Schneider National Carriers - Green Bay, Wi.

You did just quit, you said you quit them after 3 month's. This is not even long enough to know how the company works. You should have at least given them 6 month's.

I agree 100% with talking to the driver's......they are a company's best redruiter's. As for statistic's how could they lie to you about a company if the number's are looking good and other's are doing well.

Your opinion is what this board/forum is for. But I believe you could not give an honest opinion of the company after just 3 month's and to top it off you were a brand new driver also.
No it is very doubtful if you would have done anybetter (just starting out) with another company.
The more training the better for any "Green driver's" another reason why you should have tried to stick it out.

I don't know personally how long Scheinider's school is, but I am guessing it is not too long 6 weeks maybe? Then you have to train with another driver for so long. Then you get to hit the road on your own. I mean working for a freight hauling company is not that hard. They give you a load, and you drive it from point A to Point B and get it there on time.

How is this, you are only allowed to drive 11 hours then you have to take a full 10 hours off. I know realisticly you have to get something to eat and take a shower also. but 3 hours sleep? C'mon now if you were driving as a team then you had to have more than 3 hours to sleep.

You still had 14 hours left out of the 22 hours you claimed you did not sleep.

I have to agree some company's will give a solo to many hours to do load's. But as a team every 11 hour's your shift was up for 10 hour's.

You say not to go with Scheinider, BUT you say you can't tell a better company either.
You say also to go local that you will make more money on the hour. How is this?
The only avantage to a local job versus's a OTR is you may spend less time in truckstops plus money so maybe this is how you think any local job in any crappy city will pay $17.00 a hour.

Two rule's to remember is "Keep the left door closed and the wheels turning and you will make money" while hauling freight.

This is called TIME MANAGEMENT this how all the other driver's that are successful make money. It is against the law to work more than 70 hours per week period while driving a truck.

Not all lie to you, there are many out there that do, but not all. Even if you think they lied to you how would this get you or other's killed?

Yes this job is dangerous, but if you do the job and do it right and legal then there is less a chance to mess up.

I would be curious to know what you think they lied to you about? What did you think it was going to be a leisure job? Did you think it was going to be a vacation? Driving is hard work only if you make it hard. I mean yea it is not all rose's either, but a job is only what you make it to be.

I can't blame them one bit for not trying to get their money if you quit them only after 3 month's they have their right to do it.
As for them being desperate for sending you info to get you back to driving for them. I don't think it is them being desperate, as much as them trying to do you a favor.

Walmart is a "good" job but it is not the best either, it may have been the best for your step dad. I commend him for sticking to them for 15 year's. It is hard to find many driver's at all that stick with the same company for that long.
I hope you will post up what you think you were lied about.

Anyway's good luck in whatever venture you try, drive safe!

 

The only time I ever got close to getting the 10 hours in a sleeper was when I had the flu, and this was due to taking some strong cold medicen.

But only getting 3 hours sleep is not something you can blame on someone other than yourself.

 

I base my opinion on much more than statistics and numbers. I have done extensive research on many companies, and most of that by actually talking to the drivers, former and present. That aside, I have also well versed in hiring drivers, and have hired a BUNCH of them. I can pretty much tell what I'm dealing with in a few moments time.

You took my criticism all wrong and completely out of context, but at the same time revealed to me that you are a bit of a hothead, because of your reaction to what I offered. But here's the thing....what makes your opinions any more valid than someone else's?

Maybe you ought to look back on what I wrote. I never said you were not cut out for anything, except for possibly driving as part of a team. That's not something that many drivers out here have found that works for them. Sleeping in a truck when it is rolling down the highway and expecting meaningful rest isn't in the cards for most people. Some can sleep through a tornado. I'm not one that can sleep through a mouse fart. That's all I meant to offer when I stated that some are not cut out for team driving...

No one's going to delete your post. It illustrates clearly what the problem is, and that's all that needs to be said.

Like I've said before....Schneider or ANY company for that matter, is not going to be perfect for anyone, and the same thing goes for drivers. Some drivers will never be able to fit in anywhere as well, no matter how many companies they try.

 

This post is because of what Turbotrucker and Mac E-6 said. It has taken me 3 days to type it because I have had to reword things to not sound rude as well as delete cuss words. It is lengthy but I will try to defend all my comments and even an opinion or two. I was just trying to help some poor sap from being yet another Schneider victim. Instead of people taking what I say as an opinion, they decide instead of just either attacking my thoughts, taking it out of context, or flat out being rude NOT ALL but a couple of lines were rude. Although this is a lot of fun, I’m trying to keep from the name calling and cussing that I’m sure the webmaster would not appreciate. First off I’m going to try and say all this without being rude so I hope no one really takes it that way, I can be an ### if I want to be, so I have to remember that before I speak but I also am going to be BLUNT not to be rude, but to defend what I have said with intellect and not just speculation like some.

That’s a good question. For it to be answered, however, you have to take the meaning in context. I put it up there wrong. You HAVE more time to sleep, even more than 8 hours sometimes. I SLEPT 3 hours. Most of the time I slept 1 solid, helped my wife load a trailer, not because she couldn’t but because I COULDN’T sleep anyway. In the one month I was on the road without a trainer, a lot of things happened. Too many to get into detail with including strong winds knocking trailers over, tornados, and other things that a lot of seasoned veterans have gone through but at least they had it spread out in 10 years. Something happened almost everyday that kept us from making as many miles as we could. When I was training with my trainer, someone’s airfoil came off their trailer and landed right in front of me going the max 63. If we would have been going any faster it would have went through the windshield. Instead it just tore a hole in the trailer. He also mentioned that the wind in Arkansas had never been that bad in the 6 years he had been driving with Schneider that almost blew us and a few other trucks over. We passed trucks carrying houses where the house had been blown in the ditch and the truck had been flipped. There were tons of other things that I won’t get into but this was just one month of this crap.
As far as LYING to me. “Your dispatcher or STL will NEVER ask you to run more than what you feel is safe to run. It is ALWAYS your decision. You should never feel pressured.” Well first off, even my TRAINERS said that would happen more than once. We even watch a video of some poor sap in a wheelchair wishing he would have spoke up rather than trying the run. And another older man who had been trucking 30 years who faced jail time for falling asleep and running over a bus full of children. I flat out refuse to do anything that would have jeopardized my wife’s safety. It’s been a few years since I drove, and before that I was a server at a restaurant. I would go party until 8 or 9 in the morning, go home take a shower, then go back to work by 11. There were many days I got no sleep and even more where I got 2 hours or less. BUT the worse thing that could happen to me at the restaurant was for me to cut my finger or something cutting produce. Driving took more alertness. I was not that great when I first started, then I got to be a zero error driver. Yet after I got out of training, I was getting less and less sleep, then I was making a ton more errors. I even almost let the trailer side swipe a car in some construction one night.

This is a familiar tune I’ve heard time and time again. Interesting for people telling me this seeing how I have two college degrees. I had a job when I was in high school as did most. I also started college while I was still in high school. So I had two jobs and two schools I attended before I was 18 years old. I got my diploma and my two degrees while still working over 40 hours a week. If you divide up the time, hours of the week into studying, working, going to class, drinking (which I never did while on the road even during my off time), you will see that I have no problems with time management. I DO however have common sense. I see that I’m working a ton of hours, not getting much sleep, and STILL only making 250 dollars a week. Wow I can do that at an easy job just working a ton of hours. So what’s the point of me busting my ### for not a lot of money. Yeah Yeah I know a bunch of people make a bunch of money but I did not so it doesn’t help me that someone makes a bunch of money when it’s not going into my pocket.

Obviously what I was talking about was my experience with Schneider. Telling you that they would not pressure you to do a run, but if you actually try and tell them that you can’t do it, they push you to do it because you are, after all, just another number. And yes they all do lie. When you’ve had as many jobs as I have, you learn the politics of business, and they can and will lie to get their way. If you don’t believe that, you are naïve.

Well I DID say that Walmart was suppose to be a better company. However, I don’t know what a better starter company would be seeing how I only worked at Schneider. For me to give an opinion of say Swift would be irresponsible seeing how I never worked there.

K well can’t argue with you there because I have no idea what you are saying!
What is that, a 36 hour day? Not too many of those were I come from. I woke up with my wife for the first day, the company said they would have the truck cleaned. Got there and it was not. So they said that they would give us a hotel room for one more night I said great. Come back the next day and it was still not cleaned. So they told us we had to clean it, so we did. That truck was so dirty and nasty that it took us 8 hours of scrubbing just to make it half way decent enough to sleep in. Which brings me to the other point they lied about. We got this crappy run down Fleetwood that broke down right after I tried to pull out with a trailer. They said the teams would get a newer vehicle. No big deal except the people I graduated with got better trucks than we did. One guy got an almost new Volvo. Back to the point. I tried pulling out the trailer and the fifth wheel breaks. That has to be fixed. The blinker goes out, that has to be fixed. They even had to change some other stuff just to make it street legal. It is now getting close to 10, we had told the people we would be ready for our first load at 7pm. The truck is finally ready to go towards 2 or 3. The trailer they assign us isn’t even there. They assign us another one that another truck is hooked up to so I go inside to try and get another one and they say that that one is not even there. Ok so give me another one. Finally I get one but it is now 5 am. I woke up at 7 am the morning before. This is what I meant by 22 hours of no sleep. The both of us had not slept. How could we. We had to wake up to clean up a stupid freakin truck that should have already been ready. You can’t sleep in the cab while the truck is in the maintenance bay, so what am I suppose to do, sleep in a chair? Even if I could, what are the chances it would be a good enough sleep to count?

It’s not, but I didn’t realize I was going into a war zone. When I felt I was shot at, I sure as hell shot back! I was giving an opinion on a company I worked for. Any of you work for Schneider? Maybe you could tell me why they treated me different than you. You then say I was out of line, but used things like flying of the handle or hothead to say that I'm over reacting. So I felt I should explain into more detail.

I worked for one restaurant for 3 years. The second day on the job I watched a guy eat some food off a customers plate, lick his fingers, and then eat some food again. In another job being a cook, I watched a guy take some dough, throw it on the floor and then pick it back up and use it. Another guy was a manager, dropped a cooked piece of chicken, threw it up on the table and served it. I don’t need to be at a job for long at all to know what the business is like whether it be moral practices or just plain company practices.

The other week there was an ad in the paper for a job that paid 17 dollars an hour; I am assuming they were going to pay me that. If they, however, did not do such, than that would just prove my point about companies lying to you.

Have you worked for Walmart before? My step dad had the possibility to obtain almost 1 million in retirement and stock options. He never reached that because he was force to retire due to health, but still, he has enough money for retirement. He had a dedicated run to where he got to be home every night. No one messed with him, and he could IDLE as long as he wanted to without penalty. His truck was even able to do 70. I can’t see a better job. I would have done it.
Now this is the only time I'm going to mean to be rude. I have heard some of these statements time and time again. You guys seem to think I am “flying off the handle” or

The thing about being a hothead is true, I can lose my temper easily. However, if you would have lived my life or gone through the things I have, hearing these things time again BEFORE AND AFTER I went truck driving, you would react the way I have as well. People told me these things time and time again, I did my homework, talked to truckers and expected a very difficult road. It was without a doubt harder for me to quit than it was to do the job. Nothing to go back to, no job, home, or money. But I took my wife’s safety into consideration first. Then I realized the job was not going to get any better. I even asked if I could do a local job. I would have done that in a heartbeat, still would. Just thought my wife should have a better life. THIS is why I quit. Pissed at the company yes but would have stayed with them on local runs if given the chance. They didn’t want to give me the chance. People still say you need a year of experience. Not sure why. I could do the job better than most there more than a year, so I should have ha at least a chance. So this is why I am rude about people saying things like

Now that’s just plain retarded to say. Leisure job, no. Not for one second did I think learning a new career was going to be easy when I stressed about being a cook for the first time. Vacation? Preposterous! Who the he!! would ever think that? I mean I've HEARD of such things about women thinking that it was because people said that they would get to travel, but those kind of people are not all there to begin with. Yeah I was mad that we never got to stop in Philly, LA, or anywhere in NC, but I kept doing the job to make the money. Driving is hard work only if you make it hard? What does that mean? Makes no sense. You get into a truck and drive. That’s driving. It is only hard if someone else makes it hard or, in my case, nature makes it hard. I’d really like to know how I could have made it harder by myself. Well I think that’s everything. Hopefully this explains more so you can think more about what I'm saying instead of trying to critique it.
In response to Mack E-6’s post, I’m sorry I hurt someone’s feelings.

I was not taking a shot at Turbo Truckers character and if I did, I assure you it was completely unintentional seeing how I was actually taking a shot at another posters character. Secondly, you’re ABSOLUTELY correct in the assumption I never asked for your opinion, and lastly my credibility never went anywhere seeing how it was shot down after the first post I had. So how could it possibly nosedive if no one ever gave it a chance to begin with? It’s ironic to me that you have to talk to me that way by “flying off the handle” to tell me that I was “flying off the handle”, interesting. But if I were to say you had no credibility, I would bet money you respond to defend yourself.
Too rude, not rude enough, you decide!

 

No they were not going to pay you $17.00 an hour with only 3 months expierience, especially if another driver with more expierience applied also.

No I have not worked for Walmart, and I would not work for Walmart as there job does not appeal to me. My hometime, and the way I like to run will not work at Walmart this is why I said it is a good job but not the best job maybe it was the best for your stepdad but it won't be for everyone.

As for you making trucking harder on yourself, I believe you already answered yourself as well. Trying to drive with 2 or 3 hours sleep. Getting up out of bed because you could not sleep and going out and helping your wife load a truck, knowing you would have to drive in 10 hours or so.



There is so much more I want to write but I am not going to because I think it would just make you even more upset.
I wish you the best in whatever you attempt in the future. I don't like to see "new" driver's give up so quick and return to there ordinary jobs. I alway's like to see "new" driver's succeed in this industry, and be able to get better jobs so they can make some really good money.
You can't expect to come into a "new" carreer and make top money everybody has to start at the bottom. We all have been there at one time or another. My first driving job I made .10 cpm teaming(10 years ago), I owed the company a couple of times, I eventually quit them and got a better job. But I could not do this without any expierience.

 

Do not worry about upsetting me as I have said what I needed to so if you still feel the need to critique what I have said, than it is my fault for not explaining my point of view enough. If you have an opinion that can sway me, I am listening, because I don’t think its going to happen, but I am curious. It is impossible to offend me and I do get riled but only if it sounds like something that needs to be responded to in such a way. I do not want anyone telling me I can not do something, that is all. If you were the first person to say “what did you think it was going to be a vacation?” I might have just gone “nah of course not.” But I have heard this time and time again for years. My trainer was cut out for over the road, because he flat out told me his wife prefers him gone. Some guys I made friends with in the training said they prefer to go out because they were in the military. They can’t stay at home. I decided that this was not the get rich method I thought it was. I did not think I was going to make a fortune, I was just calculating what the recruiters told me. I think we were making .28 cents a mile as a team or something like that. So yeah I know I had to start at the bottom, just like every other job I have had, but when I did the calculations, the one thing I was unaware of was how much it cost to live on the road. Even with eating sandwiches out of a cooler, we still now and again had to get a hot meal. We spent 16 to 20 dollars a trip to those truck stops!!! So much money was spent as a matter of fact, that I have never stepped foot back into a truck stop. However, all this said, it is not that I could not do the job locally, but you are right. They DO go for people with more experience. Which I personally believe is a mistake, I believe the person should just do a road test to get the job and they can decide from there! I am in no way saying I was a perfect driver, I just know what I saw on the road for the short time I was out there. That is due to the Schneider training. I think there training was good. Is it better than anyone else’s? Not sure. All I know is that there were some training companies that wanted me to pay twice that amount and go to another state for 6 weeks. Anyway that is all I meant by that I could have made 17 dollars locally, if I would have stayed truck driving at least one year. So yeah I took a few shots at people, but that’s because no one knows me. They have no idea what I've gone through to try and make a career out of something. Driving is actually the only thing I've ever been able to do. I can, now, drive anything that has wheels and tons of things that don’t! my family called me and my wife crazy for trying to be truck drivers saying that it’s a stupid career. So we did it in spite of everyone else. And the work is not what ended up getting to me, it was the things that I didn’t count on such as not being able to sleep in a truck. When I was a kid I could fall asleep in a car within a matter of minutes and I could sleep in a car after a long period of time after I grew up. So maybe all this will explain why I will defend what I say the way I do, if I am wrong, I will definitely be the first person to admit it.

 

in june of 04 i had taken a position with schneider national bulk...pulling tanks.
anyways i had taken the job predicated on filling a position on a Safety Kleen dedicated account out of Buffalo, NY(my residence) that would get me home every night. Well i started the job and loved it decent benefits...real good pay...and may days i was home eating supper with my family by 5:30pm... anyhow about 8 mos into my employment i was climbing down form the top of the tank after closing the hatch and slipped from the third rung on the ladder and landed t-boned between the trailer and a curb ...luckily i was ok all i did was suffer some bruises on my back and my booty. anyhow as instructed i placed my call to dispatch and safety and informed them of the incident....they asked me if i was able to continue driving and i responded "yes i am alright" so i was allowed to continue anjd ordered to take the following day off and go to the occupational health clinic. the next day i did just that and the doctor had told me there appeared to be some tenderness and i should probably take some time off just to let it heal. he took me off work on a week to week basis after the third week i went back to see the doc on my weekly visit and expressed to the doc that i was the father of four boys and that workers comp was just not covering my expenses and he agreed to put me on light duty. so i excitedly placed a call to my dispatcher and was informed that because there was no terminal in buffalo...and in order for me to fulfill my light duty detail i would have to report for work at coreoppolis, pa which is 276 miles form home.....so i agreed only to find out that no transportation there or room and board would be covered ....therefore putting me in a position where i had no choice but to resign. evidently 2 weeks later i was cleared to go back to work and applied for a few jobs where they told me schneider had clasified me as a no rehire due to work refusal!!!!! it was an extremely disheartning occurance since i had always done the very best job that i could for schneider. so before you join the orange in any facet or division rethink it!!!

 

To begin with it is common practice for trucking companies to put a "light duty" driver to work at a terminal. They are not obligated to pay for the motel room...

I can see Schneiders position as far as the work refusal position but if you did your job satisfactory they should not have put a no rehire on you.
Have you talked to SNI about it?
In fact this is one of the reasons I do not like large companies is that they tend to lump employees into catagories and treat the people like numbers...