My Time With Swift

Biker Dave, I really don't know anything about the fleece program or o/o's other than what I saw with my trainer. I know you get paid more per mile, but you are also responsible for the maintenance on the truck. They do set up a maintenance accout for you where a certain percentage of your pay gets set back for repairs so you don't end up blindsided, but repairs are still costly. I think the only advantage of owning your own truck before you leased on with Swift is that you don't have to pay their lease fees. Although I like the idea of owning my own truck, I just don't see how anyone can make it with all the expenses out there.

For those concerned about your starting pay, let me say that, yes, it is nothing impressive. Maybe other companies offer better starting pay, but there maybe other issues that are prohibitive. I know what it is like starting over in a new career, and it is just as true in trucking as it is in any other job market...you have to start at the bottom. But after 8 months doing this, I'm making more money now than I was after 20 years in my previous career. And I support a family of 6 plus child support on two more on my income alone. My wife doen't work. Granted, we don't live like Donald Trump. But then who does, really? And it really doesn't take long to move up in the pay scale. Plus, depending on certain loads, the pay can be even higher, and some loads even come with additional pay, such as extra stops. It's not much, but every cent counts, right?

So I made it to my stop in Georgia with plenty of time left. My DM said I had to be there before 11:30 because the customer closes at noon on fridays. I was there by 09:00. Problem was I did have a preplan yet and the customer didn't have any empties. So I sent messages that I needed a load and an empty and after waiting about 30 minutes (I was talking with another Swift driver there), I decided to head over to the Atlanta terminal in Decatur. Then I got 2 preplans, a short one backed up with a longer one. They also sent me directions to get an empty since the terminal didn't have any available.

I gotta say...I hate Atlanta. Traffic here is just unbarable! The terminal here is located on the east side of Atl on I20. For my empty, I had to go to the southwest side off I285. As I approached the I285 loop, the cb was just buzzin about southbound I285 being a parking lot due to an accident. My only option was to just drive straight thru Atl on I20 and catch I285 on the other side. Finally got my empty and when I sent my message that I had a trailer, I wasn't getting a response or my dispatch. After a short wait, I called my DM and found out the qc system was down. So I asked for the address to the shipper and a pick up number and headed in that direction. Thanks to ATL traffic, I was 15 minutes late to the pick up, then it took forever to get back to the terminal to t-call it. Oh yeah, this killer load was to pick up a local load and bring it back to the terminal to t-call. The final destination was in Memphis, 300+ miles away. But I still had the second preplan to back me up, which was picking up a t-called load in Atl and t-calling it in Richmond, VA by the next day, 515 miles on that one.

So after t-calling the short load, I got the shipping papers for my next load and was dispatched on that one. I already planned on waiting til the next day to start on that one since all my hours got used up in traffic, but when I saw the trip information on the dispatch I got to thinking. The final destination on this load is in the same area of New Jersey as my previous load that I just brought to GA, and it delivered monday afternoon. Based on the previous load, I knew that I could make it almost all the way there in just one day, with about 3 hours left to go, and this gave me enough time for a 34 hour reset and still make it on time. So I got on the phone with afterhours and asked them if I could do it. They had to check with a csr and within a few minutes, I got a message that the t-call had been removed! Sweet. Just turned a 500 mile load into 800. Now that I know how that works, I will be checking all t-called loads that I get. If you got the time to run it, why not do it? Sure beats tempting fate with the next load they offer you. Not real excited about going back to Jersey, but miles are miles.

So that brings us up to date again. Until next time....be safe.