Any Good Megas?

@Driver-John-Doe --

Given what you've said above, and where you're located, and your CDL endorsements....have you looked into employment with this carrier (notice they have a terminal in Denver):

Foodliner Locations | Terminals | Foodliner

This page shows they take new drivers out of CDL school:

Foodliner Truck Driver Training | Careers | Foodliner

News flash : Since you have very little real cdl experience to bring to the table yet--at this point, you can't expect a fancy cpm rate, or a sign-on bonus.

Trucking company pay is based largely on proven, previous CDL experience--with a clean record.

You'll NE-VER get to the good-paying CDL jobs....if all you do is hang out on the sidelines, and "window shop" for a carrier.

Also: the above is probably a better choice for a beginning driver, than Schneider's tanker fleet--for the pay, the loads....and for the condition of the equipment.

--Lual

 

Is that touch freight or no touch? Not interested in touch freight.

And maybe I am just not cut out for this. I am already self-employed and make about the same I can with a CDL with a lot less risk and don't have to put up with all the BS and nonsense from other folks. All I have been running into is mean people or people that lie anyway. I am just about ready to sincerely give up anyway. It's been an awful 8 months going through all this and I put a lot of hard work into getting my CDL and all my endorsements. It just honestly feels like it's not worth it anymore. I am so sick of dealing with mean and lying people.

 

It sounds like you want it all handed to you on a silver platter.

I will mention that while Swift may not pay the top rate, they do have the freight to haul that keeps you rolling. That means more consistent miles.
They have newer equipment with inverters and a fridge, and do not force dispatch. No driver facing camera.

If you are turning things down for 4 months, what, you don't need to work and make some money?

There are very good reasons why I have stayed with Swift for the last 12 years, and why nearly half the drivers at my terminal have over 1 million miles with them.

 

Silver plate is a bit extreme. Not wanting to be taken advantage of by companies benefiting on what they call "training" where they are really tapping into a cheap labor pool and exploiting new drivers for team driving is not a silver plate. Not being locked in a cab with someone that is on an extreme power trip and/or doesn't know how to treat others by the Golden Rule is not "silver plate." Not being recorded for 24-48 hours any time the truck is on (including personal time and does include idle time) regardless of what lies they tell you about that it only records for "events triggered" is not a silver plate. Not being treated like a piece of poo because you are a new person is not a "silver plate." And not working for extreme low wages compared to the rest of the industry just because you are brand new is not "silver plate." There is a huge turnover rate for new drivers, which is actually really a retention problem, yet they sell it as a "driver shortage" speaks volumes to how badly new drivers are lied to, mislead, and taken advantage of for Mega's.

I have had recruiters call me on Xmas eve at 10:30 at night and then when I call them out on it they become harrassing and cruel. I expect to be treated with respect like I would treat others in any professional environment, but that's the problem...this isn't a professional environment regardless of how much folks want to speak like it is.

My last and only driving job people spoke about other female drivers as "Big Tit Tammy," used F-bombs every other word, made sexual jokes all day in the dispatch office, and the "N" word jokes were ongoing. They also lied to me about how many hours I would get and how much overtime was available which I eventually had to leave over. And that's a company that is severly watched over on and regulated by the Feds because of the type of work they do.

I have had people hire me, go through the entire process of getting employed and starting for them as what I was told was a local driver, to only show up and find out it was for a yardbird and wouldn't be driving local at all.

Every job site and shipper/receiver I went to people spoke in disgusting ways and were mean as can be to each other.

Sorry you seem to think it's a "Silver plate" to expect to come from working as a former professional into another line of work and expect people to treat the other humans with dignity and respect, while making sure they have decent equipment to literally live in. Asking me to pay for inverters and APU's to be installed while I am working for 70 hours a week for them is ridiculous.

Filling out a job application for a specific job online on Indeed, getting baited and switched, and then having a pool of Recruiters blowing up your phone for days and/or weeks for the same dead end jobs of Dollar General, Albertsons, and CR England is horrible when you didn't even apply for one of those jobs. Then when you ask where they got your information from they won't tell you or disappear and only get annoyed when you communicate you won't work with a recruiter. I have had an Asian woman that can barely speak English contact me on one of the bait and switches to only get mad at me when I can't understand a single word she said.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg about many of my experiences.

Yup...and those things sound wonderful. But .42-.44 cents a mile is literally as bottom of the barrel as the industry gets. Regardless of how much you justify it, it just is. Whether you want to accept this fact or not is on you. Obviously you are not looking for a job so you don't know what the going rates are. I have turned down jobs for .62 cents a mile because it wasn't a good fit. That's 33% more than what Swift offers. That's a HUGE difference.

No I don't. Like I mentioned, I am self employed and currently making about 72k a year doing what I am doing. It's what affords me to not take just anything like so many of the recommendations you often see on these boards or social media. And that advice is also why there is such a huge turnover and burnout rate. Why would I subject myself to that if I don't have to. Would it suck to just have wasted a year putting in all the effort to ramp up? Sure. But I don't need to go somewhere where I am going to be miserable for 6 months trying to make it to a year only to find out that I can't do it and wasted even more time and dealt with so much more grief. I watch tons and tons of videos by other new drivers on their day to day life as new drivers employed by all the companies that we talk about here. I watch as often as other folks watch regular TV. I can't tell you how many new folks started off all gun ho about a company like a Schneider, Swift, Western Express, Pride, etc... to only see them switch to another mega with new hopes and expectations and see them struggle through the same things all the time. Often many of these documented video's after a year or so is always follows up with a video about, "Why I left X..." or "Why I am getting out of the industry..." There are real horror stories surrounding much of this stuff about how badly these drivers are being taken advantage of, lied to, or exploited one way or another. These are realities of things that many of you don't want to talk about or deal with and usually pin it back on the driver saying they are weak, or mentally unstable, lazy, whatever.

Well that's good to hear then because you are the first person I have ever heard say that in a year of researching. Swift is the butt end of jokes everywhere you turn to on the internet. The company and drivers are constantly made fun of and if you listen to all the chatter out there about this, you would think it's a horrible place to be because of how much negative light they get on ALL the forums and social media. I hardly ever hear anyone say a positive thing about them and personally, I don't like all the jokes.

 

Yep....it sure seems that way.....

--Lual

 

Are you trolling or being helpful? Is that a compassionate statement that I am missing?

 

Re-read post #61, above--then YOU decide......

The skill sets you would pick up from the job in that post would allow you to almost double your current income (or even more than that....if you later became a successful owner-op).

Think about it.....

--Lual

 

Someone in another thread somewhere recently posted what Swift was offering a new driver. They started at .44, but there was a raise at 3-mo and was up to about .50 after 6 months and another increase at 1-yr. That really doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I've never worked for Swift, but most everyone I've talked to that actually does/did generally had a positive experience even if they ultimately moved on somewhere else. Most of the negativity on this forum about Swift is from people who never worked there.

 

I wasn't talking about post #61. I asked a question about that post and didn't receive an answer back. And after speaking to their recruiting department, you are incorrect, they are not taking on entry level drivers and want 12 months of experience. So you aren't providing helpful information FYI.

As for the trolling question, I was asking you what your motives in that specific post were as I didn't understand what you were communicating at all. I find it easier to ask another person what their intentions or motives were and then expect them to man up or clearly communicate that wasn't their intention if someone is possibly misunderstanding them and might be bothered or hurt. If someone was reading something wrong that I was saying, and felt slighted by it, I wouldn't want to leave them in that spot and would clearly communicate what is correct about it versus continuing to give them a run around and say "you decide" kind of thing. And as of writing, I have no idea what you meant in that post and still feel like it was an attempt to troll. But maybe that's just me as things can often be misread and why I asked.

 

It's not just this site. I use a multitude of sources out there and it's often talked badly about on all sites collectively and why I say that FYI. I personally think because of the size of Swift and how they probably hire more new drivers than any other company, statically you will see more accidents and the like with their brand name on them just purely based on numbers. But I think it's unfair to pigeon hole them all in the same light personally.