My Swiftie Life...

I'm a rookie... Same as you.

While I do feel some of your pain, I think your judgment is misguided.

My experience has been great, so take my optimism with a grain of salt.

Once you get comfortable with truck stops and spent more time at shippers... You will see...

1) Equipment issues are about the same across the board... Maybe it is the white paint, but swift actually looks cleaner in line at the truck stop.

2) I also think trailer damage is yard dogs... Except for the long gouges along the right side.

3) You also can't be sure damage is not reported. I send a freeform to my boss each time I hook.... If there is anything that could be blamed on me when I get back.

I think you may find your frustrations are job/industry.... And not company.

So far DM Training, Trainer training, pay scale for experienced drivers... Are about the only complaints I find credible.

 

Ok, finally got to the end of this thread.

Let me begin, I'm a L/O for swift. One half of a couple team.

Your posts in the beginning were optimistic and informative, but if you read through, you have begun doing the two worst things you can do in this industry.

1.) Keeping score.

You cannot keep score in this industry, if you have trouble at a shipper, a bad trailer etc. Etc. Let it roll off your back and keep going, keeping score of every bad thing you have happen will ruin and make you gloss over the good.

2.) Looking for someone to blame rather than saying, "How can I fix this?"

Your trailer incident is a perfect example, rather than asking for help from someone with more knowledge, you went looming for someone to blame... (other "scumbag" drivers, swift...etc.)

If that trailer was damaged, you didn't have to take it. Had you asked someone who had been there already, like me, or mystic or a few others...we would have told you to Mac about a damaged trailer at shipper/reciever, leave it and get another one.

Failing that, you assumed a mud flap or light out was an OOS violation. Neither were more than a minor offense that would have netted you a "fix it warning" from any reasonable DOT officer. Very few if any DOT officers will notice either of these unless you're rolling through scales. Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken there is a provision for small issues like that which allows you to legally transport a damaged trailer a short distance, so long as you're enroute to a repair facility. Which you could have proved you were easily in the unbelievably unlikely chance you were pulled by DOT.

Again, something someone with a little more time under their belt could have helped you with.

Now, this is not a personal attack against you and it's hard to convey tone over the internet. We were all like you once, I finished school a couple months before you started, and have my own thread on my time here.

Swift is certainly not perfect, there are things that need to be changed. But you don't seem to have a realistic view of the trucking industry yet, and have built this idea up of this giant monster company that just chews cdls up and spits them out.

Swift has a system, it's not perfect, but once you learn to work within that system, your time here will be much easier.

As far as your theories on L/O. My mentor was L/O. He taught me a great deal, I still call him daily and get advice from him as needed. He's been with the company 8 years.

I, and a guy who went through academy with me are both lease ops. He was my roommate, he pulls solo and makes good money. It's all in how you run your business, and what loads you're willing to run.

I wish you the best of luck man, but please look for help before you assume the system is out to get you. I'll be glad to PM you my phone number to help.

 

Also, before I forget. Any terminal shop keeps trailer lights on hand. Get two of every one and keep them in your side box. It will save you a lot of trouble.

Same with fuses, headlights for the truck, and spare fluids...oil, coolant, and washer fluid. All this is free to company drivers for the asking.

 

The trailer I picked up today (loaded) had 3 lights that needed replacing.
Tag, upper rear marker and upper right marker. The upper right light was completely missing, not just burned out.

I rolled with it until my fuel stop 45 miles later and then called on-road. We couldn't use the indy shop behind the Love's so we set up the repair at the TA where I was going to stop for the night - another 90 miles.

When I first talked with the guy at on-road he had asked if it was the rear marker lights. A bit later in the conversation I asked him how he knew what light was out.
A repair order had been submitted 2 weeks earlier.

Maybe the trailer had been sitting that long at Miller/Coors, or maybe other drivers had run with it in that condition for that long before I got it.
But the lights had been reported to Swift long ago, and no one saw fit to get it fixed.

Well, now they're fixed.

 

I can't say my experince with Swift was a good one, but that was in 1990-91. I am sure a lot of things have changed since then, the biggest issue was non-centralized dispatch for me, always seemed I had to fight for a decent load except out of my home terminal.

 

Yep ... fixed so far this year ... 3 trailers for DOT lights, 2 trailers for brakes, 2 trailers for marker lights, 1 trailer for glad hands, 1 trailer for roof leak, 1 trailer for a bent/jammed tandem handle and 1 plate light.

 

Oh man, I'd like to choke whoever is bending those tandem axle release handles, you really don't have a pair of f#! $@€! Vise grips on your truck?!!?? But you have a hammer big enough to bend a 3/8 steel bar?

 

That's not how they get bent ... it's from slamming the tandems when they're sliding them. It's a slow lethal process. Now once they do start to get a little bent, no doubt the hammers are coming into play.

I picked up a 15 trailer last week and the handle had already started to develop a bow.

 

A Swift trailer mechanic told me he thinks its from the no-vise-grip drivers using a bungee to force it to stay by strapping it forward then moving the tandems. He said he'd observed a few doing that. Why people can't buy a simple set of vise-grips (under $10 at Harbor Freight) and a few other simple tools is beyond me.