My Swiftie Life...

Took them just about 2.5 hours to unload me. Had an hour left on my 14. The customer made me leave property after I was unloaded so I had to find somewhere to park, which messed up my 10 hour reset. So I'll be starting back up in the morning it looks like. I called Phoenix DM and planners and they had me macro 9 with a counter for morning pickup. Load to Butte, MT was removed from me so I called Phoenix DM back to ensure this wasn't a service violation. They informed me this was out of my control and not my fault so no service failure. They also noted the planner that assigned me the load was the one that was in the wrong by giving me an unrealistic time for pickup and delivery. Stopped at pilot to take shower and had just enough time to make it a Walmart 4 miles away. It is trucker friendly, a bunch of other trucks are here. Huge shopping center and even found an In & Out burger across the street. I haven't had one of these in like 4 years.
Stocked up on some salads and other small things since I was here.
I was trying out this static cling sun tint, but realize driving at night I'd pretty much impossible so I had to remove them. I'll only use when the sun is beating down.

On my way here I noticed my left turn signal wasn't working on the trailer. All other lights were fine but left blinker. When I got the the Walmart it started working again. Maybe loose pigtail? I unplugged and resecured. Seems to be fine now.
Now time to finish my chocolate shake and play some Hearthstone before bed.

Hoping for a better day tomorrow.

Total miles for the day: 130
So sad....

 

Thanks for the tip on the QC! I called to ensure I wasn't going to get hit with a service failure. I'm good.

 

7/27 - Woke up this morning around 6:30am and found a load that was sent to me @ 3:00am. Wanted me to pickup in Redbluff,CA with destination unkown. Since I was sleeping and didn't respond to it the load was removed. I usually turn up the volume to hear Inc messages but I guess I forgot last night.

30 minutes later I get another load picking up at 11:00am in Fairfield, CA and delivers in Sumner, WA on 7/30 @ 4:30am. I am going to try and roll 600 miles today and deliver on the 29th.
Empty miles: 44 / Loaded miles: 730
I quickly responded and will leave here at 9:30am as it should only take me an hour to get there.

 

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Good question. I went with swift because I didn't have the resources to pay for cdl school and needed to start making money asap. It depends on your situation. In a perfect world I would have gone to a private school and hooked up with another carrier. I am looking at Abilene if Swift doesn't start giving me more miles.

In my opinion swift does you the favor of fronting all the costs, but you pay for it with your patience and aggrevation. The trucks you will be driving are nice, but bare basic. No ammenties to the driver what's so ever. No apu, no inverter, no fridge. Nothing but a bed and a driver's seat to make them money.
They have a good system here to get people started who don't have much to turn to. They profit from your financial/personal situation.

They are a business they are here to make money. If you can acknowledge that and hang tough through it, it's a decent place to get started. Mentor phase will be your toughest. Everyone I spoke with went through 2/3 mentors before they went solo.

 

Well another day in trucking. I wish I could say everything is going great but I have ran into a trailer issue
I had to drop my brand new 2015 trailer and replaced it with 2005.
Upon inspecting it the driver side mud flap is torn from the hanger bolts and dragging on the ground.
The rear middle maker light is also out. I'm sitting waiting for onroad truck to come get me rolling.

The thing that I'm a bit angry about is you know this didn't happen here at the shipper. The last person who hauled this trailer left the problem for someone else to take care.
Onroad asked me if I would be willing to drive to nearest truck stop 30 miles away. No thank you. I will risk receiving a citation and possible further inspection. Pretty sure these are both out of service violations.

Here is a tip if you have a breakdown. Send the macro 55 with your phone number. Do not call them unless you want to be on hold for hours. Have your phone ready cause they will call you really soon after sending the macro.

So much for my planned 600 miles run today. Maybe I'm asking to much from my company?