I could write a book

Well, come to find out if you leave Swift you can return for hire within 30 days. Of course one should never believe all that til they have their new comdata card and keys to the truck lol.

I prefer to return to Swift just because I know the system already plus I don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops sending out applications, orientations, roadtests blah blah blah the whole deal. Even if Swift did not want to hire me back as a solo I might try to get back on as a second seat driver for another owner operator, there a lot of adverts in terminals pasted to the walls with offers like that from L/O's, or O/O's. Running solo is pure bliss but the paychecks coming from teaming with an O/O is very difficult to want to give up just to run as a company solo.

 

Yes I should modify that statement. The promise of pay, the potential of pay, the selling point for me to come on the truck as a team mate was that I could expect about $1000 a week gross or more.

For the 3 weeks I have been on the truck his settlements have been $26, $1400, and $1400. So from my math he clears about $.36 cents per mile. If he pays me $.22 I'd be making more than he does. That is why he offers half the settlement which knocks me down to $.18 cents (but I'm not supposed to know that) and that I should be ecstatic about getting half the money. I suspect he probably jacked up his maintenance account to $.25 or so to "hide" his true income from me because $.36 is a little low even for an economically challenged lease operator.

 

OK a little history...

Mid December 2010 I got really sick from eating chicken parmesan at a podunk truckstop. So I had 2 weeks with very low miles of about 1000 miles each week so low pay. Then a few days after Christmas and SUV crashed into my fuel tank on the interstate putting my truck out of commission for 5 days. Once again low paying week. Then a serpentine belt broke and the truck was down for a day and a half. After that had a major coolant leak and had to sit for a weekend til the Sparks shop opened for business to fix it. Add to that that this guy was promising me $1000 a week if I come on his truck as a team partner running 6000 miles a week. \

Once I got on the truck is when he really started bullying me into taking over his lease truck. I told him no, that I am happy to run team nothing more. He got mad about it now but will not fire me or dump me at the next truck stop, but it is obvious that he is desperate to unload this lease truck. He won't give up selling me on it. Now the latest is that I can just sign for it and walk away in 6 months no harm no foul.

We put in for hometime for the 18th but I think he's interested in beating that time to get another teammate or take a student. Meanwhile I'll just contact my old DM and see if she has an available truck I can move into when we get back.

As an aside I may be looking to team with an O/O again in the future because of the lucrative pay potential compared to being a company driver.