Schneider Orientation Fontana 1 July 2014, Military Apprenticeship, Colorado

They canceled our training and PM for this trip. I did get to chat my DBL today and told him we are averaging 734 miles a day for every day we work. We can run 1100 a day and never run out of hours so that gives you an idea how much we sit. Not a Happy Camper about sitting all the time. In the last 4 days we have sat 22 hours total. Can't make a living that way. Still haven't gotten the Military Apprenticeship VA money kicking in yet and all I hear on that is "It takes 90 days to get going" and still haven't been reimbursed for some of our expenses.

I should be grateful because we are making around 3200 a month even with the issues. I just know we can run harder/more efficiently and hate wasting time especially since we are three weeks out at a time.

More later! Hoping to get a nice 2500 mile run to close out the week!

 

One more thing I forgot to add. My team member and I have gotten really good at fuel economy. It's like a competition to whom can do better. Yesterday I drove from Winslow Arizona to Reno Nevada and averaged 9.2 mpg with a 42000 lb load. Today has been less because of idling but still 8.8 mpg and that's with going over Donner Pass. We are driving a 2014 Cascadia Evolution with Auto trans. For the month we are low 8's but it has been improving every day.

 

Great Questions! Schneider does everything....there are no online classes to take....obligations are that you drive 40 hours a week....Schneider reports this to VA for you.

We, my team member, and I just received our first checks and back checks. It took from 2 July-23 Sept so almost 3 months. It's around $1200 a month added.

POC for this program for Schneider is Ali Schuchart at schucharta@schneider.com or you can call 920-592-6165

 

We're actually making good money but lessons are hard learned to say the least. Picked up a relay load in Laredo Texas bound for Lompoc, CA. I weighed it out and it was 80 pounds over on the rear tandem. No matter what we did we couldn't get to pass California standard. I placed the rear tandem in a legal place and when it came time for California I placed it as close as I could to be legal. About 40 foot 6 inches. Anyhow....BUSTED in Banning California. Got a ticket for putting the tandem too far back ($130 I think) and once it was in the right place of course it came over so I had to open the back of the trailer and move some of the load forward. Not an easy task! I fell out the back of the trailer and jacked my back up. Not a good day to say the least.

Some math if you want to know how rewarding the Military Apprenticeship program+working for Schneider can be. We are averaging $900 a week before taxes...that includes TAH and bad weeks. We receive $150 a month to pay back truck driving school. We receive $1200 a month from the VA for the Apprenticeship program. We are getting $2500 the first year in recruiting bonuses and we get quarterly bonuses...not sure how much that is because this is our first quarter.

$3600 for pay, $150 for school, 1200 for Military Apprenticeship...add =$4950 a month multiply by 12 =$49,600 + 2500 bonus takes you over 50k for first year rookie driver.

It is not easy work. You have to drive even when you really don't feel like it. Living on the road can be fun but it can also suck balls! Some days are good and some are bad all I can say is take a deep breath and not let the small stuff get to you.

It's like any job!

 

Good Morning from Medford, Oregon! This is the first time we've made a run from California up north and I was looking forward to 65 mph once we got to the Oregon border. Speed limit never changed and stayed at 55. These west coast states are not truck friendly at all! Made a nice run from Fontana to portland and headed back down to southern Cal now. Low on hours so we're sitting for 6 hours to catch up a little. First time in three weeks we have sat on purpose.

I posted some figures yesterday about pay and wanted to say I was being conservative. I haven't sat down and really figured it out but those are rough numbers. The check I get friday is $1300 before taxes so it does vary. When we take Time at Home it's usually lower because we aren't running. The figures I posted are just normal, not killing yourself, type numbers. While we're out we run and we run hard!!

This month we ran 24,874 miles which is just short of $4500 a piece. Our biggest week was 6980 miles and we averaged 5900 miles a week. Not bad and I am not complaining.

We have hit every state in the last 60 days except Washington, Idaho, Montana and a group in the NE area of the country. Our favorite "lane" is the midwest going north to south. We had a lot of runs from Michigan/Illinois to Texas and back which is perfectly fine to me. Those tend to be nice 1100-1500 mile runs and if you time your big cities right it's an easy drive.

We did qualify for the quarterly bonus so I'm expecting another little boost in the next couple weeks. It's 2 cpm so I'm thinking around $1100 which will be nice.

Now for the bad....I'm not sure the planners are thinking things thru sometimes. We've had some assignments that were 1000 miles with an appointment 18 hours from PU which meant some serious pushing with no breaks to make it on time and we've had some that had us sitting and waiting for 12 hours because we had too much time. We've spent 12 hours running around trying to find an empty trailer in Chicago traffic. Horrible experience but all is well it comes with the job. There are three types of DBL's...those that only care about the load....the incompetent ones and the one's that care but can't do anything about it. I don't even talk to the incompetent ones I just call back.

Overall I'm very satisfied so far. I've seen some beautiful sights out the front windshield and now know which parts of the country I want to vacation to and the ones I can bypass. Looking forward to whatever comes next. We're headed back to Colorado for time at home. Don't come by my house because you won't like what you see. I'm grabbing a bag of M&M's and Cheetoes and a 12 pack of beer, the remote and sitting naked on the couch watching football all weekend. Hope that visual brings a smile to someones face.

Cheers for now!!!

 

Okay so the numbers on the Military Apprenticeship Program with Schneider.

$1146 a month for the first six months= $6876.00
$ 916.80 a month for six months= $5500.80
$ 687.60 for the final month= $ 687.60
$ 996 for books and supplies= $ 996.00

Total Tax free for 1st 12 Months $14060.40/12=$1171.70 a month TAX FREE

The numbers are different if you have the "Kicker" in your enlistment contract. If you don't know what kicker means then you don't have it. My son gets $1540 a month because he has the kicker.

It took 60 days from end of Orientation to start receiving this. It does not come on the 1st of the month but more like the second week of the month because VA has to wait for the hours worked to be turned in on the 1st of the month.

Hope this helps

 

More numbers-

We are averaging $845.04 a week net pay a week which if we only stay at the pace we're at will come out to $44,000 this year. I actually expect this to go higher as we become more experienced and the paychecks the last month are higher than the first two months.. Also understand this is as a team and we run hard. We never run out of hours so I know this is possible for anyone that has initiative and is self motivated. I am motivated to pay off my house this year so I only have to work part time.

Hope this helps also.

 

I haven't been on here much recently because well....I haven't had time. We have been running our butt off! Numbers are fairly good. We are averaging 22,500 a month for a team so 11,250 per person. I have also had a number of referrals.

What I do with referrals-
1st. When I get the bonus for the referral I give half back to the one referred. I had a team that I referred and the bonus was $2000. I gave each of them $500 and kept the other half. They were going with Schneider anyways so they might as well get another bonus. You have to be with the company 90 days for the referral bonus.

2nd- I sponsor those I refer. What does that mean? That means when you're out there with a problem I can coach you through it better than a DBL sitting in an office. I've already done the trailer hunt and know the shortcuts. Consider it a coach of sorts.

3rd- I've ran solo and team....it's different but the principle is the same. As a team you never run out of 14 so problems at the shipper don't freak you out as much. I highly recommend teams if you can find some one to tolerate you.

If anyone reading has any questions feel free to contact me. If I can't answer it I will find someone that can.

Thanks!