Life for a rookie at swift

Great post. I am on my third day here at the Millington Academy. Really like our instructor Tony. We will actually have our first range time this evening. We are scheduled from 6pm to 5 am on the range. About three weeks til actual state testing for cdl license then 4-6 weeks with mentor til I get my solo truck. Love reading from those who've gone before me.

 

Good Post, I to work for Swift....you are spot on with the shippers, my God what are their issues, I'm always happy and just keep smiling no matter their F'd up attitude, most come around to being cordial....live one life why be an a@@h@#$le all the time.......with that said, I"m brand new to this and older then most, have had many different careers and wanted to give this a shot. It is beyond me how I will make any money if the company insist we follow this On duty rule at shippers, it eats up the 70 hour clock as a matter of fact I may have to take a 34 in the middle of no where as I'm about to be stuck after a delivery...we'll see....they love to see that I sit on my ### for 3 hours waiting be loaded or unloaded while on duty, this really cuts down on the amount of runs you can make during the month as it all adds up...

 

That is an old rule, and it didn't last very long.

If I am doing a drop and hook it is all on-duty.
If it is live it is only on-duty until I hit the dock, then off-duty or sleeper until loading/unloading is finished, then back on-duty.

 

i used to do that but after talking to a few other Swiftys I decided to tighten it up a bit.
For D\H I show 15 mins as pickup or delivery coupled with my ecall or lcall..then off duty for any other time I'm there..go auto to drive line when I leave.

For live unloads I show 15 mins delivery..then sleeper..then 5 mins for lcall..then drive out (no detention). If taking longer than 2hrs then after 1:45 in sleeper I go back on Line 4 (to get paid and respond to QC) then 5 mins on duty for ecall. For live loads it's the same except I log as pickup and lcall.

I've been logging like that for months though I know it's not letter of the law per se. Been audited countless times and always come through as compliant with no violations.

I use bare minimums for all line 4 noncompensated required activity. I always only log 5 mins for things like fuel or scales (regardless of actual time). I'll combine fuel or scales with my pretrip whenever possible. I only log 15 mins for pretrip and 10 mins for post trip.

So all my Line 4 activities are in chunks of 15, 10 or 5 min increments with the exception of Line 4 for detention and I combine activities as much as possible. Never been cited for a violation. I even had a NM DOT take a look at a few of my days during an inspection last spring..walked him through my activities and all was good.

I always log what I do BUT not exactly the total times...just the bare minimum. And I edit each day out to those minimums everyday. I don't toss up the times. Like has been stated by others if I logged per the letter of the law I would have no time left for driving. I run on recaps for 4 of my 5 weeks out and need every single minute for Line 3 to maintain my 3000 miles a week.

I get the impression through many audits and no violations that as long as I log the activity required then Swift "seems" to turn a blind eye to the times I use...I've talked to several Swiftys that are doing the same thing and are "compliant". I'm actually doing much more Line 4 activity than I show but since I'm not getting paid for it I don't "waste" those minutes showing it. Right or wrong, it has been acceptable.

 

my mentor is teaching me to do i this way as well for the most part. He just logs the full time for fuel stops. But the second we send the arrived at reciver macro he goes off duty until we drive away.

 

That will end up biting him, or you if you do it.

You have to show some time, because you can't be off duty when you are getting to the dock or doing other things that require on-duty time.

Don't be stupid about this! And logging off-duty as soon as you arrive is just plain stupid.

 

we aer on duty until we give paperwork if its a live unload. on duty the whole time for d/h

 

I do the arrival call, go off duty, check in, go on duty and hit the dock however long it takes me, minimum of 5 minutes, go to off duty. Get the paperwork, go on duty, send the e/l call ... pull away and slam the doors and go to the drive line when the qc puts me there, be it 3 minutes or 10 minutes.

Same process for d/h ... go on duty when I know where to drop the trailer and stay on duty until I'm hooked to the new trailer and do my e/l call ... however long it takes, be it 6 minutes or 30 minutes. Spend at least 5 minutes off duty before I roll,

Pretrip ... log out of the sleeper to off duty, edit in 15 minutes pretrip, wait for at least 5 minutes to roll off duty , then hit the road.

Post trip ... log on duty, do my DVIR macro, approve my logs, log sleeper ... 2 minutes, creates a flag for on duty DVIR ... no actual line 4 for logged.

 

I'm going to try out your way of doing post trips Moose..will save me a few more mins yet still log it. Thanks

 

Ok, but that's quite different then what you described your mentor doing earlier. As Moose stated, you can't just do a mac 1 or 5 then go straight to off duty. You have to log some line 4 or you will surely get a violation eventually.