I am trying to decide between Swift and Stevens

if you want good training go to prime millis or stevens what i here and millis also have a 500 dollars upfront cost

 

I got my start with stevens 6 years ago. they were good to me. very glad I went with them over all other training companies......
that being said
I worked for stevens for just shy of 3 years. I forget what I was getting paid but it wasn't even .34cpm I don't think.
there were weeks I got 3,000 miles or more, I didn't do a lot of sitting.
i used to stay out for 5-6 weeks and come home ( upstate ny ) for 7 days.
i quit to work for a company dedicated to walmart dc, home everyday, 2 days off, 1100+ a week. .40cpm and 20 per stop. i ave 2600 miles per week.
i stayed away from home for a month and a half at a time for 8-900 a week avg. imagine how spoiled i felt when i switched it up to running 500 miles a day, home every night, for MORE money.
theres no money in starting out. im glad i left stevens for sure.....but i don't regret getting experience with them at all. great starter company.

 

also, i was lucky enough that i had my dad help me out with a few bucks to go out there. but there were guys who didn't have 2 cents to their name that showed up. so you don't need anything to start out with.
heres one piece of advise ill give you......stevens will bus you out there.....fly out. i could have sat on a bus for 3 days and been paid back in full, instead i flew out, i was there in 6 hours from Ny, and stevens reimbursed me towards the cost of a bus ticket to put towards plane. it probably cost like 50-100 bucks outta pocket, it was worth a million dollars to fly than to ride on a bus full of undesirables for 3 days.

 

yeah bussing is not fun, I only sat on a bus for 14 hours or so each time but it sucked.

 

Cool peeps. Someone that actually don't dog the company that paved the way. You are positively correct in when you stated great starter company. We starters shouldn't complain about opportunity. All of these companies actually do that and some better than others. It is cool to see an honest person on here. Many will dog a company because of a bad experience. I'm sure all of your career with Stevens wasn't positive, but at least you admit it was a great starter company because that is what they all are that offer the schooling. Fact is private school will only get you a little ahead, but you want really be ahead because you either came out of pocket to pay the whole school up front or still owe a company or FASFA anyway. Some people just expect so much and are not grateful for what they actually have. Getting paid to drive and travel beats working like a dog in a production job environment, 9 to 5, flipping burgers, or minimum wage any day. Where else can you start from the bottom making 500+ a week depending on mileage which probably isn't average and option for benefits from 30-90 days benefits? Thanks for some honesty because I'm actually split between Millis, Stevens, and Central Ref. Katrina is a character at Stevens TX base. I'm from Louisiana, but north LA and she jokes at me about the hurricane all the time.

 

When you refer to bussing, do you mean to your training or each time you get off time as in drop truck off and take a bus back and forth home on off-time?

 

no no, I mean when you went out to training.....

 

during the training phase, when i go on home time I park the truck at the terminal in Fontana or Mira Loma, CA and my wife drives down to get me since we only have one car right now.

 

also depending on where you live....
I worked at stevens for almost 3 years....everytime I came home I parked my truck and trailer in MY driveway. stevens says you cant do that. but what they didn't know didn't hurt anyone. I had friends that owned a huge piece of land that was gated. we took pictures of the property and asked stevens if I could park there, it was being offered to be me to actually park there free of charge but it was only a mile from home and I had room for the truck so I said why not just bring it home so I can clean it and restock etc........
the only reason I got away with it im sure is because I wasn't greedy, I could have told stevens this place wanted 50 bucks a day to store the truck there and pocketed that.

funny thing was, I quit stevens 3 years ago, the people who owned the property told me stevens called to see if they still allowed people to park there. haha. its a very prestige and private piece of land so they said sorry but no.....

I was pretty pissed when I found out stevens wont let you take the truck home, but do as I did....use your brain, theres ways around everything

 

and another thing. by far stevens has the best equipment. all nice new pete's and KW's. all maintained well. they pay for your blue beacon washes, they let you spend ( used to be 30$ now I don't know ) a month on cleaning supplies to keep your truck clean inside and out.

sure I had negative exp. with stevens now and again but nowhere near the nightmare stories ive heard other places. and everyplace is going to have something ###### but just have a good attitude , put up with a couple weeks of ######## training.i still remember how awesome it felt the first time I left the yard with my truck all on my own...no trainer, just me all by myself ready to go do my first solo run.