Schneider Bulk Training, Weeks 3 & 4

Our time with the TE was supposed to last two weeks. Mine was considerably shorter; I got picked up Wednesday evening in Houston and dropped off eight days later at our operations center in Gary, IN. That time included the Memorial Day holiday, where we sat for several days due to lack of loads. I admit I had hoped to get a bit more experience driving with my trainer engineer. I was getting pretty nervous towards the end of the scheduled two-week TE phase, as I really didn’t have a very good handle on operating the Qualcomm with relation to the work assignments or logging hours, the paperwork we were responsible for completing and sending in, and had hoped we would encounter more challenging roads than the relatively flat Mid-West had to offer. 

During my time with my TE I did most of the driving, with him sitting, awake, in the passenger’s seat. There were a few times when I ran out of hours and once when we were heavy on our steer tires when he took over. We did one pump unload and one air unload ourselves, and the customer unloaded us the other times. And I will say, in real-world scenarios the unloads went very differently from how we were trained. It was all accomplished safely and efficiently, just different. 

I experienced my first truck stop shower, and was surprised how clean & dry it was… towels were provided… as nice as a hotel room shower. My TE had an EPU on his truck, so our cab was cold at night, without idling the engine. I slept as well in the truck as I have at home. We’d park with trucks all around us, and in the morning they’d be gone, and I never heard them. 

The TE phases ended early on a Thursday as my trainer engineer had previously requested time off, so I had 3 1/2 days to kill before beginning my final phase of training, a three-day review period where I’d get tested or reviewed on my abilities to unload a tanker using the pump and the air compressor, my proficiency at driving a tanker to include slow-maneuvering and backing, and some book knowledge and trip planning. This was a breeze, and I got the impression the instructor leading me through this process was struggling to find things to coach me on after 2 1/2 days. 

I spent the second half of Wednesday making travel arrangements to get to my newly assigned truck, which was sitting in Dallas, TX. The company initially offered to fly me from Gary, IN to Dallas, but I rejected that idea and opted for a rental car instead to drive down, as I’d acquired way too much gear to bring onto a plane. It was an easy drive, fueled by my excitement of meeting my first truck and beginning this career/lifestyle for which I’d been preparing for the previous seven months.

Schneider Bulk Training, Week 2

After spending two days on the unloads, we got our first opportunity to drive since we’d arrived. There’s a new law in TX that states before you’re allowed to drive a tanker, you have to be certified to drive a tanker, which is really back-azzwards because you obtain this ‘certification’ by pulling a dry-van. So we drove dry-vans for two days to re-familiarize ourselves with shifting and driving a big rig, before testing out and actually driving tankers. WOW!… what a difference. Driving dry-vans felt like being behind the wheel of a Cadillac compared to the tankers. Filled with water, as you might imagine the sloshing and the surge was everything it was hyped to be. The biggest surprise came on a slight downhill portion of the interstate, where the water felt like it was on my back, pushing me down the road. It’s something I’ve since become accustomed to, and have to be mindful of on long downhill stretches. The momentum of the surge can push the truck to speeds in excess of 75mph if you allow it. 

I had one instructor working with me beginning with the unloads through the end of training, and I enjoyed his sense of humor. He had names for the three tankers we were training with: “Sergio,” as in ‘surge-e-o,’ “Miss Wallbanger,” and the heaviest of the three, “The Godfather.” The Godfather beat me up the least, but when its surge did strike, if felt like a 50lb sledgehammer slamming into the back of my seat.

Me & Mr. Leo Williams, trainer extraordinaire

We drove the tankers the rest of the week, tested out in those, spent Saturday reviewing anything we felt deficient in, and preparing for the next phase of training, the two-week OTR phase with a trainer, or in Schneider-land, a ‘trainer engineer’ (TE).

Our four primary instructors.

Schneider Bulk Training, Week 1

I closed out my SAGE training diary with the successful acquisition of my CDL-A and words of thanks to those following my diary and offering their encouragement and support, especially G-Town and including Han Solo Cup, Brett, and Old School. I began my bulk training period with Schneider on schedule, beginning Monday May 8. Schneider’s bulk or tanker training last approximately 4 1/2 weeks, and right on schedule, my last day in training fell on the 31st day. 

The first day of bulk training, and when I say ‘bulk training,’ I mean chemicals, not food-grade… as a Schneider associate we are going to become “Chemical Unload Specialists;” The Big Orange does not haul food-grade products, but chemicals only, many of which are HAZMAT. The first day of bulk training weeded out half of the prospective trainees, mostly due to high blood pressure; on that 1st day experienced and inexperienced drivers alike all go through the same DOT physical process. After Day 1 my class of inexperienced drivers only lost two additional persons, one because of stupidity and the other due to bad knees (there is a fair amount of climbing on-and-off the top of the tankers, especially during training… in the real world not so much: most customers unload your trailer anyway and don’t allow you on top of the trailer while on their property… liability reasons). So climbing on top of your trailer often is limited to how thorough of a pre-trip or en-route inspection you want to perform. 

Pretty much the first week was spent in the classroom; we watched training videos and modules, saw some really amazing powerpoint presentations, signed up for employee benefits, received our fuel cards, and received a very large duffel bag with which to store all of the chemical gear we might be called upon to wear: a chemical suit, chemical boots, chemical gloves, respirator, FR coveralls, hard hat w/face shield, and an enormous pair of goggles. 

We ended the first week and began the second week with a much more hands-on approach, spending one day learning how to unload the contents of our trailer using the pump, and one day learning how to unload our trailer using the air compressor. That’s when the training really became fun for me. It’s one thing to observe a procedure while watching a video, it’s quite another actually doing it. With only three of us in the inexperienced group remaining, I had as many opportunities as I wanted to practice the unloads; I basically kept practicing until the end of the day arrived and I was encouraged to stop.

Me, Jimmie, & Jimmy... wearing our 'basic PPE:'  hard hat w/full face shield, steel-toe boots, long pants, long-sleeve shirts, and gloves.