6/21/16 Is the beginning of my Schneider career!!!

OK. Sorry for not posting last couple of days. I didn't have much down time other than that first day. I'll explain a little more on that.

First off my trainer was great. I couldn't had asked for a better guy. I was really worried going into it. Small space, 2 different people that don't know each other and nothing but time to spend together. I've learned more this last 2 weeks at Schneider than I feel I've learned in the last 6 months since I started school. It's all coming together and starting to make sense. I do still have a lot to learn.

We left here and had to do 2 live loads. I guess these 2 companies had a deal to share the truck. The first company loaded to many pallets on which forced the other to refuse to load theirs. So we took half a trailer to Lake Park GA. Since we were held up we only made it half way. Stayed over night near Talladega. Next day finished the route dropped our load, picked up an empty then headed to Cedar Springs GA. We stayed nearby there for the night. This load was headed to Ohio if I remember right. We couldn't take it because of timing so we relayed it all the way back to Atlanta. We dropped it in the Atlanta OC and picked up an empty. Took that to Brookhaven MS where we picked up my heaviest load. 77k lbs in total. I thought it would be harder to get it legal. I thought it would be harder to drive. I was a little intimidated. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We rolled that back up to West Memphis and called it a week yesterday night.

Overall I drove 1453 miles (if I remember correctly). He drove 72 miles. He said I did really well and it was the least he had ever drove with a student. He also said I broke the the milage record of any of his students. I chalk that up as good!!

Now the bad. The 2nd day when he was driving he hit the brakes pretty hard after someone cut him off to make a right hand turn. He called his DBL to let him know about it. He said there is a sensor that gives the office a warning when it happens and it's best to call them up to let them know before they call you. I get it. Understandable. So yesterday we are almost home and get a message for me to call the office. They said that I had hit my brakes to hard on that same day. They said the time and day and asked me what happened. I told them I didn't remember this happening and the guy says "that's unfortunate" and goes on his spiel about how I should allow safer following distance and so on. I asked him specifics of the incidence and he then he said it happened on another day. I question him on the discrepancy of days and he said he made a mistake. I chuckled a bit and decided not to comment about him hitting the space bar on his keyboard to hard next time. My trainer assured me to ignore it and said he doesn't remember any time that I hit the brakes too hard. So..... whatever. It's still really bothering me. The only times I can remember any thing like that happening is when we had gone under a bridge. 2 times near Atlanta (but not on the day they are claiming) while traveling down I20 I believe the OnGuard system (if that's what its called) detected the shadow of the bridge as a car and briefly locked the brakes. Scared the crap out of me the first time. Then my TE told me it was the system causing it.

Other than that it was pretty interesting. Better than I expected overall. I think I did great and I'm ready to hit the road. I've got a lot to learn about the Qualcomm so one more week in training I should be good to go. I think I've got a good idea of what's going on. A lot better than last week. I'm really happy I'm here at Schneider.

 

That's what my TE was saying. During his "event" he asked if I heard a noise. I didn't hear anything. He said it usually makes some kind of beep. He checked the Qualcomm when he thought his happened and didn't see anything. I'm not sure if the systems being down during this time could have been am issue as well? Either way I'm not going to overly worry about it. It is what it is!

 

Have you had the shadow of a bridge lock you up?

 

Been awhile. Crazy week. We had a small class so they crammed it in so that we would be done today. Each day we were there till 7pm or later. I was intellectually exhausted. Still am lol.

However, GOOD NEWS!!! They made the very brave decision to pass me and officially make me a truck driver. Last night I did my Qualcomm test and route planning test. This morning it was coupling and uncoupling, pretrip, brake and the road test. I scored all 5s and one 4. During my road test I had downshifted over railroad tracks. Overall I scored a 9 out of 10. In not sure how exactly that was calculated as an overall score but I passed and I'm happy with that. I had some Hazmat CBTs to do then I was assigned a DBL. Apparently they don't have any manual trucks left so I'll be getting an automatic. I'll have a 4 hour class on that tomorrow and I'm done! My DBL said he'll give me my truck tomorrow. Unfortunately I'll be leaving town after that for a funeral. Which I barely explained to them and they just said go! Awesome! I figured I'd have to go into detail and stuff but he understood that it was important to me and that was all he cared about. I was impressed, yet again.

Funny story, the other day a guy that graduated last week came in to our class. Right before his first assignment. This new driver was assigned a brand new Kenworth!!! I was surprised by that. Well apparently he got lost on his first assignment. He wasn't but 2 hours away. Hopefully that's not me. Part of it went be. I asked my DBL for a Kenworth. I said I don't care of its an older used one. He said they were out. Well crap!!!! Everything was lining up perfectly. Oh well.

In the short time I've been here I've learned so much. More than I did in the 5 months of school. It's really been a great experience so far. I can't complain. Well...... the CBTs are too long. Too repetitive from the class. It would be better to give the option to test and if you fail you have to watch the video. But that's just me. I'm excited to get my truck. I'm excited to get on the road. 2 weeks from now I'll be wanting to be home and off the road lol. Nah I'll be fine. I really liked being out the short time I was. I can't wait to be on my own! Monday morning 7am.