Profile For Larry T.

I did the Dollar General account with Schneider for 3 years to start my career out of Janesville Wisconsin. Started in September and took me 3 or 4 months to become very efficient. Made close to $110k my first full year. However that was running illegal with doing all my unloading off duty to get more loads and money.

I was there for a couple good years when we had TONS of area. I loved the Dakota's. Then it went to crap when the DC opened in Blair, Nebraska and we lost the Dakotas and northern Minnesota.

I guess it's possible to make $80k your first year, however the negatives outweigh the positives.

You'll have a lot of tight stores to back into. Having to deal with the crazy 4 wheelers zipping around you. In the summer the trailer will be very hot. rolltainers full of pet food and water weighing 800-900 pounds. trailers packed like crap by the warehouse. Have to deal with ****ed off managers and employees that don't want to see you since you're bring them work to do. crowded back rooms, having to move crap to the sales floor to make room for your delivery.

Even with having to deal with all that crap I'd consider going back for $110k. Not the $90k I made my last year there. lol.

Greetings all. Short background... Im a 49 year old guy who has wanted to drive for 20 years but wanted to be present to raise my kids, so i never went for it. Kids are grown, wife left and i am now with a woman who has encouraged me to pursue it. So for the first time in my life, I am going for what i want to do. Its a good feeling. I signed up for evening classes at Custom Diesel Drivers Training in Omaha, NE. Thanks to TT i flew through the process of getting my permit, and with my Army experience and shag driving for my current employer, the Road portion is going very well too. Being 5 weeks in and exploring my options, I wish i would have gone done a paid training program with a mega, but live and learn. I am now fairly certain I will end up with the closest Mega to me, and that is Werner. Their Tuition reimbursement program is good, its close, and I know i need to get to know the industry. My question is about the Dollar General account and if anyone has done it. The Werner recruiter that came to our class said its just a wonderful and lucrative option, but I know his job is to put butts in the drivers seat. Ive also seen horror stories about the account on some other sites. Some of it seems like guys who wanted the money but not the work. (Its %100 driver unload) I currently work in a warehouse loading and unloading off and on all day. I am not allergic to hard work. Wondering if anyone who has worked this line can shed a little more light on it. I am sure there is a middle ground somewhere in there. Any insight will be helpful. Thanks for reading.

I have to say after joining a company with inward facing camera's 10 month's ago it's a good thing. When I was with Schneider I would grab my phone if I got lost and check email, texts.

For someone with a hair trigger temper and bad habits I need that watching to keep me in check. I went away to help out for a week at another location and the last 2 days I had rental tractors with no camera's and grabbed my phone to call the lead about location while driving.

I was doing good improving until I came back from a week vacation. My drive smart score was 413 in a 11 day span. lol.

My manager said you need to get this in check now and get that score down before it's automatically flagged for review by safety.

I'm sure a lot would say I should not be a trucker. I'm just giving you an extreme case on how it can be helpful.

I drive a semi and deliver to local hospitals and others within a 100 mile radius. Pallets and some have carts(longer narrower version of a RT). 4 days 40 hours. 3 weeks a month I get a 5th day, overtime over 40 hours. Decent pay.

I quit Schneider around the time my manager left. I couldn't stand my driver leader/dispatcher and wasn't going to stay with her. The other reason is they couldn't get me close to home anymore.

Of course in hindsight 200-400 miles of non paying deadhead is better than driving your personal vehicle to the DC.

Im 300 miles from Janesville Wisconsin and 390 miles from Blair Nebraska.

I do miss it. however it's not an option until they allow taking trucks home again. If they ever do I wouldn't mind slinging the RT's again.

Larry, so far I have been doing a little bit of both. It’s not really that bad. Took some getting used to. In some ways it’s easier than dg and in some ways it’s harder. Definitely more aggravating because sometimes you have to dig product out and scan things. But it’s doable. The good news is there is a reefer running for when I get hot. I live in Alabama and that dg trailer had me sweating my butt off. What are you doing with cardinal health? What does that entail? I would go back to dg in a heartbeat if my wife would go for it. That’s the only reason I left the account. I have heard of that having to drive your personal car to one terminal but not others. How far away is the terminal for you? Are you missing the account?

Are you able to do both? That would be cool if you could deliver for a month and take a week off shuttling. lol. After 3 years of DG I've been local with Cardinal Health for the past 10 month's. I tried looking into DG fleet, but they just implemented you have to drive your own personal vehicle to work. Money must be pretty tight and they're done having people quit and abandon tractors.

Well… yall thought I was crazy before for doing dollar general….. now…maybe I need to be institutionalized lol. I have been a shuttle driver for the past few years and while fun, hooking and pulling doubles has gotten a bit boring. I told the transportation manager I would like to dip my toes into the delivery side. Hopefully I can catch some good and helpful content. I have been doing ride along for the past week and yeah it’s been awhile since I have delivered. Little bit sore but doable and getting better every day. Hopefully I can get some good stories and footage!

I struggle with a 2 second following distance and anything below gets triggered. I'm guessing the adaptive cruise control get s it back to 3.6 seconds before it get s triggered? How long do you have? I can't imagine getting back to 360 feet with a semi passing you going 1 mph faster. 350 feet is a lonnnnng time.

Not necessarily true. These cameras are very customizable to each company. Prime cam set rhe following distance at 3.6 sec.. while Kmoght could do 4 sec. One company can violate for running a yellow light while another can say running red is a violation. Each company sets the severity for the violation.

I am soo done with it.

What did they put on your DAC? Are you able to be rehired, yes or no? Did they put on tractor or load abandonment? I resigned and it shows termination on my DAC report. It really doesn't mean much unless they put safety issue or abandonment on your report. It's at will and all termination means is parting of ways unless specified.

So about October of last year I quit from Swift because the truck I was driving had constant issues with idling and it gets way too hot down here in Texas to be in the bunker without the AC working obviously. I literally had this kensworth sent to the shop about 3 times just to have the idling fixed so I can hit the road. So when on the 3rd time I had it go through the shop I thought it should be fixed by now but that was not the case. So I had a route go about 220 miles away from a terminal and the truck would turn off when it was on Idle again when the weather was in the 80's. I honestly got tired of the issue so I just drove their truck back and quit. But they put down that I was terminated which is something I don't understand when I had been patient with them in regards to having the idling system fixed so I can properly sleep in the bunker. I'm not quite understanding what the issue is when I feel like I've been doing things correctly with them for the 7 months that I drove for them.

Look into food service if you enjoy manual labor. Places locally that require manual labor are always hiring.

I did 3 years to start my career on the DG account. Now I've been local for 5 months delivering to hospitals with semis.

I'm 46 with no kids or spouse with low bills like you. I also don't consider myself a trucker and don't want the OTR scene currently. Hopefully once I hit 50 I'll want it. lol.

Your best bet is to live on the road. You'll rack up a ton of money.

I have no reason to be home, I just like being home. I like to get away from the crazy motoring public.

I had a habit of grabbing my phone with Schneider.

Being local and only doing 600 miles a week the inward facing camera doesn't bother me. It would probably be a different story if I was OTR with the inward facing camera.

So with the inward facing camera I have become more safe with not touching my phone and 3 second stops. My following distance has improved the past couple weeks. However to help me from boiling over I'm flashing my high beams a lot. lol.

One of the things I’m grateful for working for Schneider. No inward facing cameras. And no plans to add them, either. Not that I do anything wrong but it’s nice not having that thing spying on you.

Been about 4 months with a local company. Inward facing camera s with AI. My Boss see s Im a great worker however my following too closely events are testing him to when to give me a written warning. Had 7 events the past 2 weeks.

Anyone have suggestions to deal with anger? I'm good 99% of the time and it s when some ******* cuts me off or they're going super slow.

I have always had this problem, got away with it with Schneider since they don't have the AI system.

Did you report these? I was on the Dollar account for 3 years. I wouldn't report any of those things. You're an amazing driving if you only did those things twice in a year. My middle name was curb jumper. I eventually did pay for it ripping my bumper off. Better riding the grass than hitting ****.

I’ve been working on dollar general account for about 1year now I have two accidents 1: tore up some grass left ruts pulling into a strip mall where a dollar general was located 2: while backing in another strip mall location for a front door delivery the back was very tight and basically had to jack the trailer to get the lift gate on the curb to unload while doing so asphalt beneath the trailer got tore up (it was a very old parking lot that had plenty of pot holes already Werner just hates me both of these accidents are bull**** in my biased opinion) but anyway I’ve been in a freightliner cascadia my entire time driving here I loved the truck……til it broke down on me two weeks ago and the dealership doesn’t know how to fix it my FM has sent me to a terminal to get a “new” truck my options are either a Kenworth T680 or an international (both 400k miles roughly) my question is does anyone have any experience using a Kenworth or Pete on a dollar account some of these stores are ridiculous to get in and out of and I’ve barely made it happen with the freightliner and I here the turning radius on the Kenworth is way worse I’m a decent driver (for someone with about a year of experience)just won driver of the quarter for the whole company at Werner a couple weeks ago haven’t hit anything yet besides the grass and asphalt like mentioned I’m just worried I’m going to get stuck in situations with a Kenworth if I take it and the worse turning radius but I know what everyone says about internationals and there reliability am I overthinking on how big a problem the Kenworth will be and will be fine or should I go with the international?

P.S.(Sorry for the lack of punctuation)