My journey with Swift begins tomorrow!

And this has what to do with anything?

 

WHEEEE a lot has happened and I've had no time to update! So instead of listing things in chronological order, I'll list them as best I can!

My new mentor is back on the container fleet out of long beach. I got to go home for a weekend and see my family for the first time in two months, which was awesome. We've been running shuttle to and from Phoenix, since his mother is sick, otherwise we'd be making cross country runs to georgia!

I am getting my backings and everything else down flawlessly - I am able to do a 90 degree alley dock now with NO PULLUPS! That makes me extremely happy and him as well - he says I'm the best student he's ever had!

Hauled a load to Long Beach in a reefer container...and oh boy, did that go well. When we don't see it parked with the others and drive all over the yard to find it and when we do...oh boy. It's dripping and it STINKS. Turns out the container had about 20 tons of frozen shrimp in it and the reefer unit went out while it was being hauled...and it was sitting in the Phoenix sun...for four days. And we have to haul it back to the port!

A few larger loads, including one I almost refused to take because it was overweight (ended up getting it fixed at the certified scale) and now we keep running into problem after problem with chassis at the container fleet. None of it swift's fault, but it's really frustrating whenever I'm trying to get my hours and we can't take our next load because the container chassis hasn't been inspected since 2002!

It's just frustrating because even with being sick, there are people that graduated in the two classes behind me that already have their trucks and I still have 100 hours left to go. It's hard to get those in when all I'm doing is running shuttle to and from Phoenix. Oh well. Head up high!

A great thing though - I had heard rumors but now got to confirm it. When we got back to the Wilmington yard last night I saw a certain truck...the truck of the very first nightmare mentor I had. This panicked me because I just knew I was going to run into him in the breakroom and if all that psycho talk about bringing a gun to a knifefight etc. was true, this guy was going to unload on me for getting him in trouble...saw a mutual friend there instead that told me yes, Swift did flat out fire him after I told them what had happened and they took the truck back. It's been sitting here for a few weeks waiting for a new owner. Apparently, said a-hole blames me to everyone who will listen...and is now applying at LandStar.

Hopefully heading out to georgia tomorrow, if we get a chassis that actually has paperwork!!!