Starting Schneider Orientation

That was a major setback, but there's other companies that might take me. I now take an even longer bus ride from Texas to Pittsburgh and on my second day of orientation they tell me it's been too much time from my graduation at a private CDL school - my CDL is considered stale! They insist I go through school again. Well, that's not happening, so on a whim I have them put me on a bus to Nashville, TN where I make my 4th attempt at attending a trucking company's orientation.

I was supposed to start my orientation /training with Schneider on Tuesday next week (today is Thursday). All systems were 'go' until yesterday when they called and said they have put a 'temporary hold' on all new driver training at their Atlanta location. They told me they'll call me back when things open back up, maybe in a month or so. I'm afraid my CDL might go stale by then (graduated Feb 13) ... Twice I've been delayed for various reasons or I would have been working from mid-March ... I've called and put in a few more applications but nothing seems to be happening. Could it be that I live in a 'slow freight' area? What do you think should be my best course of action? Wait for Schneider to open back up, try another, even if that is C.R. England (OMG)? The best thing about Schneider was that the training was to-the-point ... they didn't put you on 'team' driving masquerading as 'training' ...

Liahos, you are in Birmingham, AL. That's a great area, so there's nothing wrong there. This "pandemic" has caused a lot of unnecessary panic. Keep putting out applications. Somebody will take you. Have you tried Knight/Swift? Honestly most of the big companies are still hiring. I know Western Express hires from your area. We've seen plenty of newbies make a good start at C. R. England. We had one of our former Moderators (GuyJax) who worked there for several years.

Don't let the internet trucking wannabes convince you of things like you said about "teaming driving masquerading as training." In trucking you learn by doing. You don't need someone over in the other seat babysitting you all day. You just need exposure to the job. Teaming does just that while allowing you to have someone there in case you need them. I enjoy a very successful trucking career. My trainer and I started team driving on day 2 of our four and a half weeks together. It didn't hurt me in the slightest.

Started my career over 2 years ago at England. Still here. Still accident free. Making great money and home every weekend. Oh yea.. and I'm Solo.

Training is what you make of it. Sure the trainer you get is random. Doesn't mean your stuck with a bad one. If something doesn't click speak up, you only hinder yourself by not speaking up. They want you to succeed.

Don't believe the terminal rats. These companies didn't get to be as big as they are and around as long as they have been by screwing over their top performing drivers.

Come to think of it, I can see that probably there is no such thing as an all good or all bad company. It all depends on the individuals you have to deal with and, of course, there are all shades of people everywhere. So in the end, it must really depend on one's own attitude and response. That makes me feel better about applying to whatever company that will take me in right now. Things like equipment, maintenance, pay, benefits etc, of course, must all be slightly different from company to company, although I don't imagine that there could possibly be too huge a variation even with those things. The different management strategies of each company is probably what accounts for those variations. The bottom line as I understand is, that as the driver one just has to focus on one's job, mind one's own business, keep one's head straight and leave the rest to Providence.