Swift - 6 months later. An update

Thank You...I needed that laugh (and it was a good one)

 

Must have been the 8 yr old doing the posting...it's the punctuation keys on the outer area of the keyboard that don't get touched!

 

Go ahead...get that image out of your head in the next couple days...I dare ya!

 

Not for what I do Nana is Swift I am a flatbedder....what I said was extremely accurate for what I do.....I was passing by and happened to see Nanna (my very dear friend) and thought I would "pop in" on her turff an visit......sorry about you ticket

 

Lets see, you drive and are home everynight? I assume you drive local then basically. Must be hauling Gold. But lets break it down. How many hours per day do you work? Do you work weekends? How many of those hours in that 500-600 a week you make are overtime hours? (Which by the way, if you are paid overtime you are very fortunate and should be very thankful, they dont have to pay you overtime contrary to popular belief) I have driven local as well. Some areas dont have local jobs available, or regional even for that matter. When that little job you brag on is no longer there, we will see which over the road giant you go with. If you are driving for a small mom and pop company, I am certain you will be sending out applications being a "sell out" so to speak in no time. Long before any of us OTR Giants will. I been there. Got laid off, at $17 an hour. Recalled back to 33%, then to $12 an hour (PLUS overtime - totally another story of how I got that started). Then laid off again when the company I drove for shut the doors. At 17 an hour I was paid straight time, percentage of course there was no overtime pay. At the 17 I brought home $750-1000 a week, working 50-65 hours a week, never worked weekends. $12 an hour, never worked weekends, brought home 350-650, and worked less than I did on percentage. Percentage, brought home 250-325 a week.

 

Despite anything neg. about Swift it looks as if they are not a bad company when compared to others. I got a permit and started co-driving with a small, almost out-of -business company. Finally figured out that school seems to be the best path. Swift recruiter claims I can have a job set up for after school and that Swift will, over time, reimburse up to 5K for school. Also claims Swift drivers can decide how many weeks on and how much time off. Is that true, or even close to true? Also, many weeks will a newbie need to be on the road to average $400 or so a week?

 

You wont average $400 week. I have been here 10 months and cannot even afford to stay home more than two days. You have to play catch up after coming back from home time and sometimes that can affect your next two checks.

Expect checks in the beginning after going solo $250 to $350 if you go through the academy. You have to really work hard just to get the miles.planners seem to love wasting Jerry's money just running you on little 150 milers with 24 hours until delivery.

Plenty of short runs with this company especially on the east coast. If you are teaming or mentoring then you will get the miles. Running solo you better make sure you get a DM that knows what they are doing.

The planners will love to use you and abuse you if you let them. OTR means over the road. Planners seem to think you are a local driver they do not understand the difference between local and OTR.

Most of the time they will make you take a short run just to get a good run. Don't do the short one and you can forget about the long run. Is it possible to make more than $400 a week with Swift?

Yes if you get a good DM that will stand up for you and not let the planners abuse you. believe me they will try. Just stand up for yourself and if you are not getting to the platinum level and staying there then your DM is not doing their job correctly.

The miles are there where you can make $800 a week you just have to play their games and beat them at it!

 

Blue, sounds like you need a new DM. I read your other thread and switching terminals may be the answer for you. I run out of Gary and easily average more than $400 a week but I really think my DM has a lot to do with that. It probably helps that most of the Gary DM's used to drive and the FM used to as well. I so far have not once had to argue over things like detention pay it has just been on my next check and do not get bothered about idle, just a message everyday telling me don't idle if I'm not in the truck and to make sure I'm rested.

I kind of have been on a roll with longer runs lately but I do get my share of short ones too, usually followed by something better. One thing I have found to help when out east is to use split sleeper when you can. It helps you to be available sooner and get a new load faster.

When I get that short run with a live load/unload why not use that time as part of your 10 if all your doing is sitting in the sleeper watching a movie. It can also be used to time when you go through big cities better, a number of times I took an 8 hour sleeper to get around DC @ 5 or 6 am instead of 7 or 8. I spent less time sitting in traffic and had more hours left on my 70 in the end to have available for the next load. It also forces me to find time to take a nice 2 hour lunch at some point and not feel bad about it. Might not work for everyone but a normal nights sleep for me is only 6-7 hours so I really don't need to sit for 10 hours straight anyways, I end up waking up at 4 can't leave until 7 and am more tired at the end of the day because I have been up for 17-18 hours. For me at least the trick has been figuring out how to make my hours work for me, the better I am at that, the more miles I get.

Hope all works out for you and if you can't get things resolved there are other companies out there.

 

If you are only doing $400 a week,

WHY are you out there ????

 

A lot of my weeks are like that too.