My Swift Adventure

You must have used heavy equipment to dig up this old thread. I'm still slavin' for The Man... runnin' my fool head off. The PornStar is runnin' good and I'm getting good miles. How's life been treating ya? Hope everything is going smooth out there.

 

I hear ya... a never-ending learning experience. That is one of the things I most enjoy is that no two days are the same and there is always something to be learned.

 

I know right... been a while. They have been running me East Coast and MidWest primarily but every now and then I get to see the Wild West. I was in Oregon recently long enough to get an overweight ticket while hauling paper rolls out of GP. Totally my fault, I made the mistake of trusting a shippers scale and couldn't make the swing to the scale after fueling without risking contact with the trucks parked willy-nilly alongside the exit. I should have stopped into the next TS scale in route but figured that the shippers scale was probably close enough. I ended up getting hit with 2,000 over on my drives but was able to balance the load with the help of the Oregon DOT scales and the extra weight they removed from my wallet.

Guess I could throw in an update since I am here. I am at the house finishing up my hometime, heading out in about 2 hours. I got switched to the Line Haul fleet at about the 6 month mark and have seen an increase in 600+ mile runs. Not a constant thing but enough to notice a difference. I'm still getting my fair share of 300- 500 miles runs which, if the time frames line up right, can add up to some pretty good weeks as well. For those who refuse to run short runs, as of my 9 month anniversary I had, according to the Driver Portal, 93,029 miles driven. 2 weeks later I sit at 98,555 and will break the 100,000 mark this week. Having access to Macro 30 has also served me well, as occasionally I am not preplanned before a delivery.

I am now consistently running out my 70 in 6 days and taking a reset, which not only means I am running more but also means I don't have to turn my brain inside out while rolling my 70. Not to say that rolling a 70 is rocket science, but one has to be real careful to calculate how many hours are left for the day and to remember that all of lines 3 & 4 effect your hours for the day.

Swift definitely has their quirks but if you can get your DM to do their job while you do your job they will keep you moving. Keep your left door closed and if you don't get the results you were hoping for/ expecting at a terminal, don't turn around and spend the next 30 minutes badmouthing the "Idiot" that didn't do things your way. I have seen this sort of behavior all to often in my travels and when I am picking up paperwork for a load the next morning off the yard, that driver is back in the terminal still being the victim and complaining that they sit too much and don't get the loads they "should be getting". In short, do your job and understand that you don't understand what all goes into the jobs of those charged with helping you. Also, a smile and saying "OK" or "Thank you" when given bad news, especially at the T-call window, will usually result in a puzzled look on the face of the person working the window followed by that person coming up with either a solution to your problem or at least some advice on how you might go about solving it. The office staff are so used to being treated like the enemy that they are genuinely surprised by such behavior and will generally try to help you out any way they can.

That's about it for now, time to get ready and get rolling. Hopefully the shop has fixed the air leak in my suspension so I don't have to wait for my air to come up every morning.

Keep the left door shut and the shiny side up!!!!

 

I've never met you but I would wager that Injun is way prettier than you are... them's the breaks!!!