Schneider Chat Room version 2.0

It's a diesel, mounted on the passenger side, under/next to the step, not strapped to the catwalk. The pull start comment was meant facetiously...sometimes that doesn't come across in text. I haven't seen the gas generators on the catwalk before; at least not that I remember. Doesn't surprise me though.

The tractor itself isn't in much better shape, missing pieces of mirror cover, looks like it's been rode hard & put up wet a time or two too many, just generally a well-used truck. That just happens to be the noisiest apu I've been exposed to thus far, and it irked me because I'm tired and was looking forward to leaving the vents open tonight. The apu exhaust smells like a 1950s era diesel, too...gag!! Sigh...at least I'll be leaving early in the morning.

 

Had an O/O leased on to Wylie when I worked for them. He had the same thing on an old beat up Pete. You could hear it running from 100 yards away with no problem. I wonder if it was him?

 

Apologies for the late reply but I needed a full key board for this one.

There are perks to being a TE, but there are also draw backs. You need to be good at explaining things, extremely patient and open minded. Most new drivers are young guys with little to no real world experience or older refugees from another career. Neither group tend to be easy to teach. You have to manage personal perceptions and adjust YOUR teaching to the students abilities/needs. The TE must be able to work with the new hire despite the new hire's socio, political, or religious beliefs. This tends to be one of the hardest things for me - I can't engage on political topics as this tends to create the "you're marking me down not because I suck at driving but because we disagree politically" situations.

Some weeks are easy, some are hard, it all depends on the quality of the trainee. Some new hires are great, some have "interesting" relationships with reality. Some guys can do multi-variable calculus in their heads while others need a calculator, abacus, and take off their shoes and socks to subtract one number from another. Some guys can handle the basic work load, others you have to plan a nap for them. Some have the ability to quickly soak up knowledge and information, others are so overwhelmed that nothing is processing.

There is some increase in income. Don't think of it as earning more, rather as getting more work. You will spend at least an extra hour a day on logs and other paperwork. Everything will take longer - from pretrips to potty breaks. You will run fewer miles. My median paid miles are about 300 miles less when I have a trainee versus running solo. Some of that is in the pickup/dropping of the student, some is the two and a half hours it takes to get thru a drop and hook. The only true perk is a TE is virtually guaranteed to make bonus as having the trainee in the truck screws up our OOR metric (done on my math my OOR is 1.5%, on my scorecard it is -43%).

If you enjoy teaching and can get along with others then being a TE might be a good move. You can always get certified, try it for 6 months. If you hate it, stop training. If you like it then keep training.

 

So i have been with schneider three weeks and so far im over all ok with the company no major issues or problems and been getting the miles i want . The issue im having is pretty much over idleing . my truck has no apu and the unit i have in the truck is a fan/ heater combo im expected to use but it doesnt run and i have already requested for repairs but was told need to be scheduled . My question is am i really expected to live in a truck that is over 95 degrees every day im in texas and its hot my dbl says im at 35 percent idle time and thats being out for the last three weeks twenty four seven will i get wrote up about it or coached and if i do how will that affect me ... I see it as a safety issue if i cant sleep at night because of the heat and possiblty of heat stroke etc but my dbl gives me these scripted respones when i told him i had to idle he is aware of the issues with my truck but im still getting messages about ideling and when i called to talk to him about it he just told me i need to not idle really not sure what to do from here at the previous company i was at o could idle anytime without problems

 

David, did you and I go through orientation together?

 

i did orentaion in dallas whars your name

 

OK nope, I was in Houston. Sorry.

 

no problem

 

Your bunk heater is for winter. The fan will do nothing but blow your hot air inside your truck. Not much you can just idle.

 

Yeah as moosc said make sure that no air is blowing out of the bunk heater during the summer... its only going to blow hot air and make things worse, as far as I know its not designed to just circulate air as a fan.

All I can say is if you need to idle to get the rest you need... idle. Plain and simple. You may get the messages, the DBL may tell you what he HAS to tell you, but you need to do what you need to do to get a good rest. I've never heard of anyone actually getting written up, etc., over idling when necessary in order to get a good rest to be awake and alert when you are driving.