Picking my own freight baby! My journey to & of being on Schneider choice, the Adventure & Numbers!

gentleroger · Oct 26, 2019

It's more annoying than anything else, but I can lock mine down. It's just when things update on their side, it unlocks again.

I'd rather have IT focus on getting message alerts to work 100% of the time.

mickeyrat · Oct 26, 2019

gentleroger said: ↑

For you ICs/BOA/whatever-they-call you now it's not a big deal.

For company driver's it's a HUGE issue.

The first issue is that unless you had 1 year's tenure as of May 1, 2019 you cannot override it yourself. You must CALL in to ASK your leader to make the change. A little annoying but no big deal, right? It turns out that the leaders can't always get the nat override to lock in. So driver's and dbls think a driver is pushed out only to be assigned loads they can't do.

Next up is the assumption that you will run out almost your entire clock before shutting down. Say you're in Mounteagle heading to the north side of Atlanta and have 5 hours left, do you push in and try to deliver tonight, push into the metro area and try to park to deliver the next morning, or stop up by Dalton where parking is 'plentiful' and deliver in the morning? ETAi assumes you will deliver tonight and set your nat accordingly.

After that we run into utilization issues. ETAi is only accurate when you are within 4 hours of making delivery. Thus the APM's have started to delay assigning loads until 1 hour before your NAT. They argue that this way they can better utilize the truck. From the driver's perspective it's "hey this load would be totally possible if you had assigned it this morning and I made different decisions, but you waited until I delivered, so no I am under the gun to make the next stop".

Finally we have issues with estimating time with dot breaks, particularly when near the customer. I was supposed to deliver into a customer near the Edwardsville, OC a few weeks ago. Load cannot deliver until 0800 Tuesday morning, drop and hook. I get to Edwardsville 1600 Monday. ETAi had me delivering at 0800 and available at 0830 with 11/13:30/whatever. It saw I was across the street, so it just added in the dwell time at the customer and called it good. With an AOBR I would not log drive time over to the customer, but with an ELD it's a 15 minute drive. Plus a 15 minute pretrip, and it takes 15 minutes to clear the guardshack at this customer, 20 minutes to drop and hook and at best I would have 13 hours left on the 14, probably closer to 12.5.

Monday morning I was in Marquette, MI, showing available at 0600 w/11/13:30/15. I did not get dispatched until 0900. I was to head down to Quinisec, drop my mt and then shuttle two tbo trailers down the road for repairs. Sounds like a cruddy way to start the day, but $60 for 2 hours work isn't bad. Then I was to head over to Marientte, WI to grab an mt and then drop down to GB to live load heading to Kansas City, MO to live unload by 1500 Tuesday. No trailer in Marientte, so that was a nice waste of 1.5 hours, and I bobtailed down to GB, grabbed my mt and got loaded. Leaving out I had planned on overnighting in Plateville (4.5 hours away) and finishing things off Tuesday. If I had pushed hard I might have made Brooklyn, IA but the weather was on the verge of turning ugly and even though I did not "start" my day until 0900, I was up at 0530 so by 1830 I would be ready to be done with the day. As Schneider loves to remind us - nothing we do is worth hurting ourselves or others. I had set my nat for Tuesay 1500 w/3.5/4/what ever I had on the 70.

I one shot down to Plateville and when I do my end of day activities I discover I have a preassingment already. I'm ecstatic because for the last 3 months of running etai having a pre 16 hours ahead of time has been a rarity. I'm supposed to pick up in KC and deliver in STL by midnight on Wednesday. 268 paid miles, 282 actual miles. Push out eta's and nat and send a message saying "better pull this unless I'm best available", then start cooking dinner. Even though I had "locked out" my nat with 'driver related', the eta/nat task in the work assignment had not processed yet. When it did, it allowed ETAi to

Get a message back (hey it actually alerted that a message came in) asking me to call in to support shift. Call in and explain what my plans were.

Support shift says "but you have hours to run, can't you go a little further so you have more time on the 11/14 tomorrow".

At which point I lost my cool and asked to talk to Andy. Support Shift dude says "Andy who? There's no Andy here"

"He's the 6 foot tall guy at the stand up desk that you have to walk past to get to the support shift desk. He's also your boss. If he's not in, give me Jaimie. If Jaimie isn't in, give me Jeanie" I replied. Support shift guy is now nonplussed as I just asked for all of his supervisors by name so I follow up with "Or just do what I told you to and rip this load off me". He rips it off, I reset my Nat and go running the next morning.

When I get to my delivery I get my preassingmnet. It has me going next door to drop and hook before heading to Topeaka. I came on duty at 0445 that morning. ETAi had me delivering at 2015, available at 2045 with 15 minutes on my 14. Starting to see a pattern?

I run thru the cluster that was Wednesday (7.5 hour unload, overweight) and Thursday morning without issues. My Thursday afternoon was a "CSR was drinking" special - picked up a Customer A with address 123 Fake Street. Running down Fake Street I see a large sign saying "Customer A truck entrance", so I turn in even though my GPS says I have a half mile to go. Check in with "Schneider picking up load 856789 going to Louisivlle", clerk rummages through his BOLs and doesn't find it. Goes and asks someone who showed the clerk how to look up a load. They find load 856789, but it's going out to Phoenix and isn't scheduled for 3 days. A little back and forth and phone calls and I discover I'm actually picking up at Customer B, which is in the warehouse that Customer A used to be in 3 years ago. I get loaded and go and 40 miles down the road my phone rings with the SNI ring tone (TMBG "Hey Mr DJ I Thought We Had a Deal). Customer "Service" want's me to pick up load 856788 instead. That's not going to happen, but the CSR already updated my work assignment. I go running as my DBL gets things straightened out. I'm on I-64 delivering into the west side of Louisville with a 0700 2 hour live unload. The closest I can get is 40 miles out. I could be 20 mile out if I ran past my delivery and circled back in the morning, but that would be asinine. I shut down with 2 hours on my 11 and 4 on the 14. Guess what my NAT showed? 10:30 on the 11, 13 on the 14.

Now imagine if it's a new driver - do you think he will have the fortitude to tell Ops where they can shove it or will he drive into the large thunderstorm with no place to park? There are options - but they are gas stations that you can park at - none of which are listed in any truck stop guide/app. If he does stand up for himself- how many loads will we fail on because we allowed a computer to do the thinking for us? How much time will DBLs spend updating events instead of servicing drivers?

Giving the devil it's due ETAi is pretty accurate in the last 4 hours in. Provided it has current polling data. A few week ago I overnighted in Haubstat, delivering into Franklin KY. I had locked out my nat but let the etas float with ETAi. For whatever reason the polling data on my truck did not update. ETAi thought I was still in Haubstat when I was 100 miles further down the road. Thus even though I pulled into the customer right on my eta, the apm had freaked out because etai was showing my eta as 2 hours after my nat and had my dbl push my nat out. So instead of being productive that afternoon I sat waiting for a load.

ETAi falls into the category of "nice idea, but utterly dumb". We created it because for 6 years out training program was piss poor at teaching trip planning and driver's etas/nat accuracy was crud. Plus 5 years of a pointless bonus metric that had driver's putting in inaccurate etas in order to game the system. It's another example of relying on technology over training.
Click to expand...

so long story short, are you captain of your own ship?

gentleroger · Oct 26, 2019

mickeyrat said: ↑

so long story short, are you captain of your own ship?
Click to expand...

Yes, but the Admiral is getting annoyed with how often I am telling him where to put his futtock shrouds.

JOHNQPUBLIC · Oct 27, 2019

gentleroger said: ↑

For you ICs/BOA/whatever-they-call you now it's not a big deal.

For company driver's it's a HUGE issue.

The first issue is that unless you had 1 year's tenure as of May 1, 2019 you cannot override it yourself. You must CALL in to ASK your leader to make the change. A little annoying but no big deal, right? It turns out that the leaders can't always get the nat override to lock in. So driver's and dbls think a driver is pushed out only to be assigned loads they can't do.

Next up is the assumption that you will run out almost your entire clock before shutting down. Say you're in Mounteagle heading to the north side of Atlanta and have 5 hours left, do you push in and try to deliver tonight, push into the metro area and try to park to deliver the next morning, or stop up by Dalton where parking is 'plentiful' and deliver in the morning? ETAi assumes you will deliver tonight and set your nat accordingly.

After that we run into utilization issues. ETAi is only accurate when you are within 4 hours of making delivery. Thus the APM's have started to delay assigning loads until 1 hour before your NAT. They argue that this way they can better utilize the truck. From the driver's perspective it's "hey this load would be totally possible if you had assigned it this morning and I made different decisions, but you waited until I delivered, so no I am under the gun to make the next stop".

Finally we have issues with estimating time with dot breaks, particularly when near the customer. I was supposed to deliver into a customer near the Edwardsville, OC a few weeks ago. Load cannot deliver until 0800 Tuesday morning, drop and hook. I get to Edwardsville 1600 Monday. ETAi had me delivering at 0800 and available at 0830 with 11/13:30/whatever. It saw I was across the street, so it just added in the dwell time at the customer and called it good. With an AOBR I would not log drive time over to the customer, but with an ELD it's a 15 minute drive. Plus a 15 minute pretrip, and it takes 15 minutes to clear the guardshack at this customer, 20 minutes to drop and hook and at best I would have 13 hours left on the 14, probably closer to 12.5.

Monday morning I was in Marquette, MI, showing available at 0600 w/11/13:30/15. I did not get dispatched until 0900. I was to head down to Quinisec, drop my mt and then shuttle two tbo trailers down the road for repairs. Sounds like a cruddy way to start the day, but $60 for 2 hours work isn't bad. Then I was to head over to Marientte, WI to grab an mt and then drop down to GB to live load heading to Kansas City, MO to live unload by 1500 Tuesday. No trailer in Marientte, so that was a nice waste of 1.5 hours, and I bobtailed down to GB, grabbed my mt and got loaded. Leaving out I had planned on overnighting in Plateville (4.5 hours away) and finishing things off Tuesday. If I had pushed hard I might have made Brooklyn, IA but the weather was on the verge of turning ugly and even though I did not "start" my day until 0900, I was up at 0530 so by 1830 I would be ready to be done with the day. As Schneider loves to remind us - nothing we do is worth hurting ourselves or others. I had set my nat for Tuesay 1500 w/3.5/4/what ever I had on the 70.

I one shot down to Plateville and when I do my end of day activities I discover I have a preassingment already. I'm ecstatic because for the last 3 months of running etai having a pre 16 hours ahead of time has been a rarity. I'm supposed to pick up in KC and deliver in STL by midnight on Wednesday. 268 paid miles, 282 actual miles. Push out eta's and nat and send a message saying "better pull this unless I'm best available", then start cooking dinner. Even though I had "locked out" my nat with 'driver related', the eta/nat task in the work assignment had not processed yet. When it did, it allowed ETAi to

Get a message back (hey it actually alerted that a message came in) asking me to call in to support shift. Call in and explain what my plans were.

Support shift says "but you have hours to run, can't you go a little further so you have more time on the 11/14 tomorrow".

At which point I lost my cool and asked to talk to Andy. Support Shift dude says "Andy who? There's no Andy here"

"He's the 6 foot tall guy at the stand up desk that you have to walk past to get to the support shift desk. He's also your boss. If he's not in, give me Jaimie. If Jaimie isn't in, give me Jeanie" I replied. Support shift guy is now nonplussed as I just asked for all of his supervisors by name so I follow up with "Or just do what I told you to and rip this load off me". He rips it off, I reset my Nat and go running the next morning.

When I get to my delivery I get my preassingmnet. It has me going next door to drop and hook before heading to Topeaka. I came on duty at 0445 that morning. ETAi had me delivering at 2015, available at 2045 with 15 minutes on my 14. Starting to see a pattern?

I run thru the cluster that was Wednesday (7.5 hour unload, overweight) and Thursday morning without issues. My Thursday afternoon was a "CSR was drinking" special - picked up a Customer A with address 123 Fake Street. Running down Fake Street I see a large sign saying "Customer A truck entrance", so I turn in even though my GPS says I have a half mile to go. Check in with "Schneider picking up load 856789 going to Louisivlle", clerk rummages through his BOLs and doesn't find it. Goes and asks someone who showed the clerk how to look up a load. They find load 856789, but it's going out to Phoenix and isn't scheduled for 3 days. A little back and forth and phone calls and I discover I'm actually picking up at Customer B, which is in the warehouse that Customer A used to be in 3 years ago. I get loaded and go and 40 miles down the road my phone rings with the SNI ring tone (TMBG "Hey Mr DJ I Thought We Had a Deal). Customer "Service" want's me to pick up load 856788 instead. That's not going to happen, but the CSR already updated my work assignment. I go running as my DBL gets things straightened out. I'm on I-64 delivering into the west side of Louisville with a 0700 2 hour live unload. The closest I can get is 40 miles out. I could be 20 mile out if I ran past my delivery and circled back in the morning, but that would be asinine. I shut down with 2 hours on my 11 and 4 on the 14. Guess what my NAT showed? 10:30 on the 11, 13 on the 14.

Now imagine if it's a new driver - do you think he will have the fortitude to tell Ops where they can shove it or will he drive into the large thunderstorm with no place to park? There are options - but they are gas stations that you can park at - none of which are listed in any truck stop guide/app. If he does stand up for himself- how many loads will we fail on because we allowed a computer to do the thinking for us? How much time will DBLs spend updating events instead of servicing drivers?

Giving the devil it's due ETAi is pretty accurate in the last 4 hours in. Provided it has current polling data. A few week ago I overnighted in Haubstat, delivering into Franklin KY. I had locked out my nat but let the etas float with ETAi. For whatever reason the polling data on my truck did not update. ETAi thought I was still in Haubstat when I was 100 miles further down the road. Thus even though I pulled into the customer right on my eta, the apm had freaked out because etai was showing my eta as 2 hours after my nat and had my dbl push my nat out. So instead of being productive that afternoon I sat waiting for a load.

ETAi falls into the category of "nice idea, but utterly dumb". We created it because for 6 years out training program was piss poor at teaching trip planning and driver's etas/nat accuracy was crud. Plus 5 years of a pointless bonus metric that had driver's putting in inaccurate etas in order to game the system. It's another example of relying on technology over training.
Click to expand...

All I can say is wow! What a cluster #$@%#*! Besides everything you said I can also see pushing to your clock limits everyday will blow your 70 pretty quick forcing a reset instead of running on recaps. I try to "average" 10 hours a day of on duty/driving time to make my clock last for the 8 day period and then have solid recaps coming back every day after that. Can't always make it work all of the time depending on what's going on but do ok much of the time. Just because you still have time available does not mean it is wise to use it. It is not a race, it is a marathon if you are out more than a week. Five day regional or local driver, yeah that is a race.

And to automatically say you're available 30 minutes after arriving at a shipper or receiver is pretty optomistic 99% of the time. This was clearly designed by people who have no knowledge of the realities of truck driving. On paper it probably looks great and that is all they know.

stranger · Oct 27, 2019

The people who wrote the program probably looked at everyone's paper logs that said they got unloaded in 30 minutes no matter where they went.

Cat sdp · Dec 4, 2019

rickybobby · Dec 4, 2019

I’m sorry I will do better.

Steel Tiger · Dec 4, 2019

Cat sdp said: ↑

View attachment 311939
Click to expand...

So now I know your real name. Lol

LtlAnonymous · Dec 5, 2019

... by not going in early for loads? You get penalized for showing up early?

Farmerbob1 · Dec 5, 2019

LtlAnonymous said: ↑

... by not going in early for loads? You get penalized for showing up early?
Click to expand...

Several receivers will penalize you for showing up early. Wal-Mart for example.

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