The start of my first year with Swift.

With all do respect.....your thread was the best ive read.gonna miss hearing about your adventures on the road brother!!!

 

Sheriff1/6,

I'm frankly amazed you made it this far with SWIFT. I came home on an airplane from Fort Worth Texas; about 2 weeks into training. I came home from 3 weeks in training from IDAHO, 1 week HOME, 2 weeks out with my MENTOR... I MADE A ####### 247.00 DOLLARS... For 6 ####### weeks out away from house. My god #### plane ticket home was 266.00 dollars. Plus I had to check my bag another 20.00 dollars military. All I can say is #### SWIFT.....

My two cents...

GO THE #### HOME TO YOUR WIFE WHERE YOU BELONG.... I DID... AND IM ENJOYING EVERY MINUTE WITH HER I CAN.. WE ARE ONLY ON THIS EARTH FOR ABOUT 76 YEARS. ENJOY THEM.... WITH PEOPLE YOU LOVE...

-Crypto

 

Crypto, he went home like 2 weeks ago.

 

Good... I haven't read the whole 92 pages... Only caught a few comments he was COMING HOME... GOOD FOR HIM....

I can't ####### believe SWIFT pays there trainee's #### WAGES.... LIKE THAT... how in the #### do they except you to pay NORMAL ####### BILLS.... We aren't ####### 16 with no kids or family's...

WE NEED ####### MONEY TO SURVIVE... #### YOU SWIFT.....

I'LL LEAVE EVERYONE WITH THIS STATEMENT, EVERY DRIVER IN THE US NEEDS ABOUT A 5 DOLLAR RAISE AN HOUR, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT WOULD BE IN CENTS PER MILE. BUT I THINK EVERYONE IN THE US COULD BENEFIT FROM A 5 DOLLAR AN HOUR RAISE.

THE ####### ECONOMY SUCKS AND A ####### SHOWER FOR 12 ####### DOLLARS AT EACH GOD #### TRUCK STOP IS ####### INSANE .... SHOUT OUT TO THE TRUCK STOPS TOO #### YOU......

The Discovery channel needs to make a new show called " AMERICA ####TIN ON THE TRUCKERS "

I'm suprised a #### thing in AMERICA gets delivered... Without TRUCKERS there would be no ####### holidays or things on the shelves to buy.


........SO TRUCKERS STAND THE #### UP AND BE HEARD YOU HAVE ALL THE GOD #### POWER......

 

Congrats.

Sent from my HTC ONE courtesy of Tapatalk.

 

Have you read other posts on this site..? Swift sucks. It's common knowledge. Don't judge the industry based on your training period with one of the lousiest companies out there. If you HAVE to work for swift, put up with it for 6 months to a year. Why didn't you apply to better places? If Swift was the only place to accept you, then you just have to put up with them until you can get a better job elsewhere. That's just how Swift works, you make crap money from them till you can ditch them with your newfound experience.

 

In regard to the situation with Swift trainee wages, I was prepared to survive. When my wife dropped me off for orientation I had a LARGE duffle filled with clothes, sleeping bag, pillow, etc., a medium duffle filled with food and "food kit", and my computer bag. I had $200 in my pocket.

I was well aware that after orientation there would be a period of two weeks to first paycheck and that paycheck would be small, the third week paycheck would be a full paycheck. Therefore I planned to only eat out of my food bag, replenishing at Walmart along the way. I spent an average of $60 per week for food and ate very well.

I finished training and tested out Monday last week. Since then I've taken a load from Moreno Valley, CA to Cheyenne, WY, then deadheaded to Longmont, CO to take a load to Logan, UT.

The Logan load was heavy, and Qualcomm routed me straight to Laramie, WY on US-287, a beautiful stretch of road as evening turns to night. I bedded down in Rock Springs, CO near dawn. The next session of driving turned out to be the most technical I've ever done. Starting in the late afternoon headed west on I-80 then catching US-30 west (again a beautiful road). Went up an over a mountain range as I entered Utah, and dropped down into Bear Lake. Amazingly beautiful, with lots of private "rest area/camping spots" right on the lake, each with their own port-a-potty. I saw a couple truckers setting up for the night and breaking out their fishing poles.

Then I turned onto the US-89 to get up and over the Wasatch Mountains into Logan. Any of you that have ever driven that road can chime in. I started the climb out of Garden City (on Bear Lake's western shore) with about 1.5 hours of daylight left, thunderheads building toward the east and lit up by the sun peaking through clouds, just fantastic.

Soon I was dropping into 5th to climb some of the grades, then dropping down into a valley in similar gear, with some turns on the 2 lane highway posted with 20 mph suggested speed. A relatively flattish section came, then it got hard. The last 30 miles to Logan is a very narrow two lane road, with many 20 mph suggested turn speeds, 7% grades, and going through slot canyons on tight turns where it seemed my trailer was within three feet of the rock wall (and no chance of moving out into the oncoming traffic on blind corners).

After making my delivery that night I had a very peaceful "night" of sleep (starting at 5:00 am) in the Walmart parking lot, no idling trucks around. After my 10 was up I waited for dispatch, nothing. I called dispatch, they found my PTA (projected time of availability) was messed up and changed it. Got a dispatch, reviewed it, and it had ridiculous timing so I said "NO" with new ETA's and the load was pulled. Finally got a dispatch to run a load for Walmart.... pulling a reefer to two drops in Wyoming. I've never done reefer before and was told it was okay, just monitor the green light and call if it shows orange.

So, I go to the Walmart DC, and they have a Swift terminal in there dedicated to getting Swift drivers on load. I hook onto the reefer, pulled it to the unofficial scale at the gate, and find my tandems are 1500 lbs over weight. I only have four more holes to move the tandem to get it ALL the way back. I move tandem all the way back, and the tandem is still overweight by 40 lbs. I take the trailer back to the Swift terminal and let them know the situation and can they rework the load. The dispatcher said that they wouldn't rework the load and if I won't take the load they'll give it to someone else, a take it or leave it scenario. I said give it to someone else, went out and dropped the trailer, got on Qualcomm to figure out how to message the situation, when I get a message from the site dispatcher to come in, he has another load for me.

This time it is a dry box with two deliveries in Boise. I hook up to the trailer, scale it fine at the gate, then get underway in the evening. Just after passing into Idaho I see two minivans about a mile ahead pull over to the road and a bunch of kids running out onto the freeway, then back off into the grass. I pull over to pass, slowing down, and as I go by I see dripping flames coming out of one minivan, under the engine. I quickly brake and move over to the right shoulder, get my fire extinguisher, and run back to put out the fire. They had oil dripping from the engine and it caught fire on the engine block, but the fire was only on the puddle on the ground. I'd seen this same thing happen with a Cadillac years ago and it was engulfed in flames within 10 minutes. Neither of the minivans had a fire extinguisher, so it would likely have been a total loss if not for me or someone with a fire extinguisher. I waited with them for 30 minutes to make sure the engine block cooled and fire hazard had passed, then got back underway.

Currently sitting in a Walmart customer wait room (with free coffee) in the auto service department, waiting for my 2nd and last delivery 10 miles away. Then it's dead heading back to Utah with the empty to get another dispatch.

Seems like I'm running night owl this first week. I like that. Getting through metro areas at night makes for smoother going. It would be nice with all this heat in the west if I could get day driving going, so I could use the cool of the night for non-idle sleeping. So far I've had engine idling less than 2% of the time, according to the performance on the Qualcomm, and I intend to keep it that way.

 

Do they pay you extra for fuel efficiency or reduced idle time? If there's no APU, don't kill yourself, sleeping 2 or 3 hours a night cuz it's 90+ degrees in your cab during the day. It's just not safe to drive around tired because you can't sleep through heat. Good companies understand that.

 

Nope, no fuel/reduced idle pay. I idled my truck whenever I needed to in order to sleep good. They will get on you about idle too much, my DM's suggestion on how to cut down on idle time was to go in the truck stops and walk around when my day was over. Lol

 

Crazy with the oil fire! I had that happen with a mustang in a McDonald's drive through. That was good of you. Hopefully SWIFT won't balk at refilling the extinguisher.