Swift training school any one out here been there.

Oh just come out and say it .... Swift trucks fired up on the range... something had ta get bumped... LOL just kiddin but I'm sure there had ta be some sort of interesting gossip or going ons around there

is it Tuesday morning yet so my recruiter will be in

 

It doeasn't matter if the recruiter is in. Every time I talk my recruiter it is the same story. She says she has my name and will call when there is a date.

 

If I member correctly ya already have CDL and are just waiting for an Oreintation date aren't ya?

I am working on getting in for the schooling as well so I am sure they are a little more anxious to get students LOL.. But we shall see in the morning what the waiting game is like.. (I can be a real squeaky wheel LOL)

 

Yeah, I am just waiting for an orientation date so I can get back to work. Good Lunk with your recruiter tommorrow. Let us know what happens.

 

Actually, if I may interject for a moment, I find this thread to be quite interesting as well as entertaining. Now, I'm not a gambling man, but I think Ford is going to make it all the way through his training with Swift. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders especially considering most of his classmates are now gone, yet he is still there. So I want to see if Swift is as terrible as everyone claims it to be or if it's just sissified drivers with a chip on their shoulders because they couldn't handle the job. Ford, I'm on your side, brother!! Keep up the good work and let us all know how your doing!!!

I did a Google search about those grants for Denver and if I'm not mistaken I believe the Board of Labor issues them for Colorado. As for qualifying criteria, I have to get a little deeper into it to really find out more, but it's good to know that these funds do exist. On a seperate note and a different subject, if you had your record expunged would you still have to tell anyone about your wrong doings? My record was expunged about 2 years ago, I did it myself and it was a lot of paperwork and a lot of mailings going on back and forth. However, I was told by the judge that it was now perfectly acceptable to not have to discuss the matter with any future employers since the record was now sealed and wouldn't show up on anything. When I bought my guns and did the national background check there wasn't any issues with me owning a .357 magnum or a 9mm. I'm doubting Swift or any of these transportation companies have that kind of pull that they can view a sealed record.

 

My record was sealed but I didn't know if it would show up as a sealed record. Most apps ask if you have ever been arrested. I didn't want to take any chances that it would show a sealed record. Then they would know that i had been arrested and might have considered it a lie. I don't know if a record is completly dropped when it is expunged. Maybe if you do a CORI check on yourself it will help

 

Today was day 8 of our 18 day training, and day 1 of shifting. We started out by heading over to Clarkston WA, which is just a couple of mile from Swifts Lewiston terminal.

Our instructor is a real nice guy. His name is Bob, he has been a driver for 15 years, with Swift for 10 years and a Trainer for about 2 years. Bob is a very calm/laid back kind of guy, but he is making sure that we know what we need to know. I can't even remember how many times he said for the test you need to do it like this, but in the real world it's a whole other story.

Anyways, he took us around what the call the Clarkston 500. It's the port of Clarkston where they have some nice wide streets, not a lot of traffic, and enough room to get the truck moving in 5th or 6th gear before you need to slow down. Spent 1.25 hours going around this course and getting accustomed to the way the truck moves when you are traveling faster than 2 miles per hour.

I was able to pick it up pretty quick. Of course I had my share of mistakes, but all in all it went very well. I felt very comfortable when Bob said it was time for my student teammate to take his turn at the wheel. My teammates name is Dave, and he is about as competent at this as I am. He was also able to get into a groove and only had a few problems shifting because he couldn't get his timing just right. Basically he kept trying to press the clutch to the floor, so he couldn't get into the next gear.

After Dave ran the same course for about 1.5 hours, Bob had him peel off and get onto a different road. This was a small two lane road that runs along the Snake River. Not a lot of traffic other than us, another Swifty, and a few motorcycles. The goal on this road was to get going a little faster, then slow down. Shifting through almost all the gears, but also getting an idea of the other obstacles while going at a slow enough speed where we could get comfortable. We took this road out 27 miles from the Lewiston terminal where we turned around and I took the wheel.

So now I am driving on a real road with guard rails, a few 4 wheelers, another Swifty student (stuck behind us), and a small construction zone. The purpose of this road, and this day was shifting. So I would get the truck up and into about 6th or 7th and then start slowing down and downshifting to 3rd. The instructor behind us wanted to get it going faster, so they were always real close behind and trying to push me faster but Bob said screw em we are shifting not driving highway. I even came to a complete stop and started out again in the middle of the road and hes like whats wrong? I said I just wanted to shift all the way down, and back up. He said cool, I just never had anyone do it on this road unless the messed up so bad they couldn't recover.

After lunch Dave started driving and Bob had him go through downtown Lewiston. Now we have lots of 4 wheelers, lights, intersections, and something we never encountered before, road signs. I started to see pretty quick from the back seat that Dave was still focused on shifting, so much so that he was missing the signs, and hitting the curbs. This gave me a great chance to learn from his mistakes. Dave drove for a long time on some windy two lane roads, with a few minor grades. He even got out onto the highway where he got to go through the weigh station.

We swapped over and I got to experience a bunch of windy streets that were more residential with slower speeds, some small inclines, stop signs and intersections and a few different obstacles. We still had a bit more time to spend driving around so Bob directed me to Highway 95, which is a 7% grade that they call Lewiston Hill. I asked him what gear I should take the hill at and he said "your the driver", so I said okay I will try 6th. This truck has a small load of concrete blocks and it weighs about 15,000. I was able to crawl up the hill at 25 mph in 6th gear, and he said that was exactly what I should have done. Half way up he said want to see something cool, and I'm like NO. He engaged the cruise control and said to take my foot off the accelerator. I proceeded to climb the rest of the hill at 25mph, about 1500 rpm with the cruise control on.

At the top of the hill, we turn around and start to head back down the hill. He already said let the engine do all the braking, so I was good with that. He said what gear are you going to go down this grade in. Since I read the book, I said 5th because I climbed the hill in 6th. Well I quickly learned that 5th was way to slow, and I shifted up to 6th. Took the hill all the way down in 6th and let the jake brake hold me back at about 28 mph.

I have to say that I was working this up to be a bigger deal in my head. I felt like I had real good control of that truck the entire time, and could have gone a little faster. At the end of the day when we got back to the academy he looked at us and said that we had just done the trip that he would normally have us doing on day 2 of shifting. I would say that we are doing fairly well, and he will have an even bigger challenge for tomorrow.

Now, we got back earlier than the other trucks, so I did not hear how it went for other students, but I am sure we will get all the horror stories in the morning. As far as I know, we still have the same 9 students that we had when we started out day 8.

 

Sounds like it was a pretty good day for ya'll.... you will have to make sure to share the gossip of how the others did as well LOL...

On a side note.. I'll be starting Lewiston on 7/27 !!!

 

The FL Columbia we are driving is a 9 speed. I somehow got into LOW gear in high range as opposed to 6th gear as I was attempting to do. It worked ok since i was moving really slow anyway, and 6th was way too high. Bob, my instructor said I found is "secret gear". If course I said how is that? He said to try and figure it out as homework.

So I have no clue, can somebody give me a hand with this?