My Mentor Preference with Swift

Heard they fired a bunch of mentors that were taking advantage of students for the extra miles. I have been waiting for a mentor for weeks while trying to get off personal leave. Looks like I will be doing city dispatch next week.

 

Yep! I knew that you were supposed to run 2 drivers as single for a while. I couldn't run 11 hours my first week out. Heck I did run 5 1/2hours the other day without even stopping to pee! Not that I needed to run that hard.......just ran that way. One of the other problems I think was some of the mentors weren't letting their students have the time for showersthat is just wrong. I pulled a good mentor and for that I am thankful. I gave him a really good write up. I have been treated as a friend and a brother. We should be friends after this.

 

High Flight, if you switch terminals, you will not need to switch your license. I am based out of Jonestown, PA because I lived in Erie, PA when I started driving. I then later moved to Ohio and now have an Ohio license, but I'm still based in Jonestown. Your license needs to be from the state you live in, not the state of your home terminal.

I did hear a rumor that Swift was not allowing drivers to choose their terminal; drivers would be assigned to a terminal based on where they live. Not sure of the truth of that. Really, the only difference it makes anyway is who you end up with for a DM and who will be responding to your QC messages.

As for the mentor situation, this has always been bad. There just aren't that many Swift drivers who want to put up with some of the lazy stupid jerks that Swift has been known to hire. A lot of the drivers who do become mentors are only in it for the money. The ones who become mentors because they want to help new drivers often become frustrated with the bad eggs and quit doing it. I've considered mentoring a few times, but always decided against it. If nothing else, I just don't think I'm good enough yet.

 

Highflight, I believe they try to route you home under a load, so not really a waste of fuel for them. I guess that is why you need to request your home time in advance.

 

Road dust is right. When you want to go home, they will get you a load to Valdosta or close to it, not Atlanta or Ocala.

 

Piping in with another "my experience has been..."

I've not been allowed to take my truck home once, and don't think I ever will be so long as I'm a company driver. DM says I live "Too far out of route" and "Too far to Dead Head". I live 30 miles off of I5 in SW Oregon. My two choices are to park at a Wal-Mart 30m away, or the Pilot 60m away. Recently I left my truck 5 hours away at my home terminal because there "wasn't any freight" going near my home. So my wife drove the 5 hours to come get me.

You're mileage may vary of course. Just pointing this out because again.. the recruiter said "Oh yeah, no problem taking your truck to the house!".

Reality has been entirely different.