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

So today I hook to big sexy 1602xx so beautiful, its perfect. Like a virgin ready to go...Only 17k in the box...So we start Rollin from GB yo Marion Indiana...

I notice this "flapping" on both sides...no way both sides have a flat. I pull over all good... back at it again I see this "flapping" its the stupid "black" trailer skirts who ever decided to put black skirts on? Maybe its just this trailer...skirts not as areo as it should be...but its going to drive me crazy for the next 345 miles...

Be Safe Out There

Captain Dave

 

The new trailers are donning their best and going with black this year.

 

You are all going to love this tonight!!!!

How many of you got this message on the qc this afternoon/evening?

"GOOD AFTERNOON INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS, THIS WEEK WE ARE IMPLEMENTING A CHANGE TO HOW YOUR CALLS ARE HANDLED AFTERHOURS. THE SUPPORT SHIPFT TEAM IS ONLY ABLE TO HANDLE PERSONAL EMERGENCIES AND ACTIVE SHIPMENT PROBLEMS. IF YOU HAVE A NON-URGENT ISSUES YOU WILL BE ABLE TO LEAVE A VOICE MAIL MESSAGE FOR YOUR DAYTIME LEADERSHIP TEAM. THERE IS NO CHANGE TO THE PROCESS YOU CURRENTLY USE TO CALL YOUR ICA/ICR. YOU WILL STILL USE THE 7 DIGIT EXTENSION TO REACH THEIR VOICE MAILBOX AFTERHOURS. OTHERWISE, YOU CAN CALL 800-5xx-xxxx WHICH IS THE CRITICAL INCIDENT LINE MANAGED BY THE SUPPORT SHIFT STAFF. IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT TO YOUR TEAM. THANKS MIKE BETHEA, DIRECTOR OF IC OPERATIONS"





So first they give us this awsome operating agreement with no negotiation in it at all and tell use, oh hey, nothing is going to change around here, we just needed to update it to reflect your ic status.

Now 6 months after the agreement went active they are pulling the company cars, pulling support shift from us, charging drivers for tolls in states that are on the approved list because we didn't follow "Jill's routing". What's next? If you read the charges section again they have listed there we are responsible for drug tests, dot physcials, tractor inspections (both quarterly and annualy), just to name a few items they use to pay for. They going to tell use we can't use the terminals to shower or do laundry anymore as well?

In the mean time they force us to move there trailers around for free, give is wrong information about the loads, hold off on confirming loads until the last minute, lowering rates on contract loads when the contract isn't up for renewal yet (a load I use to haul all the time since I've been here started off 9 months ago paying $802, then 2 months later dropped to $782, begining of the year dropped to $761, this last month dropped again to $741. Because I was hauling that load so much I got to know the manager in the shipping office. Asked him how often does this contract renew becacuse the rates keep dropping every couple months. His response was it's an annual contract that renews every summer.), giving unconfirmed loads to company drivers, canceling loads on IC's to give them to company drivers instead, and the list goes on.

My favorite is a load they keep putting on the board in El Paso every couple of weeks just to lure IC's there. It's a $3,600 load going to long islnd, ny. The thing is that load never confirms and the load number is from octoboer. I called my ICA about this load 2 weeks ago to see if customer service might know when it will confirm. The answer I got was, "that load is very very old from october, it's for a load a customer keeps putting off beause they are building a new store and just can't make up there minds yet on the kind of lighting they want but we can't take it out of the system or off the board because of how it was booked in our systems and the customer just won't cancel it." I am sorry but this load is been on teh books since October and you can't take it off because the customer might finally make a decision after 6 moths on the kind of lights they will be installing in there store? I don't buy it one bit! They are etither using company drivers tor un that load and put on the board unconfirmed to lure IC's into El Paso with it and when it doesn't confirm they IC's is left with picking some of the <$1/mile stuff out of there. These are the games they paly.

How much of what we are seeing now 6 months after that new operating agreement into effect was pre-planned? You dont' just make massive changes like this over night and oh by the way your operating agreement seems to have a clause in it that lines up with the new changes.

Another thing I have noticed is the amount of office staff that has been let go at Schnieder in the past 3 months. Even my ICA has confirmed they have cut alomst 20% of the staff. My ICA and ICR's have had so much extra work pilled onto them they can't get it all done by the end of the day now. They are worried they may be loosing there jobs soon with how they have been cutting back. They of course there are the comments and statements by the ICA's and ICR's about how bad the markets are and this much worse than 2008 and Schnieder barely survived the downturn in 2008 and they may not survive this time around. Next time anyone of you are at an OC, look at how many tractors are sitting parked, both company and IC's, compared to July or even October of last year. Schneider is having financial troubles and these are all signs that lead to that possible conclusion. Since they are a privately held company, there is no requirement to publish quarterly financial reports like a publicly traded company. (think another possible Arrow trucking. A company to big to fail but did and no one knew until the day the doors closed)

We have seen them cut recruiting down to nothing, kill all of the referal bonuses, cap the IC program. Next thing to watch out for is drivers that are getting let go because they are "High Risk Drivers" according to safety. I just talked to an IC yesterday that was told his operating agreement is being canceled because he is a "High Risk Driver". He hasn't had any accidents here at schnieder, but because his KW sends a roll stability critical event when he makes a left turn at about 10mph and KW dealership has said it's a sensor issue they are terminating his operating agreement. Oh yea, he had one call in on him beceause he maintained his lane instead of getting over into faster traffic to let a 4 wheeler merge on the freeway even though the 4 wheeler had the yeild sign. How many more stories like this are going to pop up as they try and thin the herd?

Yes this may sound all doom and gloom and very pesimistic, but take a step back and look at everything going on here at schnieder as a whole and I think you might see the signs I am seeing as well. I welcome another interpritation of the what we see happening around here.

 

You usually hook the other end of the bungee to the side of the trailer but it was an older trailer so there wasn't any track holes on it

 

I don't respond to ignorance.....

 

You just did.

 

I think you may want to get that photo of the "Critical" off your post..some a hole puts that on auto dail to harass them...we all got the memo... it is what it is ...

Be Safe Out There

Captain Dave

 

I think we all should call just to protest the stupidly of all this, lol.

 

Well Schneider logistics is or has paid out 21million on a settlement from 2014 and sni one for 3.5 mill in 2013 that's a lot of cash even for Schneider.
Yes I know legally two different companies but, it's still all Schneider money

 

Companies like to use down turns in the economy to trim the fat so they don't look like monsters, hopefully that's all it is.