Starting Schneider Bulk

Third day of training completed.

I debated whether I should even write an update today as it is more of the same, but I will anyways, as I promised a daily recap of orientation.

Today was more classroom training this time centering around Schneider’s hazmat policies, security, as well as tanker rollover prevention, and their ELog system.

Today was a welcome break from Subway, with the switch to Little Caesars pizza, however I don’t think it’s in a driver’s best interest to be handed an entire hot and ready pizza to eat for lunch but I digress. I ate half and saved the rest for the hotel room.

We lost another student today, guy caught the shuttle coming in and was in class for a few hours and then just disappeared. Nobody knew where he went or anything, not even the instructors. He was having trouble getting setup with the FMCSA clearinghouse, the rumor is that he had a positive and was trying to circumvent the system by creating a new account and couldn’t do so. Either way, Schneider paid for him to have a rental car to come all the way to Houston from Eastern Louisiana and the guy just disappeared. As of this time nobody has seen him since.

We are down to 7. I don’t foresee Schneider letting him come back into training at this point. Three days of classroom down three more days to go.

 

Fourth day of training completed and I’m getting tired of watching videos on a computer.

We had a couple more instructor led classes today, including, reading a road atlas correctly, rules for a couple of their biggest customers, and intermodal trailers and tanks.

I received my official hazmat training certification from Schneider. Photos were taken for ID card.

Spent about two hours on a video series going over their Samsung tablet which they use for pretty much everything.

Hair follicle test results came in today, two people removed from the group. The other guy didn’t show back up either, so we are down to 5.

Sorry this update is so late seems I fell asleep before posting.

 

Day 5, over.

Today was interesting to say the least. We went over proper trip planning and a few examples. It amazes me how lost people can get trying to properly plan a trip and provide ETA to multiple stops on a typical bulk tanker trip. I will admit that the Schneider way is very involved however I do understand the reasoning behind their methods. The way I’ve read about it keeping the ETA and NAT up-to-date with proper times is a key to making money at Schneider. The tablets are nearly foolproof and walk you through every step, but the process they have to work out ETA on paper is causing some people confusion. It amazes me how many people come into this wanting to rely on GPS and ELD to take care of everything for them. This isn’t drop and hook dryvan.

It seems Schneider let you have a great deal of control over arrival times to deliveries and pick ups but the real world also does not exactly match the scenarios in the training classroom so I’ll see how that plays out in the future I guess.

Pizza was the meal of the day again, so again I get to save on dinner.

Some folks in class are getting frustrated with the amount of work involved just in the planning and paperwork that Schneider requires, I don’t know how they’re gonna handle the actual loading and unloading process.

Tomorrow is the last day of classroom instruction before we go out to the actual trucks. This is what I’m looking forward to. That, and the core of bulk tanker aside from driving, unloading and loading, however this comes later next week as far as I know.

Thank you to all of you who are leaving comments your feedback and input is greatly appreciated.

 

I am breathing a sigh of relief, for today, on the sixth day of Schneider bulk training, the classroom portion is for all intents and purposes complete.

Since our class size has gotten to be so small most people were well ahead on their checks for learning which is just a fancy term Schneider uses to refer to a quiz.

Those who chose to stick around instead of leaving early got to watch as the training groups ahead of us were doing their pump and air unloads, and other groups their driving maneuvers.

They seem to have a good trainer to student ratio with a lot of seat time for the trainee I look forward to beginning this process tomorrow. Rumor has it that the initial day of driving and backing and pre-tripping and other small maneuvers is done with a box trailer probably because they’re cheaper to fix if they get run into something.

Once we prove that we actually did some thing with our CDL training, we get to move on to the real thing. The tanker trailers are supposed to be loaded with water so we get the whole experience of dealing with the surge.

Down here in Houston they seem to be a lot more trailers that have the cat walk down the side of the trailer rather than on the very top of it. I’m fine with it either way but that looks a lot more comfortable to work on. I know a number of their customers can’t utilize the newer style trailers with the cat walk in the railing off the side of it because it interferes with the loading rack so it’s best to be prepared to be on top of a trailer.

Coming from a small stint driving for a demolition company with how concerned they were about OSHA and being at any height exceeding 4 feet off the ground without fall protection it amazes me we can be 12’ in the air without any.

Some people just seem to be really unsteady looking on top of that trailer and I hope they get more comfortable with time because aside from the drug users that got booted for failed tests I really don’t like seeing people fail. Or fall.

Check in around this time tomorrow for more updates from Schneider Bulk training.

 

Since trying to quote anything from Full Metal Jacket results in severely upsetting the profanity filter, I will just have to say that while the first day was a good workout, it did accomplish the goal of weeding out at least one guy who probably had no business climbing on top of a trailer.

 

I applied for their regional position and was quoted 1800 miles for five days out. I will be based out of the Savannah, Georgia terminal.

While this isn’t a killer number of miles the CPM plus accessory pay isn’t really that bad for a first time driver. I know I’ll start out making more than I would’ve made at Prime, even after completing their training.

Now we all know recruiters are a special breed..