I went through the Dallas Schneider training acadamy in March of 06.
To complete this schooling I had to sign a contract stating I would work for the company for one year or repay the fee of $3500 with tax. Fair enough.
Upon starting orientation we were given the chance to "opt out" of their per diem program. I signed two forms before leaving the STA. They were both "lost" putting me on the per diem even though I did not want to be on it.
I point blank asked them if their was a monthly max on the amount of per diem you can draw each month and was told "absolutely not"
I was also told how great Schneider maintanence was.
Upon graduation from the acadamy I was placed with a local driver even though I would be running over the road. I did 9 days with him and even though I learned a lot, had no clue about even the basic operation of the Qualcomm, scaling loads, even fueling at a truck stop. I voiced my concerns and was basically told to shut up.
The day after passing my CDL driving test I was put on a bus to Dallas, TX to pick up my truck. When I arrived I found out it was a Kenworth T a truck that drove totally different than the Freightliner I'd been trained to drive. I asked for half a day with an instructor in it to get used to it and was basically told to shut up and drive.
It took me over a month to learn to drive it, to the point of calling safety and telling them I still wasn't comfortable and needed some instructor time in it, they again, basically told me to shut up and drive.
Due to the age of that truck it was traded and I got a maintanence nightmare Freightliner. The problems with it started at Day one. Repeated trips to the shop for a "loose" fifth wheel, alignment so bad that at the end of the day my arms hurt from holding it on the road, to my A/C going out in Laredo, TX and being made to drive 570 miles to Elpaso to get it fixed.
On a few occaisons they would change the city of a customer so as to pay less miles for certain runs.
The reason I left is that after being forced onto the per diem program and being told that it DIDN'T have a max, I maxed out on it, and the computer defaulted me back to my base rate of pay per mile and tried to compensate for the small amount of taxes taken by the per diem program, resulting in the loss of 60% of one of my checks to taxes. I didn't know at the time how serious all the safety violations were.
They've since claimed they over paid me on my final check (140 gross) by 161 dollars and they want repayment. I've only received one phone call and one letter about tuition, they will not see a dime of it.
So all in all go to SNC if you want to be lied to, be put in an unsafe working environment, and ignored when you have major problems.
0 comments