Starting Orientation With Schneider National

I'm leaving this morning for Coraopolis, PA to start my career with Schneider National. I will try to give updates every day or so. I am really looking forward to this new challenge.

Good luck Richard will be looking forward to hearing about orientation.

It has been a long 2 days since I started this thread. Yesterday was a travel day and today was the first day of orientation.

The shuttle leaves from the hotel at 6:15 and arrives at the OC at about 6:45. The first order of business is the pre work screen. We started with 18 and lost 3 with the pre work screen. One was a man that is part of a husband and wife team. She is staying with orientation. He will take care of some issues and return at a later date. Afterwards we filled out some forms online and they copied all of our important documents. Then we had some computer based training. The subjects were driver fatigue, driver distractions and harassment.

Lunch is brought in from a deli and it's pretty good. By the time everyone finished with the computer based training and lunch it was about 2:00 and we got started with classroom. We got our textbook and started out with HOS and log books. Class ended about 5:15 then they brought us back to the hotel.

One thing we talked about in class is what we should expect and what they expect from us. We will be at the OC for about 11 days. We will have 11 tests (or checks for learning as they like to call it). They will give you multiple chances to pass these checks for learning. They are mainly used to see how we are progressing and to make sure we are getting it. We were told that only 3 people failed in all of 2012 so that's not too bad.

Tomorrow we will spend a half day in the classroom and half the day on the road. So far, so good. :-)

Yeah, you need a lot of patience during orientation. Painfully boring at times, painfully stressful at times, and most of what they do or how they do it will make very little sense at the time but there's a method to their madness. You just have to roll with it.

Day 2

Today started in the classroom. The subject was rollovers. Rollovers are more common with tankers due to their higher center of gravity. We saw pictures of rollovers with a detailed description of the event. Most of them were experienced drivers. Most were speed related with driver fatigue being a factor in many of them. They were all Schneider trucks so they had the facts on each of the rollovers. Unfortunately one of them resulted in the drivers death. We also talked about rollovers during slow maneuvers. Most of us wondered how that could happen but they showed us. And it happens more often than you would think. One occurred on a tanker that was not connected to a tractor. It had a faulty landing gear and apparently the driver knew about it before he uncoupled. Check your landing gear before you uncouple.

About mid morning we had our first 2 tests. One on rollovers and one on HOS. They allow you to use your notes and textbook on all tests. These tests are based on Schneider policies which may differ from DOT regulations or what we learned in CDL school. In no case do they conflict with DOT regulations. Some are more strict. Example, Schneider policy for bulk division is that your ramp speed is to be 10 mph below the posted speed. They are also pretty strict about not violating the HOS rules. If it happens once your DBL will ask you about it and probably nothing else will happen but if it happens a second or more times in a 6 month period they will start to come down on you. We were told to trip plan for no more than 10 hours of driving so that we had a cushion to deal with unexpected events.

After lunch we were divided into groups of 2 or 3 and met our road instructors. Then we had a sit down meeting with them. We were issued some of our personal protection equipment. Finally we got to do some hands on with a truck. We coupled our truck to a tanker. Then we were shown the Schneider way of climbing onto the tank and everyone had to go onto the catwalk and walk to both ends. No one had any problems with this. It actually looks worse from the ground than it does from the top. After that we were shown the way they want us to do a pre trip inspection. That was pretty much the same way we did it in CDL school but with a tanker there are quite a few more things to check. We are given laminated sheets for every task we do with the truck. We will be allowed to use these aids whenever we perform each task, including during testing.

We did lose one student today. I don't know the details but it was his decision to leave. We also picked up one student so we are still at 15. Tomorrow we will be driving all day. We got some homework tonight to prepare us for driving tomorrow.

I pulled a food grade tanker for a year one time. Loved it! Although getting outside in the winter to hook up the hoses, vent the tank, and pump off the loads got a little chilly at times! But I loved the job.

Are you going to be in the bulk division or chemical division?

It is the bulk division but we will haul chemicals. I need my hazmat endorsement. I have already been fingerprinted, just waiting for the authorization to take the test. Apparently we haul some pretty bad chemicals.

Is anyone reading this? Shall I continue?

Is anyone reading this? Shall I continue?

Continue! I'm reading and interested in tanker but for local.

Oh believe me - there are a lot of people reading this! The majority of them aren't even registered so they're just "lurking and learning" I guess you could say. But there are a lot of people reading through these. Please continue!