not sure what Schneider does now) wasn't the industry standard "one day per week out", you got 24 hours. That's it. Even if you were out for a whole month you got 24 hours, and they even gave you a VHS tape dictating what you were supposed to do on your time off. Vacation I was able to apply for and even got a letter from Green Bay confirming and GUARANTEEING that vacation time. Well when the time came to get home I was in Canada, and all I would've had to do was cross over the border near Buffalo, park the truck in their drop yard, (at the time I lived just northeast of Buffalo NY)and I was home for turkey day with the family. NOPE. Instead it was "sorry but you will have to run this load to Atlanta at 2am Monday after thanksgiving, cross into the US at 1000 islands NY, you are not going home, I don't care what Green Bay sent you, besides the phone to the planners is not working!!". I got home for vacation a full 2 weeks later, and that's after I had to literally threaten my STL and the other idiots in that Seville OH yard with impending doom.

Mean while after that I got and offer from a smaller company and gave Schneider my 2 week notice. Which they used those 2weeks to completely screw me around(a load picking up in philly with 3 stops outside of Toronto, Canada, each stop 10 miles apart, each one on a different day, and each stop having a separate broker). Once I finally left The Big Orange i had to fend off recruiting calls from there for the next 5 years.

My advice if you want to start your driving career at a big megacompany like Schneider I recommend toughing it out the first year, keep your record spotless and accident free, then get out before they cost you your sanity.

 

No s <>>t

 

Nope that just what I went through with that company..... obviously you missed where I said it was 20 years ago.....as far as im concerned Schneider is still a POS outfit...

 

Teaming doesn't sound fun or worth it. Especially with someone I just met.