Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Discussion in 'Schneider' started by dieselfuelonly, Feb 22, 2013.

  1. sadwar

    sadwar Road Train Member

    Joined:
    Jul 8, 2012
    Messages:
    2,143
    Thanks Received:
    3,370
    Location:
    Lockport, IL
    0
    Finishing off a 1700 mile run from Dallas to San Francisco tomorrow. Picked up on Sunday, ran three 500 mile days, deliver early tomorrow morning.

    Got a pre-assignment to pick up in San Francisco tomorrow after my delivery and go right back to Dallas! Another 1700 miles! Gonna be a great week, at least for miles!
     
  2. dieselfuelonly

    dieselfuelonly Road Train Member

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2012
    Messages:
    2,475
    Thanks Received:
    5,086
    Location:
    Chapel Hill, NC
    0
    Well I managed to cram 45.8 gallons into my tanks and the guy at the window of the little guard shack laughed and said that was close enough... lol. After that I headed south. Don't think I got out of low range the whole time on I-95 through Connecticut. I honestly cannot fathom how anyone can handle a daily commute around that area. It is just unreal, absolute gridlock ALL THE TIME.

    Finally got past that, headed over the Tappan Zee and a few traffic jams through NJ later I reached PA and it was pretty smooth sailing. I got to my 1st stop and got unloaded pretty quick.

    After that I called my DBL because she was wondering my I was routed through to Charlotte. She pressed me to talk about some of the issues I'm having, although I preferred to wait until I got back to Charlotte and could sit down and talk with them in person. I did tell her about the incident with the Coca Cola load, she said she was going to look into getting me some pay for all of the time spent with the back and fourth with everyone involved.

    I also mentioned my lack of miles and time spent in the Northeast. Honestly almost the entire 3 weeks I have been screwing around up there with the exception of a couple runs down to SC/GA and Ohio. I got the classic "well freight is big in the Northeast right now" answer. I don't buy it. There is freight moving all over this whole #### country and as a driver who is willing to stay out a MINIMUM of 3 weeks, I should be able to get a slice of it. Send the guy who constantly whines about wanting to be home every Friday for his 2 day weekend into the Northeast. Don't waste my fricking time with that.

    I talked to one of the guys I went through training with the other day, he is based out of Memphis and was running everywhere BUT the Northeast and getting great miles.

    She said she can probably improve my miles. We'll see.

    I brought up the Choice program again and she asked a couple questions, asked about accidents and I told her about bending the fairing bobtailing in my driveway. Her tone changed slightly when she heard about this. I will be very pissed if that alone is a reason for me not being able to get on Choice. But, I'm not going to make any assumptions until I actually talk to someone in person.

    Regardless of having that phone conversation I am still going to sit down with one of the higher-ups in Charlotte and go in with a fairly detailed list of problems I have been having, and how they are repeating over and over and over again. I want them to understand just how much time I am spending dealing with these issues. I also want them to know that I DO want to continue working for Schneider as despite ALL of the problems I am having... I still feel they are a decent company. When I told my DBL I was going through Charlotte so I could talk with them and then take my pickup truck home for my hometime, she asked me straight up if I was going to quit... LOL. I told her no, I just needed to talk.

    So, after that I relayed the 2nd part of the load through Carlisle since it doesn't delivery until tomorrow evening. I was hoping to spend the night at Carlisle, do some laundry, get some food, but apparently Schneider had other plans although my DBL (supposedly) set my NAT to the following morning as we discussed while on the phone. So, I immediately had to drop the relay, fuel, and fly out of there bobtailing to go pick up an empty trailer.

    Of course after spending 10 minutes trying to FIND the location of the empty trailer, because the Qualcomm directions into the location were WORTHLESS (thank God I was bobtailing), I open up the old piece of crap trailer and its filled up with all kinds of junk and a pallet jack. Uhhh... NO.

    So, I quickly call in the phone. This was a PERFECT example of the problems I have been having, that I could explain to my DBL. Why send me away from an OC full of perfectly good empties, to go to a location with ONE trailer that may or may not be unloaded? But instead, they've all gone home and I get support shift.

    Thankfully, this guy was nice and very helpful, I explained that I couldn't use the empty, would have to go back to Carlisle to get one but that by the time I did that I wouldn't have enough hours left to make the pickup. So, he put me on hold for a few minutes and got me permission to bobtail into the shipper.

    Got to the shipper, got my load and headed out. Stopped not too far away to do some shopping with about 45 minutes left on my 11. I will run the rest of the way into Ohio tomorrow.

    10 hours and 15 minutes of driving and only 450 miles to show for it... yes... you know I spent some time in the Northeast today!

    After Ohio, hopefully Charlotte and some much needed hometime? And maybe get started with Choice?! Who knows how it will all turn out... We'll see...
     
  3. sadwar

    sadwar Road Train Member

    Joined:
    Jul 8, 2012
    Messages:
    2,143
    Thanks Received:
    3,370
    Location:
    Lockport, IL
    0
    Dfo, find out which dbl is running Charlotte's 48 state board and ask if you can go on it. My dbl took it over and moved me from western regional to 48 state. Big difference so far. Good luck in whatever you decide to do. I talked to Schneider about joining choice, had my truck picked out to lease, but had to stay company because of health insurance reasons.
     
  4. Sledge07

    Sledge07 Light Load Member

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2013
    Messages:
    132
    Thanks Received:
    32
    Location:
    Blackshear, GA
    0
    no ####. i left sunday night and haven't left the southeast yet. went from home to west memphis, to stuttgart, down to montgomery and now from pensacola to savannah. you really need to come get on my board man. i spend maybe a week out of three up in the ne, but it's with loads that aren't ########.
     
  5. tmowry1

    tmowry1 Light Load Member

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2013
    Messages:
    52
    Thanks Received:
    25
    Location:
    NE Indiana
    0
    Taking my SQT tomorrow!
     
    Chopper1776, dieselfuelonly and HotH2o Thank this.
  6. stevep1977

    stevep1977 Road Train Member

    Joined:
    Dec 23, 2010
    Messages:
    3,701
    Thanks Received:
    22,357
    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    0
    Yeah, so, they wonder why drivers don't want to run the northeast?

    Get told that P&G neelys landing mo has a ton of freight for the period of 9/1-9/12 and that they need as many drivers out Labor Day weekend to handle the freight. So what happens the Friday before Labor Day? Get sent straight to Pennsylvania. Umm, Missouri is the opposite way?

    decent run there, then they give me a crap run up to buffalo ny having to run a heavy load through all of the pa back roads chugging up hills at a snails pace. Get to buffalo and request a relay. Sorry, freight is dead in that market, you have to sit all Monday. Ok.

    Then Tuesday hits and its another heavy load back through the exact same pa back roads. 460 miles in 10:15 driving.

    Then the real fun begins. Deliver to bj's in Burlington nj tues night, and of course the empty I'm assigned to pick up is loaded. So with those jerks at bj's I know you need a correct trailer and release number. So as I'm ready to bobtail out and park for the night, the guard says "hey, I got this trailer here that was never picked up. Go grab it from spot xxx and I'll release it to you. Fine. So I hook up quick, check the light real quick, and drive straight to our drop yard which is the closest place to park. Didnt have time to do a pretrip and shut down at our yard with 1 min on my 14.

    So then after this pathetic start to the week, they give me a 35 mile load delivering this morning. I don't mind short hauls necessarily, but when you list yourself available at 8am and they give you a 1230 appt time 35 miles away it pisses me off. Well good thing it was 1230 I guess. I do my pretrip in the morning and clearly see a huge hole in the roof of a 136xxx trailer, pretty much brand new. No wonder why that jag off guard dumped this trailer on me. So I have to drop it and find another.

    Of course after getting this crappy short haul load, the trip planner says he'll "back me up" next load. Yeah, back me up further into the hole of late night northeast driving. A 9pm live unload appt in Boston ma when my hours can't even realistically get me there considering they expect me to drive straight through ny during rush hour. So whatever, I'll get as far as I can.

    Go to pick up the relay at the same yard I shut down at the previous night, and of course paper load out of big island. 1 illegal tire, another tire arguably illegal, and a third with a huge piece of rubber gouged out of the tread wall. And it's not scaled of course either. Request the previous dvirs and prior driver lists "no defects". The trailer was sitting there for 2 days. All he had to do was notify SEM and have someone come out and fix it. Then again, maybe he did for all I know....

    So I call ops and say I've had enough of this nonsense and I'm not taking this load. They tell me to call SEM. Guy at SEM hears the story from me and proceeds to STATE "you're going to take that trailer over to wingfoot and get those tires fixed" in a rude and condecending tone.

    Well, that was about it for that load. I was too tired to safely operate the vehicle at that point. And then I called back SEM and told them they are going to send someone out to fix these tires in a rude and condecending tone. And how can you order a driver to pull an illegal trailer?


    anyway, sitting there for three hours and don't hear anything. All of a sudden I get a message from support shift begging me to help them out. A driver broke down 60 miles away and they need someone to recover the load. It's going to Long Island ny but its just a quick drop and hook and it needs to be there by midnight. So I accept to do it.

    they never sent the load out so i just left cause I was running out of hours. They gave me the location code where i was picking up at. by the time I got to the pickup the assignment had come through. It was a live unload delivering at 4am. So now I need to wake up half way through my 10 hour break, get unloaded, then go back to sleep, then drive 50 miles further out onto Long Island for my pickup tomorrow. My question is why lie? No wonder why drivers are so pissed with this bait and switch crap.

    the next load is heading back to il, but I'm getting really fed up with the lies.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2013
    Kutina Thanks this.
  7. dieselfuelonly

    dieselfuelonly Road Train Member

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2012
    Messages:
    2,475
    Thanks Received:
    5,086
    Location:
    Chapel Hill, NC
    0
    Sounds like you had one of my days man... that sucks.
     
    Zman1403 Thanks this.
  8. stevep1977

    stevep1977 Road Train Member

    Joined:
    Dec 23, 2010
    Messages:
    3,701
    Thanks Received:
    22,357
    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    0
    #### like this seriously only happens the northeast. And just so you know you don't have to take their #### if you don't want to. I was seriously stressed and pissed so technically I made the right call by shutting it down then and there. I would have been a hazard on the road considering how mad I was.

    and it did turn out to be a drop. Was just getting contradictary info from them (surprisingly). They woke me up at 5am and had me drop it in a door. Now onward to the wild empty chase on Long Island. .
     
  9. stevep1977

    stevep1977 Road Train Member

    Joined:
    Dec 23, 2010
    Messages:
    3,701
    Thanks Received:
    22,357
    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    0
    Stop one of the wild goose chase, trailer still loaded, they just blindly sent me there without even checking with the customer. Lets see how many more stops I have to make
     
  10. stevep1977

    stevep1977 Road Train Member

    Joined:
    Dec 23, 2010
    Messages:
    3,701
    Thanks Received:
    22,357
    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    0
    Stop 2 send me into Bronx ny, "empty" has pallets and a pallet jack in it. Haven't caught any wild geese yet