I'm going with Swift!!!

So I had to sit through this safety orientation which was very informative actually, but ran long...the problem was, my mentor was already at the terminal waiting for me. Finally the class ended and I literally ran downstairs to the lady who headed the mentors. My mentor was down there already....with a load that was an hour late on the way to Woodbridge, NJ.

Unfortunately I didn't think I would be able to park my car in employee parking. After all those attending the orientation were not yet employees, and I didn't know if there would be anything else needed to qualify. Well, I very quickly found out I was now an employee of the company, and immediately on the run.

So my mentor drove me down to the Holiday Inn and I grabbed my bag and left everything else including my laptop. I threw the bag in the truck, jumped in, and we were on our way. My mentor immediately let me know he runs students hard, and that I should expect my 240 hours to be completed in 4.5 to 5 weeks. I let him know that sounded good to me.

I found out he's originally from North Carolina, and a couple of years ago moved to Williamsport, PA. While based in PA, he kept his main Swift terminal in NC (it's pretty cool that you can do that). He also let me know that he had 3 days hometime coming so I would spend my first 5 days on the road and then he would drop me off at the terminal for his hometime. He made it clear I shouldn't get used to this because he was on the road three weeks at a time so when the 3 days was up, I had better be prepared to run three weeks straight.

So far the guy sounds pretty strict, and as the lady who runs mentors stated, a serious guy. But I noticed some things about him that made me feel that he might not mess around, but he also was a nice guy.

It's very common for a mentor to drop a student off in a motel for home leave to save them the trip. This mentor didn't even think of it. Even though is home was some 120 miles from the terminal he was going to drop me off so I could spend my three days at home. Believe me, this was voluntary on his part, and not something all mentors would be willing to do. Yet to him he I could tell he wouldn't even think of it.

I quickly learned that my impression of him was right. The lady who headed the mentor program reminded us that we were going to be spending time on the mentor's *home* and we should always keep that in mind. So she told a story I can't resist telling....

When the truck is moving, it is Swift policy that the student sleep in the bottom bunk which is obviously where the mentor usually sleeps. This is incase the truck runs into a bridge that was too low for it, or if the truck rolls over, etc. I guess Swift likes their students uncrushed. As a former Work Analyst, I find uncrushed employees to be more productive in my experience.

Anway....so this student was sleeping in the mentor's bed but wasn't sleeping exactly. The mentor took a glance back and the student was um...doing something else...with an adult magazine...(hey this is a family site, use your imagination).

Needless to say the mentor complained to the head of mentors, and this lady had to deal with it. What made me crack up during this story was she used to be a bartender and so she was perfectly comfortable dealing with the situation....(I had to once have a discussion with a guy who had excessive flatulance and I wasn't comfortable having that discussion). So she brought the guy in and he turned bright red when she brought it up. They switched mentors with the student, kept him, and apparently he's a driver for the company now.....now that's what I call HUMAN RESOURCES!!!

The moral of the story? Go into the mentor's truck and view it as his or her home because it really *is*. So I made sure I went into this guy's truck with that attitude. What's really cool is he really went out of his way from the very beginning to make me feel comfortable in his home. He was a courteous and caring host from the very beginning, and made we feel welcomed.

So he was a serious, take no prisoners kind of guy, but it was also obvious he *cared* about his students. I liked him from the very beginning.

 

Hey thanks Compi! I'm telling ya, it was a method of torture. I had a headache from the very beginning. Thank God I literally ran out of that orientation at the end and into my mentor's truck. I couldn't have stood sitting around in a hotel with somebody complaining all of the time while I'd be thinking, "This is life buddy, live it."

 

So OldNewbieGonnabe,

I'm catching up on everything and will definitely be reading your threads again. How are things going with you? Are you feeling overwhelmed now that you are on your own, or are things going hunkydory?

 

We'll see! This is definitely going to take awhile to get out there, and may have interuptions of a week here or there.

 

Okay, so where was I....

Oh yeah, so we are driving to Woodbridge NJ from Jonestown PA for 134 paid miles. I threw my bag in the truck so needless to say there were some things I forgot to bring. I started getting to know my mentor and liked him immediately. I could sense he likes what he heard from me as well, because I let him know I'm all business and willing to work hard so I can learn as quickly as possible.

So we arrive at Woodbrigde NJ 30 minutes late thanks to me. He doesn't even think about it that way, just matter of fact about being late. Things get about as interesting as they can right from the beginning. So Swift charges $75 PER PERSON for each hour a shipper keeps a Swift truck *after* the first 2 hours have expired. The mentor let me know we were about to get screwed because we were 30 minutes late. Boy was he right!

So he had to negotiate with a lumper (welcome to New Joisey!), and arrived at a number of $250 to load the truck (what a rip off). We were told he would get a call on his cell phone when they were ready to load him. Me having been up at 5 AM in the morning, and he having driven from Williamsport to Jonestown, picked me up, and driven over to Woodbridge, we were both exhausted.

We decided to call it a night...but, it's a good time to mention that the place looked like a movie setting from the beginning of Terminator. It was a paper plant that smelled like crap, looked like crap, and was as noisy as hell. I wasn't in my sluggly office looking out to Manhattan anymore, that's for sure!

So I set up my sleeping bag in the top bunk which was really convenient. If you are a student I highly recommend you bring as little as possible, and bring a sleeping bag and maybe a pillow or two and leave it at that. Even with all that was going on outside, it was quiet, comfortable, and most importantly, smelled okay in the truck. I had a good night's rest.

So we woke up in the morning and I had a chance to look the truck over. I literally didn't even look around the day prior. The truck was *cramped*. My mentor has a wooden crate which holds up an electrical cooler, which is literally in the middle of the floor. Behind it he removed one of the cabinets that came in the truck and installed his refigerator which was pretty freakin big for being in a truck. So there is literally no room to move around! You add the fact that I had to spend this time cramped into a truck with a chain smoker and for a split second I left a bit claustrophobic.

It's time like these where you either can't make it, or you have another point in time when you had a similar experience you can draw upon. I had the good fortune of being tortured like this much earlier in my life. When I was around 7, I began to spend 2 weeks of my summer with my grandparents on my mother's side. I spent it in an extremely small trailer with her, my grandfather, and my mom. So I'd have to sleep in this fold down bed and stair at the ceiling of the trailer for hours, which was literally 6 inches from my head. To make matters worse, the ladder used to get into this bunk was then removed and placed on the side of the bed to literally trap me into the bunk. This was designed to make it so I didn't fall out at night, but it's a good thing the trailer never caught on fire. I'd imagine this design was later recalled, needless to say.

So I'd be trapped in this bunk while my granddad would be chain smoking in the bed right below me, stairing at the ceiling. If it got too hot, tough luck, I had to wait it out until the morning. If it was too cold...well, it was never too cold up in that thing. That experience was pretty much like the one I was in now......It's a good thing to draw upon one's experiences. I'd tell you about the time I was spanked repeatedly with a giant candy cane, but that was a dream and doesn't count.

The point is, the way the truck is set up is really cramped. There were ashes all over the truck. I was in the process of estimating the truck to be between 3 and 5 years old when my mentor let me know he got the truck new in April. It's a 2010 International! Well, you could of fooled me!