My Swift Adventure

A quick question, when did Swift change from "Trainer's" to "Mentor's"?

 

Could you please explain "city dispatch"? Never run into that phrase before...or rather, yet.

 

I'll assume Swift does the same as JB Hunt, Werner, and a lot of other companies, although different companies might have different names for it. City dilivery is when OTR drivers drop a loaded trailer in a yard, and a company day cab (usually) delivers it, and when I trailer gets loaded at a shipper, and a day cab goes and collects it and takes it to a terminal/dropyard for later pick up by a OTR driver.

 

I just read through this thread. You all are very informative.
Road Dust sorry for your loss, I hope you and your family stay strong and make it through these trying times. Thank you for starting and keeping such a grate thread going.

I got my CDL "A" last week, and I am looking at going with May Trucking. They seam to be an ok fit for me. A west coast company. Any how, I like how you all are keeping us all updated on your progress.

If I was to give any advice to a newbe I would say, find a trucking company that fits your needs. Driving stile, Home time, Pay, benefits, and so on.

Anther thing that I have learned from reading on posts, is that when problems arise, you should always communicate them through the Quail COM. From what I gather, it will keep a record of every thing typed by both parties. Then if there is a dispute of what you are told to do it is right there in print. No He said or She said. It could save your but. Or I guest it could put it in a sling... lol ... no really it is a good tool. Even more so if you are not dealing with your DM. or some one that you trust. It might be good to have it in print.

Dodgeram...I see that you did use the Quail com. If you could have used the Quail com first thing when you had truck problems. Then you would have documented for you DM. I don't think you would have had to worry as much about getting a service failure. And it may have saved you some phone time, the on hold for 2hr.

I do have 2 Questions.

1. Could some one list there experience with an assignment by means of Time and Miles from point A. to Point B. and what it took to get there?

2. About the pay scale. When you first start out, do you get .25 Cents a mile with a trainer? And is that for 6 weeks, then going up to how much and when?
JimF and screenman touched on this earlier. And there web site has little info about pay.

 

Hello all!

Reporting live from the Drivers "INFORMER" Kiosk in the drivers lounge of the Memphis terminal, I'll need to keep this brief. Been out on my own for almost 2 weeks now and let me say, what an adventure it has been!! I will get into more details this weekend when I make it home and can use my computer. But I did learn how to get online from the kiosk. That was cool. Still learning alot out here everyday!

To answer Zoolue's questions real quick, yes, perhaps if I had used the QC in the first place, I probably wouldn't have wasted as much time on the phone. But sometimes, you just want that personal communication that the phone provides. I did eventually use the QC and got removed from the load that way, but communication was still minimal at best and I stayed on hold for another 20 minutes because I didn't know anything was done.

This whole mess actually alerted them to a problem they didn't know they had and helped them fix. I will go into more details about that this weekend, but I ended up with a behind the scenes look at the operation. Quite impressive really.

The pay scale while you are training is actually based on days, but it works out to $450 per week for the first 4 weeks out with a Mentor, then $500 a week for the final 2 weeks. After you've been assigned to your own truck and are dispatched on your first load, then you start making that killer .25 cents per mile.

Good luck to everyone out there, be safe and take care. I will shout at y'all again this weekend!

PS...RD, I'm very sorry to here about the loss of your dad. All I can say is never forget the good times. RIP

 

I graduated trucking school March 12. April 5 I start that 3 day orientation with Swift.