Comments By Pete B.

Hi James, excellent job there calling the police to help you out of a jam, and getting out of it safely. The internet is replete with photos and videos of drivers exercising poor judgement, making bad decisions and destroying or damaging property and thus careers, rather than surveying the landscape and making a level-headed call to correct their situation safely. You’re going to have a wonderful career in trucking. 👍

The title of your post begins “Really need help,” and ends with “driver cannot find work,” yet you mentioned that Swift will hire you while putting you through their in-house CDL program… forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but if you “really need help” and want to become a truck driver, I think you should quit the shenanigans and take the job with Swift. They are an excellent company, have first-class training, well-maintained equipment, and are simply some of the best drivers I frequently encounter on the road. You could do A LOT worse.

There are fifteen topics on the first "page". Just now I would consider nine of them job related. So over half are job related.

I've been here for a while, and and I figure most of my posts are job related - either in getting a job, driving safely (which means keeping your job) and occasionally about eating Oreos while driving.

Errol, is there a specific variety of Oreos that you prefer? Regular, or Double Stuff, or one of the flavors? Would you agree that the amount of filling, including the Double Stuff, has diminished significantly compared to 30 years ago? I quit buying Oreos a long time ago because I felt I was getting mostly cookie and not much filling. Back in the day I would take two Double Stuff, remove a cookie from each, and then stack them, making it a Quadruple Stuff. Which is probably why I have soooo many fillings in my teeth! (Think Jaws from the Roger Moore 007 era).

Hi Pete sorry for the Really late response. I seen a sign on my way to the OC for Kays, sadly I didn't have money to spend on food haha just relying on the free breakfast at the hotel and lunch at the OC.

Francis, are you still at the Phoenix O.C.? I’m here for the night (Monday) through about noon tomorrow.

When you four-wheelers finally learn how to merge onto the interstate from the on-ramp, I’ll give two shi#&s about what happens at a zipper merge; I encounter a thousand times more idiots who don’t know how to merge onto the interstate versus anything going on at a zipper merge. SMDH.

Francis, good luck with your start with Schneider. While you’re going through orientation at the Phoenix O.C., you’ve got to walk over to Kay’s for breakfast or lunch if you get the opportunity. They’re not open for dinner, and I believe they’re closed Sunday & Monday. Not far, about half-a-mile. Totally worth it!

I have about six years in with Schneider, all on the tanker side. The training is excellent; you are given all of the tools and tutelage necessary to be a productive and safe driver. The trucks are well-maintained. The PM’s are spaced a bit far apart, so you are expected to do thorough pre-trips on your truck and address any concerns you find; that goes for the trailers you pull as well. There are numerous OCs around the country, so you are never long without free laundry; obviously there are plenty of parking and showers available as well; some of the larger OCs feature privately run cafes… these things are common to most of the larger carriers. There’s at least one company car at the OCs that can be signed out for one hour. The service and support staff are some of the nicest people you’ll meet.

You read online somewhere on the internet webs that the pay is .30 cpm… where exactly online? Was it a review, on a forum, or posted on Schneider’s website? Maybe it was on the Facebook or some other social media site? Here’s a suggestion: ASK THE RECRUITER. Schneider’s pay is not going to be kept a secret from you until after you start driving for them or anyone else; find out from someone at Schneider, and until you begin orientation with them or anyone else it will most likely be a recruiter, what the pay is going to be. Don’t rely just on what you saw on the internet somewhere.

I think we’ve all been in your situation before, that is, dealing with a variety of and charged emotions while driving. You’ve got to be able to multi-task while performing this job. It’s not much different from being in a spot where you’re in inclement weather, driving downhill, while recognizing a challenging merge situation developing on your right while you’ve got traffic on your left… a variety of elements to deal with simultaneously, the expectation being that you’ll drive through it seamlessly because you’re a professional driver and that’s what we do. You have to compartmentalize your feelings… don’t allow them to override your behavior while driving, and work out stuff while moving down the road. You’ll learn the times that aren’t appropriate to do this… while backing, driving in city traffic, etc., but you should otherwise be able to think through your situation while driving without letting it affect your driving. It’s just one component of our OTR lifestyle. Very sorry to hear you’re going through this, good luck dealing with your brother and his family.

That's a great post to read, Davy, really interesting how you drew the analogy from your experience on the bike to your career in trucking. Clearly your move to Hummer wasn’t spur-of-the-moment or otherwise frivolous in any way, shape, or form. Well that and you did mention that it took you 8 mos. to pull the trigger. :). Your storytelling and the skill to teach lessons through it reminds me of another long-time contributor on this forum. Congratulations on landing with a company more aligning with your goals and wish you the best in reaching them.