The Hell With Schneider National Family Dollar Account!

Hello All! I made a thread about Schneider National on how I was going to Charlotte for Orientation. Well I went and had a blast. I learned a lot and met a few good people along the way. The first week was mostly classroom and a little bit of driving towards the end of the week. We did a simulation class, logging class, trip planning class, AND lots of lots of rules and regulations learning and quizzes. The 2nd week I went out with a trainer from Walmart. I learned how to back into Docks and really gained a lot of progress in the shifting area.I got only 3 and a half days Wednesday-Saturday everyone else got 5-7 days.(they said i was apart of a pilot program)(I guess to save money).Anyways the last week was basically compiling all that we had learned into one and making it perfect. We also did a load with a trainer which wasn't an actually load but we had to treat it as such. All of us passed and the initial class left with their brand new trucks and Me;us(the family dollar dedicated people) had to stay an extra 3 days for extra practice since family dollars aren't made for trucks. We went over as i recall blind side 90's sight side 180's and some more for 3 days. They even had some big wigs from family dollar come in and give us a spiel on how we are so important to the company. After that sunday the last day we all were sent packing back home.

My first week with my Mentor was hard at first and then became easy as i got use to it.Besides requesting a non-smoker and getting someone who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day in the truck while driving the week went pretty well. I even complained and my wishes went ignored as the toxic 2nd hand smoked smacked my face and lungs with the prowess of angry in his prime mike tyson! I was taught how to use the rollers and build your own ramp and use cardboard to slide the pet food on. After my mentor told me he was getting 2500-3k a week watching me do all the 2500-3000 case unload work while smoking cigarettes filling the trailer up with smoke i was ready to leave. (My first check was 640 before taxes for "training pay"). He didnt really have much of a personality and really didnt learn much from him besides "its ok if you dont do a pre-trip or post-trip just as long as you show it in the computer". After 5 days it was all over.

My First week by myself was coma inducing stressful. Nothing on the Qualcomm worked for me. I called my dbl and other office people over 15 times the first 24 hours. They sent me to West Virginia at night. After getting fuel, sliding my tandems , hitting the scale, and "attempting to trip plan" it was 10 oclock and I was still in Northern Virginia with a 4 hour drive to Fairmont, West Va. It was windy,The roads went Straight down and Straight up for 4 hours! tears were commonplace on my cheeks and garments. Their were curves going down steep and if you looked to the right you saw darkness keen to the pits of hell where you knew with one ****up it was allover.But after 4 heart-wrenchinghours of that iarrived in this beautiful town with not a soul in site at 3:30 am with a unloading time @6.

**Stay tuned as the story continues**

The family dollar deliveries definitely aint the best place to start out your career.

You got to really know what you are doing when it comes to backing and unloading. You better be young and full of stamina, especially with summer coming up. It gets hotter and hotter the farther back you go in that thing. Even when it is freezing outside you can still work up a big old sweat.

Then on top of that you have to drive to you next stop while exhausted.

I always move aside for the Family Dollar and Dollar General trucks when at a tuckstop, let them go in front of me when waiting to fuel up, just out of total respect for those folks.

I'm looking at a Dollar Tree job when I start. I guess a lot of these are night driving huh? Your trainer sounds like he doesn't like to do what he is getting paid to do. I'm pretty sure as a trainee you aren't required to do unloading if you aren't getting unload pay. But, as a new guy, I don't know if I would say no. It's probably a bad first impression. I can't wait to ask for a trainer that doesn't smoke OR vape. It will probably be impossible to get.

Sgtwilldog, if you'll put "dollar store" in the search bar on this page you will find all kinds of warnings from us to newbies who want to get on this account for the money it pays. If memory serves me correctly G-Town even tried to give Steven a heads up about the difficulties in this account. It is not for the faint of heart. It is all out work, I mean hard work. You will personally unload approximately 80,000 pounds of freight by hand each week while enduring some of the most difficult backing situations imaginable to a truck driver, and not only are they difficult but you are going to have impatient four wheelers trying to zoom around your truck just so they can get into the store for a roll of toilet paper or something else that they simply don't have time to wait for you to get out of their way!

This is a tough job, that I never recommend to rookies. The only reason these companies started offering it to rookies is that it is so tough they can't even keep the experienced drivers on it, so they have had to find drivers from anywhere they could.

It may be so, and I won't argue about it sounding harder, but is a little tougher backing a good trade off for familiar routes, more pay (maybe almost double), no time lost waiting to unload, and being home weekly?

It may be so, and I won't argue about it sounding harder, but is a little tougher backing a good trade off for familiar routes, more pay (maybe almost double), no time lost waiting to unload, and being home weekly?

A little tougher? OMG, no offense but to say that backing up to or near a dollar account is a "little tougher" is like saying an F3 tornado is just a little wind storm.

I suggest you check out some of the Dollar chains in and around your neighborhood before blindly leaping into the deep end of the pool. Find one with an offset dock, requiring a 90 degree blindside back that is 50 feet from a public thoroughfare. With all of your mental might and limited experience, figure out how you would back a truck into that spot without hitting anything. If someone asks my opinion on this; as a rookie it could quickly shorten your career.

The family dollar deliveries definitely aint the best place to start out your career.

You got to really know what you are doing when it comes to backing and unloading. You better be young and full of stamina, especially with summer coming up. It gets hotter and hotter the farther back you go in that thing. Even when it is freezing outside you can still work up a big old sweat.

Then on top of that you have to drive to you next stop while exhausted.

I always move aside for the Family Dollar and Dollar General trucks when at a tuckstop, let them go in front of me when waiting to fuel up, just out of total respect for those folks.

I'ved worked at Walmart as an Orderfiller and Target as a warehouse feeder picking up and cutting open 7500 boxes per day in 10 hours. Those i thought were tough but got use to them in a few months. This job is 10x harder then those 2 combined. So far ive driven about 2500 miles. I have to drive into oncoming traffic and back 1500 feet to do a 180 into a family dollar. All sorts of 90 blind sides while dealing with irate drivers, irate managers and me becoming irate from being new and no one being patient with me. I've completed 2 weeks Have gone to WV PA and Southern VA. Each load is between 40,000-75000 lbs and i do 2-3 loads per week. Each stop is 25 dollars after you get to your first store. My first 2 checks were only 400 after putting in 55-60 hours of work each week. The 1st week was training pay and the 2nd week nothing on my check was correct. My miles were wrong and im in the process of getting this straightened out. I have already put in my 2 weeks notice. The bad thing is ive gotten use to working hard and actually like it its keeping me in shape. But i was promised guarantee of atleast 1k per week and im seeing nowhere close to that. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS FOR NEW DRIVERS. YOU WILL EITHER HIT SOMETHING OR QUIT AND HAVE TO LOOK FOR ANOTHER JOB.

I was on a dollar tree account for a little while and it definitely isn't easy money. Sucks you had a tough time training but good job on sticking it out. I didn't mind the unloading so much as the tight setup most stores have.

I was on a dollar tree account for a little while and it definitely isn't easy money. Sucks you had a tough time training but good job on sticking it out. I didn't mind the unloading so much as the tight setup most stores have.

how was your experience?

Ok. So, I went to my dollar stores. Looks like you just pull up along side the store and unload. I'm sure it can be harder in most cases.

My question is, it sounds like Schneider gave you extra training for that account. I know they want you to succeed. Was it not enough training?