Schneider trailers

Always a kind word.

 

I dropped a loaded trailer with a tire that needed to be changed recently. I had seen it empty a week earlier and it was still at a consignee the next week when I was back there so I took it. It was a 14 series and the only reason it had sat that long was a worn tire that no one wanted to deal with. I was going to be going past Gary OC on my next trip so I figured I'd grab it and deal with the tire.
I load and get to Gary and am very short on time but I wanted to get the tire replaced and there were no other tire banks between me and my delivery. I sat in the express line for over an hour. When it was my turn, I pulled up to the door and the mechanic comes out to direct me in the shop. I was half way in the door when he stops me and leaves for a moment. Comes back and apologizes saying his boss said that I didn't wait at the stop sign to be directed to move ahead. I had ignored the big sign out there. The only sign I saw was one telling you to stay with your tractor and one on the building telling you to let the mechanic guide you in the door. Might have missed the 'big huge" sign, but I don't think so. Didn't see anyone else waiting to be waved up to the door either but maybe I missed that. He then tells me that his boss said I have to pull through and go back to the end of the line. It is obvious that I am not in a LP truck, so maybe his boss was going to show me where the bear poo's in the woods and teach me a lesson. There were 4 or 5 truck in line, and I was out of minutes to spare. So, I pulled on out of the garage and right on out the gate. Got to the drop and sent in a message to SEM to let them know about the tire. They should have had road service come out an replace it but who knows if they did or the next guy had to deal with it. The effort was there, but not much on Schneider Maint. in Gary's part to get it taken care of. I don't have a lot of time or patience for silly games.

Rant over

 

The games some people want to play. There is a stop sign where you are supposed to wait just before the left turn to the shop.

 

You should've pulled into bay set brakes and waited.

The F'n power trips of these OC staff is ridiculous.

They forget who earns the revenue to pay their salary.

 

Regarding the recent message over the QC about trailers....you can thank me for that.

It was sent by Charlotte in response to a visit I paid the office in a fit of abject rage, ready to throw the #### keys at the first person wearing orange. I won't go into all the details here, but suffice to say I had had enough. I basically told them that if no one else wanted to fix and/or clean the trailers, I wasn't going to either. The capper was bringing a load into a customer and needing an empty to go out with.

Another IC had just dropped an empty and told me to my face "yeah, it's clean!". It was a food supplier, so I figured he meant it.

Wrong. While not filthy, it certainly was not food grade. Large pieces of broken CHEP pallets in the nose along with a fair amount of loose dirt disqualified it from being so. This was just a day after I spent almost an hour with both a broom and an electric blower cleaning out a trailer so International Paper would accept it. Scrap paper and mulch all in the strap rails, causing it to stink. Great fun in 90+ degree weather. It got loaded, though. How other SNI boxes get loaded, however, is a mystery to me, given the sheer amount of actual dirt I remove from many of them.

I'm sick of no effort. I'm sick of laziness. Yes, things do happen. Tires pick up nails and go flat after dropping...I get it. Incidents like the one oicu812 described take place. Idiots abound. It is not a perfect world.

But the failure of SNI to lean on some drivers, while continuing to babysit the fleet in other ridiculous matters just reached the living end for me the other day. One good thing did come of it, however: a motivation to redouble my efforts to escape this industry for good by lease end, 1/11/18.

If not before.

 

You guys will get red in the face and finally move on, nothing will change. It was like this 15 years ago and it will still be like this 15 years from now.

Spending 2-3 days per tour performing unpaid work and the endless trailer issues take their toll. Better paying jobs are out there just think of these annoyances as a conveyance to them.

I left Schneider and spent three years at a 60 truck/300 trailer company. Picking up broken equipment didn't happen as there was no anonymity to hide behind. Now I pull tanks and there just really isn't much junk equipment in the bulk world.

 

What are their trucks like at SNI? They upgraded to Autos yet or are they still using freight shakers?

 

Still using Freightliner and kw but converting the entire fleet to the automated transmission...

 

Yep, and that's where I waited till the bay opined up.