New soon to be swift trainee!

I'm at a shipper in Wyoming. Will get loaded/trailer tomorrow. Last saturday I took a greyhound bus home at 4, got to downtown Houston at 540ish had a 5 hour-ish lay over, tried to get on an earlier bus at 7 to Shreveport but they wouldn't allow me, had to wait until 1045, kicker is I missed it somehow. I don't know how with 3 supposed calls for the bus. Was told to wait and change my ticket until the next bus which was at 3 in the morning. Had to stay awake until that bus because I had my envelope with my key to my cdl and all my other important documents. Luckily I was too excited to fall asleep, I achieved my mission on getting my cdl. I really did not want to go back home empty handed. Whew I didn't!! Caught the bus and got home Sunday morning and crashed at home all day.

Monday morning I woke up real early; went to get my car serviced, went to get my cdl! Then visited my little brother, best friend and grand mother and great grandmother, then started driving back to Texas. It was pretty cool, a 5 hour drive, figured if I could drive 5 hours starting off I'll be good on building up my endurance for 11 hour drives, if needed. The drive was pretty uneventful , except for the speed being 75mph had to slow down to 65mph somewhere in Shreveport due to either construction, or a small town. This jeep flew by me, I didn't see him at the time but there are trees in between north and south or is it east and westbound traffic...?(anyway) this cop out of no where did a NASCAR donut from in between those trees, drove through the grass onto the road and chased this jeep down!

I so did not see the cop before hand and I thank god I dont speed like that because that would have possibly ruined my orientation because of a ticket. I made it safely there around 10 Monday night and prepared myself for the Tuesday start of orientation. For orientation swift put us in a really nice hotel. Bonus, I had the room to myself all 3 days that was so cool. That doesn't normally happen. I don't think. Next up Tuesday, wednesday, and Thursday.

Good night guys thanks have to sleep now! Have a good one!

 

I haven't been there yet, good luck with your orientation! If you have experience and you do well on your driving test you may start off solo. If you do decent, you may have 50-100 hours with a trainer. If not so well 240 hours. That's not a bad thing though, because from what I've heard swift does a few things different than other companies and then you also have to learn how to use the Qualcomm. If you don't know already how to. Again good luck, as you may know, it really is what you make it. So far I really find no reason to complain out here, even when things doesn't go exactly like I, we expect it, we get to drive big rigs for a living, way better than my factory and some of my retail jobs! Have a great day!

 

Thanks @visionlogistics!
goodluck @bori07, the 13th is two days away!! Keep me posted on how things go for you!

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were orientation for me. The first day we did drug screens and physicals, because I had just graduated a swift academy I didn't have to do the physical again, just the drug screen. It basically took most of the day, everyone passed in my class of 10-11. The majority of the guys were coming from different companies and had prior experience. So once we finished a mamilla folder of paper work( verifying all out information we had submitted to our receuiter was correct, the guys who had experience went on a road test to see who would go 50-100 hours with a mentor, 240 hours or start out solo. I didn't have a road test because again I had just got passed the academy and it was mandatory that I have 240 hours because of my lack of experience.

While 6-7 guys were testing we were released to go to lunch, for the three days of orientation they gave us these slips of paper to give to joe the cook for free lunches. All other meals we had to provide ourselves, but that wasn't too hard since I had prepared and could drive to stores or places I wanted to. I liked the semi freedom I had by driving my own vehicle because I didn't have to wait for the hotel van to pick me up in the heat in the afternoon. Everyone made it through day one.

Day 2 we were given paper logs to keep up with our breaks, lunches, off duty time. Were given a hazmat emergency book, safely regulations and another hazmat classification book we need to keep I'm the vehicle at all times if ever pulling/hauling hazmat. A lot of different people came in to speak to us, we watched a few videos and while we were doing this, two ladies would come in to have us correct or fill in information that Arizona hq needed to issue us our driver codes on Thursday.

Thursday we were supposed to have a log class but the guy who gave it couldn't make it so we burned time on break and hanging out then we went back to class and watched more videos about safe following distance, our most important stop and a few more people came in to close up our orientation. A lot of guys( I say guys because we only had males in this class) met their mentors today and were given their driver codes. I met my mentor named John who was an owner operator but whose truck was in the shop. We had about an hours talk and from what I was hearing he seemed very anti swift, told me he would teach me how to drive aggressive, and the feared sleeping on the top bunk. Not all necessary bad things but i didnt feel very safe with him as my trainer. (It was just a gut, sickening feeling) before I had stepped foot in his truck i wanted out. A few guys from class who had seen him and I meet afterwards told me he seemed aggressive. Thursday I was not issued a driver code, so I had to spend another night ion the hotel.

Friday morning at 10 I was told to be back at the terminal. I sat around mostly just looking at all the different professional drivers, listening to some of their conversations, good and bad. While doing this one of the ladies from class had me check a box on my physical class a license, went back inside and 3 hours later I was issued my driver code! But was told that because my mentors truck was
still in the shop and would not be ready I would be given a new mentor. (whew). Because he was in Houston, I was to spend another night in the hotel room. Later that night he called me and told me to be at the terminal at 530 in the morning to set out. I was pumped!