Anyone have advice for me?

And Walmart is the way to go, too but how long is that waiting list? ... for every 1 LTL job there is available, there is 100 OTR jobs. Like was said in an earlier comment. With LTL there a lot of politics involved. And LTL is somewhat volatile. LTL is ok to good money but if your talking about pu/del, it's hard work, if you're talking about line-haul, you'll have to learn to work on a night schedule and sleep/rest days for a good while.

 

Not to mention the labor intensiveness of the LTL world. I don't think half of these fat guys I see at the TA could pull it off. OTR is and isn't a lazy mans job. LTL is not.

 

Marten Transport will hire you now with 6 mox. experience for regional; look at their website.
Still shoot for the tanker/hazmat endorsement so you can jump up to the $60K-$65K pay range. You can make that the first year & it's easy trucking. Hook up a hose, turn a pump on, 45 minutes later you're rolling again.

 

Hopefully many other new drivers will read your thread and see a real newbie's point of view driving for a mega-carrier with a family. Not to scary anyone thinking of getting into trucking but this is an all too familiar scenario for most newbies that get roped into working for the great mega-carriers.

Yes, you must stick it out! Especially nowadays. Companies can afford to be more picky (at least the ones worth working for) so you really want to keep your DAC and employment history clean. Chances are Swift will put something bad on your DAC anyway but do your best to pull through a year.

Start doing your research now and looking into other avenues once your year is up. Landstar would be a good gig but is going to be a bit of a learning curve for you.

 

Ya ever think of talking to your DM about this low mileage problem? If your DM isn't receptive, go over his head to the terminal manager. The TM may hook you up with a different DM that will be more aggressive getting you miles. If no one at that terminal will help you, ask to be transferred to a different terminal (you don't need to live anywhere near the terminal you are dispatched out of in Swifts case). One thing positive about working for such a large company is that generally you can find a solution and a spot that fits you within the organization.

 

About the comment made about Swift giving a bad report on DAC, not true. They are not a 'petty' or 'vindictive' company at all. If you give your notice, take the truck in, clean it out, leave on good terms, they will or may even re-hire you at some time in the future.

 

Get out of the swift truck, Marten, National, May almost anyplace is better, it wont matter if you finish off the year at swift or somewhere else. Swifts is a pieace of work to say the least, Run and do not look back.

 

Perhaps all you need are............




































............................... !

 

just my experience you can be no better then you are dispatched. hauling reefer seems to me to be recession proof. I whine if I get under 3000 miles
As a L/O I refuse anything not in my best interest sitting empty for 3 days or sitting on 500 miles for 3 days is about the same thing to me but magically
after i refuse a bad load enough times a few hours later a 1600 mile load shows up

 

Hey truckbuddha that may have been your personal experience but mine was that Swift put that they fired me on my DAC and I never ever worked for them. I had filled a mass application once early on in my career and a Swift recruiter called me. I told him I was not interested but he said he was going to put me on the orientation schedule just in case I changed my mind. Well I guess in Swifts mind or Swift policy is that they considered that being hired. When I didn't show up they fired me! It actually took a call from a lawyer to Swift to clean up my DAC which was falsely reported.

So like I previously stated, check your DAC if you are going to be messing with the mega-carriers. They aren't afraid to report willy-nilly bs on your DAC! For those non-believers such a truckbuddha, I say go for it and don't worry about checking your DAC. Everything will be just sweet pickles!