My training was supposed to be 4 weeks, trainer said I was ready after 2, company compromised and made it 3 weeks, I was ready after 1 week out. Really depends on the driver. I've met people that can't drive a car after driving for 30 years...
What do you all think of companies that have you sign a contract for post-CDL company training? In other words, once you complete those 6-8 weeks..if you leave the first year it's 1000 dollars. Second year 2000 to pay back? They apparently say people jump ship after training so they have to start doing these sorts of contracts. I read some SNI drivers complaining the other day about Qualcomm's failing and having to spend their off clock time filling out time sheets and stuff instead of sleeping. That's pretty bad.
The qualcomm is just a piece of technology. Technology fails. Do I think the MCP-200 needs a serious update? Hell yea but I don't have too many problems with it. Got the blue screen of death a few times in my old truck and eventually had to have the black box replaced and later the screen. The problems certainly aren't Schneider specific. Running one day on paper logs until you can get to a shop won't kill you and i never lost sleep time because of it. As for the contract schools, I don't know too much about them other than that I refused to go that route. I scraped together the $4k for school and SNI is holding up its end of the bargain by reimbursing me for it. A lot of guys on here complain about being in contracts but it's a business and you can't expect them to front the time and money it costs to train when drivers are going to be jumping ship in 3 months because the grass at Joe Blow Trucking looks greener.
As long as it's "windows" based, you will have problems. And there is a newer version that eliminates all the wiring, antenna and that big black box but we will never see it here.
My only issues with the Qualcomm have been minor. It's rebooted at unfortunate times. But I've figured out how to not let that bother me. I either write down my turns and exits on my window with dry erase or I run an app on my phone with truck approved routes that I have running in the background on my phone giving me the same directions (or better). Other than that it's never been an issue to me. The Nav will get lost in construction zones. No biggie. Also, still new. Got plenty of time for it to screw up for me. I'd stay away from the contract, if possible, to start. You don't know if this is what you want. But if this is the best route to get you on the road you may have to bite the bullet. Now that in here, I'll be honest, I would do a contract with Schneider. I'm happy. I'm here to start, so far. It certainly could be worse.
Thanks for all the help guys. Sounds like a good place to start as any. Anyone been to the Phoenix OC? That's where they would send me.
They're building a brand new big OC down there to replace the brand new small one that they renovated last year, before they shuttered Fontanna (still extremely sour about that one. Alot of good people there, just thrown out like yesterday's garbage). It will hopefully be a decent OC, but I'm betting it's going to be packed all the time
I got zero training when I started, not even securement training. 2nd load was over width, over height and over weight.
