Plus One

*ties long, luscious hair up into the screamingly tight "Mama Swift" bun*

Squeaks, you are shooting yourself in the foot. You have turned down ....I lost count of how many you've turned down in the past four days. We're truckers. We run at night, especially if we're OTR.

You had a shot at a good dedicated route. You blew it when you refused to move your schedule around a little and accommodate WalMart's needs.

You have got to be more flexible. This is not entirely Swift's fault you are sitting.

 

Injun, I turned down last Friday due to weather conditions. That Monday morning Safety Director told me that made a correct decision on that one. The others that I have turned down where due to pu times and log book. If it has a late pu time and I can not get there on time, I send the Macro and my ETA to pu. Throw it back in their laps. If I say yes knowing that I can not get there on time, and then late, svc fail. Injun, unlike some that are able to, I am not one that can wake up, then tell my body 3 hours later, go back to sleep. So then I take the chance of running all night when tired. Rather be safe then take load that there might be a chance of not being safe.

As far as the Dedicated, I was more than willing to accomadate. Before I left the planner said that she wanted to talk to me. I said okay. We were supposed to have a meeting. Then all of a sudden, she just changed her mind, and did not even tell me.

I never said that it was entirely Swifts fault, but it is some. They are mostly letting the computer dictate. I was told once that there are planners that just see a mt truck on the screen, and do not even check to see if it is a company truck or O/O, just check the hours and send the load. And now the DM's say that they do not dispatch, the planners do that, so who is supposed to help and make sure that we are successfull??

 

Sounds like your best bet is to try to get assigned to a shuttle. Your hours and routes would be pretty predictable.

It is not up to Swift to determine how successful you will be. It is up to you to proactively run your own business. That's why I was on the phone with my terminal six times in one day last week. I expressed my extreme displeasure with the situation and am still friends with my office support folks.

 

Looking at it objectively, and being still on paper logs, we are not seeing the problems full blown with the Plus 1 program that the eloggers are.
Common theme: drivers are being treated like robots. Expected to pick up and deliver in the allotted time the computer deems necessary with minimal stops for oiling your cranky parts.
Common theme: everyone says 'your DM dictates your success' throughout these threads. My experience is that once you're x amount of miles away from the DM, you're just another empty truck in some other planner/DM's territory.
Common theme: you call and message that you're available, no response, then sit around all day with major anxiety for paying the bills then they spring an overnight load on ya with very little warning.
It's very frustrating when they send you some crazy load with a note that's the ONLY thing they have, take it or sit. I go on landstar broker website and see hundreds of loads within 150 miles of my location invariably.

 

Sounds to me like they're trying to identify the root cause and resolve it at the same time. Can't do both. The drop in miles should speak to them loud and clear.

 

As I read the stories about Plus 1 - keep in mind that Swift is still in the Top Two for me - I keep thinking back to my one-on-one question to a Swift recruiter several months ago. I asked, point-blank, what the one worst thing, the weakest spot in the company was. She thought a moment and said, "Communication. We have so many drivers out there that we lose track of them." Adding a new computer program to a huge organization that already "loses track" of drivers is a recipe for disaster. Sounds to me like that is what's happening.

 

Thank you,for the most part couldn't agree more!

ps getting messaged heavily to get my class done to enable the elogs,i dont want to......

 

That would be nice to get on the phone, and just today, our fleet received a msg, use the QC for all msgs and pretty much receive this msg every day. My take, they really do not want to talk to us. Using the QC all the time, well my take on that, it becomes very impersonal. Even was told that if at a customer and a problem, do not call, send QC msg.

And like Scottie said, wait all day, then all of a sudden, here is an all nighter.

Injun, I guess that every terminal is different along with the DM's. Some would like you to talk to them, and some, NOT.

 

I know,been getting that message alot too............me personally i prefer not to talk on the phone,put it on the qcomm,its right there for the powers to be to see,plus i don't have to hear the frustration,anxiety and tension in the person on the other end of the phone....I've made one phone call in three years for something i needed. One time had a office person send something over the qcomm,(i forget what it was about now) but really burned me up,but after i solved the problem for myself,messaged back"nevermind I took care of it allready" got the message back"really,thank you,was waiting for csr" The point being that I know they get the messages,but if they don't have an answer you wont hear back(this is usually ect,after hours and weekends) and an hour WAITING seems much longer,but its put back in their lap for the delay(cya)