Schneider chat room - Closed see new thread linked in the last post

Qcomm exclamation point flashing at you? or just the red triangle on the dash lighting up? Theres a difference.

 

Those two never bothered me.

However, the "DBL Finger Of Death" was one to be reckoned with!

 

Just the dash never on the qual

 

Well thought the week was starting out so well but not anymore. Got a trip from SC to MO was told to bob tail to PU even sent a message confirming this before I left because it was 135 mile trip. Well after waiting a couple hrs at the PU they said no so got routed 83 miles to a empty that don't exists LOL now I sit here waiting 4:44 minuets left on my 14hr and 83 miles away from original PU I hope I don't have to argue to get paid for all these miles.

 

2 days in a row now I've been told to Bobtail over 100 miles. First was from Milwaukee to Gary after TAH to pickup a relay, the second was today from Greenville, OH to Hebron, KY. Got here and the GAP warehouse doesn't have any they want to give me. After sending the request message I got a list of about 15 trailers that are supposedly here and empty. Oh well, good thing my next pickup isn't until tomorrow morning 12 miles from here, too bad it's a Live Load with a Live Unload on delivery as well. I guess I'm just going to try cramming those pallets into my sleeper. What ever doesn't fit inside I'll just strap onto the back.

 

Well lucky for me the last place was 3 miles from a flying J's. I got down to 3hrs left so I'm done for the night I'm not calling them anymore I'm going to wait for my DBL to get in tomorrow and call him up. My workflow is a cluster again as well I arrived at my original PU then had to leave so GPS auto departed me again. Got to my next spot to PU empty had to leave of course GPS auto departed me from there. So now I have two PU's open LOL and can't complete any of them LOL What a mess!! The funny thing is I knew I might have to leave the first one but didn't want my ETA to show me being late when I was an hour early so I waited to the last second and logged me in arrived.

 

"If" they do as they say. There shouldn't be any issues. Provided the bunk heater doesn't crap out.

However, the fact that it will shut down the truck while sitting in traffic. I take issue with that.

 

have not had it shut down in traffic on me......yet......but my biggest problem is 34 hour restarts. My heater will only last one night, what am I supposed to do the second night if it is 30 degrees and I can't recharge the batteries?

 

One point that Dancer and I are making is that the rules keep changing and there's no way to "beat the system". There's little to no transparency to how some of the scores are calculated and at least on mine they tend to change mysteriously from time to time. There is also little communication to the drivers (or DBLs for that matter) on some of the changes that have/are coming. After my third month solo I was on the top of my DBL's board in terms of performance numbers, and I've stayed in the top 3 for the last 18 months. Anything I'm asked to do I do (provided it's safe and legal).

It used to be you could boil all of SNI's rules into three points: 1)Run safe, 2) Run legal, 3) Be where you say you're going to be when you say you're going to be there. You do those three things and you'd be in clover, making money and keeping management happy.

Now if a driver does everything they're supposed to they can get hurt by the administrative weenies. An example:

Diligent Doug does his trip plan, enters his eta's, and arrives at the shipper 30 minutes before his eta. As he does the pretrip he notices that the trailer he's picking up has a PM due. There's an OC on the way, so he contacts his DBL and gets the PM done. In doing so he ends up being 45 minutes late on his original eta. Even though he updated his eta before leaving the shipper with the reason "picked up equipment in bad order" that counts as a "Driver Defect".

Now lets look at what Lazy Larry does in the same situation. Instead of taking care the PM he just goes and makes final delivery according to his eta. He's screwed the next driver to pick up that trailer but doesn't care. On paper Larry looks like a better driver than Doug even though most of us would agree that Lazy Larry needs a swift kick to a sensitive area.

Or how about the driver who gets an impossible dispatch but puts on her big girl pants to try and make on time pu/del? If she followed the guidelines for setting her eta she would enter the time she KNOWS she can make delivery. She busts her ###, saves SNI a couple hundred in late fees but looses her bonus because of poor eta accuracy?

These are some of the probable scenarios coming out of these scorecards. We're getting put into a ###### if we do and ###### if we don't position on a lot of things. I enjoy working hard, and I love to win. Right now I feel like we've got replacement refs on the field.

 

My new all or nothing 2% OOR requirement for the bonus, insures that I'll never turn the truck off now.

And that could be a reason for the ambient temp sensor.

I'm not paying tolls out of pocket, to get a bonus that won't even cover those cost. Using their routing, almost insures 3% or more out of route, when avoiding tolls.

I've resolved myself to NOT be concerned about idle or fuel stops. And I won't be too #### concerned about the ETA scorecard. I'll plan, be there when I said I would be there.

If that's not to their liking, they're free to terminate my services.