Comments By Truckin’Steve

Final Week

Welp got back to NC from being out training with the training engineer. Training went very well. We then traveled to Schneider’s Indiana OC since the NC OC CDL lot was still in the process of being completed and inspected by the state. Pretty much every day of this week is spent practicing mastering the maneuvers/pretrip required on the CDL road skills test. We had to do the straight line back, offset back and parallel park. The first two days we really only got to back twice because there were almost 30 of us practicing with two trucks. But on Tuesday most of them left after they passed their exam. Then we had more one on one time. Then Thursday came along and this was our first go at the test. I wasn’t prepared and blanked out on the pretrip and failed. Nervousness I guess. That sucked but I studied all that night and took it again the next day and passed!

Now in the process of getting home. Will be picking up my CDL license at the DMV hopefully on Tuesday or Wednesday and I will most likely get my first load the following week.

This website helped a lot. I enjoyed reading the many diaries from the many different options in schools/company sponsored programs. Glad I made the choice to go with Schneider. If you have any questions just PM me.

(Week 3)

This is my first week out of two with my training engineer. Keep in mind if you already have your CDL you will spend one week with a training engineer when coming to Schneider. I met my training engineer on Sunday and we started driving immediately Sunday afternoon. Other students in my class traveled to other places around the Southeast to get to their training engineers. Mine was about 50 miles away. My training engineer was home nightly which meant I got the truck to myself at night which was nice.

First couple days I still had trouble connecting glad hands and getting the landing gear to go up or down. Backing into actual docks rather than the training yard is a vastly different experience as well but getting better at it. I think my landing gear learning issue is just caused by crappy trailers the big red circle has. Sleeping in the truck has been no trouble at all and has been rather comfortable. A lot of the Schneider trucks still do NOT have APUs or an inverter/fridge. Schneider says this is changing though with the rollout of the 2019 and 2020 Cascadia’s.

Ended up driving over 2800 miles myself this week. Got a lot of time in running Black Mountain, Mars Hill, Sams Gap and Fancy Gap. Time flew by. I’m in a hotel until Monday since my training engineer took an extra day off for the holiday weekend. Happy about that.

I have another week of training with my TE and then my final week will be preparing for my CDL road skills test on Thursday and Friday!

Thanks for this Steve. I'm going to be starting orientation in Phoenix next week and I find this very informative.

I already have my CDL (but no experience), so I believe my schedule would be different to yours. Apparently my schedule is two weeks at the OC, and then a week on the road with my TE.

Hey! Best of luck! The guy who runs the training program in Charlotte just came from Phoenix. Apparently they are starting up a new flatbed division!

Day 9 & Day 10 (Week 2)

Been a busy past couple of days. Still pretty much the same routine. Did more practice on the yard followed by more classroom instruction. On Thursday day 9 we went over the workflow system where we accept assignments and such. We did all the training for this on the Qualcomm training devices they have but you will actually do workflow on the tablets.

Friday was graduation day! We started out doing more backing in the yard. We then had dinner and then went to class for our graduation party. We then went over how workflow works on the tablet. The tablets are pretty nice. We then went to the on site truck service center to pick up our own tablets! Hours of service is coming to the tablets for everyone by June or July so no more Qualcomm.

Got all of my training engineers information and he actually called me on Friday to introduce himself etc. Will be meeting up with him on Sunday afternoon. He advised we will be running hard. He works the Target account. Schneider requires students to do at least 80% of the driving during this time. Some people have yet to hear from theirs. He is home nightly and I will get to sleep in the truck by myself during the night. He has a day off on Friday so they are putting me up on a hotel.

It appears most people’s training engineers were within 100 miles but two classmates engineers were 400 miles away and they have to take rental cars to meet their training engineer. Schneider is putting them in a hotel for a night though. I lucked out and mine is about 35 miles away from the OC. He has a day off this week on Friday so I am staying in a hotel for the weekend.

All in all it’s been a good first two weeks. Now I have two weeks on the road with my training engineer and then one week preparing and taking my CDL road test.

Day 7 (Week 2)

Started at 2:00 PM again. Did more PreTrip practice along with air brake test and driving in more rural areas.

Day 8 (Week 2)

Today we started at 10:00am as we had a safety meeting. There was confusion of what we were supposed to be doing after this meeting since no one was giving us guidance and some of got scolded that we were not where we were supposed to be. That was kind of annoying because there is no itenary and no one was directing us. Then we are finally told where we should be as if we’ve done something wrong once again. Not too happy about this.

We watched multiple videos of scenarios that caused drivers to wreck their trucks. We then went over ways on how to avoid that. Then we watched a video on how Schneider is union free and then had an operations lady come in and go over the PerDiem. The union free message is a bit much but whatever. There are plenty of trucking companies out there to choose from if you’re not happy where you’re at!

We then spent the rest of the day doing our 45 and 90 degree backing and then had class the rest of the day that focused on the electronic logs.

Day 6 (Week 2)

Today we started at 10:00 am went and coupled up and did the pretrip and then we drove all day. Our road instructor advised us she would be evaluating us today. Appears we both did fine. Was able to drive in the rain today which was heavy at times so that gave us some good experience.

Day 5 (end of 1st week)

Started at 2:00 PM and spent about an hour on the pre trip. We then worked on coupling/de. Then we went out with our road instructor and took turns driving. A couple road instructors called out today and so my partner and I got to go out with the head honcho which was cool!

Then we came back to the OC and had dinner. I am hoping the dinner menu is different next week! We then started classroom instruction and worked on CBT’a and then trip planning. We received the 2019 Rand McNally maps at no cost as well. We then finished up and submitted our paper logs through Transflo to Green Bay, WI.

Overall it was a great first week and feel much more comfortable with what trucking driving is going to entail. Also very happy with Schneider and the way they are running the program. Only complaint is food could be better. It’s standard school cafeteria fare lol.

We have the weekend off as Schneider does not train on the weekends. Planning to go to the Charlotte Motor Speedway where they are having the Pennzoil Auto Fair. Looking forward to that. Then hopefully next weekend going to book Saturday night down in Myrtle Beach.

Day 4

Pretty much the same as the previous two days. Started with our road instructors. Today we practiced straight line backing along with 45 degree backing. Also spent a significant amount of time on the pretrip and working on getting that down. Feeling much more comfortable with it now. After doing the outside stuff we had dinner and then started classroom training. Tonight we went over the Qualcomm electronic logs. Apparently though Schneider is rolling out electronic tablet logs (to replace Qualcomm) to about 200 trucks as a trial now and then by July will roll it out to everyone else. Apparently there is an issue that needs more testing with being able to synchronize up the tablets to the truck wirelesssly.

Then we got our fuel cards. We were told how we can use our weekly advance of $60.00 if we needed it which comes directly from the fuel card. Of course if we choose to use the advance the $60.00 does come out of our following weeks paycheck.

Finished around 11pm and headed back to the hotel.

Steve

Great start to training. I have read a lot of blogs here and I think yours is the first that has training starting at 2pm and lasting until 11pm...interesting. Make me wonder if they do that to keep your schedules different. Just a thought. Also, they have approved boots for you to buy there...pretty cool. Well keep on having a good time, and enjoy training.

Chris

Thanks Chris! Yep they give us Rocky boots and charge us $35.00 for them and then we get a new pair FREE each year on our anniversary. Pretty cool deal. And it appears they have two training classes going on hence the reason for the later start. I love sleeping in so it works out great! Also get to do night driving.

Day 3

Started at 2:00 PM. Filled out our logbooks and went out to the truck to do our pre trip for the day. Then we went and attached the trailer and the two of us went out on the road for the first time taking turns driving. Did multiple intersection turns and two buttonhook turns. Very helpful and never ran up on the curb!

Then we got back filled out our logbooks had dinner and moved back into the classroom. Did computer based training all night.