Swift - Starting the New Year training with Swift 1/7/13 - A long read...

Ahhh, I"m trying to think what I did bring way back then. It was almost a year and two weeks ago but I'll try to remember.

- Clothes --- I brought enough clothes including some warm stuff. Bring maybe something to get dirty in.

- Paperwork --- All the paperwork they ask for. I don't remember exactly what they required but make sure you got it plus a photocopy of it. Check and double check this. You might need your birth certificate and social security card. Don't quote me but I think you might. Check with your recruiter.

- Money --- I brought some money for food but I was super poor at the time. When others went out to eat I could only dream. I found a cheap bag of potatoes on the first night at a local "Cash and Carry" and it lasted me the whole time. Microwaved them in the room with some swiped salt and pepper packets plus some of those butter packets from down in the lobby. I'm sure I must have eaten something else at night I just don't remember what it was. I do know I lost weight. Every morning I took advantage of the continental breakfast the hotel offered. This is cheesy but I would actually eat a bowl of their cereal right there in the morning before the shuttle picked me up and I would make a waffle down there for later that night. Stuffed the waffles into my bookbag when everyone was distracted and I was pretty happy. I think I got coldcuts and bread for lunches after hitching that ride to Walmart with one of the other students. If you get this opportunity to grab a ride to a Walmart (maybe even drop the suggestion to the person with the car = cheap food).

- Pens/Notebooks/HIghliters/3x5 cards/White-Out (everyone will be asking to borrow your White-Out, trust me) --- I brought a notebook and pens. You have to supply these and will need them. Bring some 3x5 cards. This was someone else's idea and when I realized what they were doing I grabbed a ride with another student that had his car there at training and went to Walmart to pick up 2 packs of 3x5 cards - You can use these for your pretrip studying. You will need to study pretrip a LOT and these 3x5 cards help a ton. Break up the different areas of the truck and trailer, inside the cab, various specific number you need to remember - tread depth requirements, pressure settings, etc. Bring some highliters. You will be the superhero if you bring White-Out.

- Alarm clock, battery powered if you got it - just in case.

- I brought my laptop since the hotel had wifi. Kept me entertained and I could post on here. Bring it if you got it.

- I brought my camera because I'm a photography nut. Gave me something to do to walk around Lewiston, Idaho and see something different. That's just me. And yeah, I could have pawned the camera for food money but it's not really worth anything. And I refused to do this as it's worth so much more to me than I would get it for it. Same with the laptop. Too old to be worth any real money but they were mine and work. Just to clarify....lol

Be EARLY every day to grab the shuttle. Even if you gotta sit around for a few and watch some tv in the lobby. It will give you a chance to wake up and you do not want to miss that shuttle. Swift don't play when it comes to the rules in their training school. I know I woke up late ONCE and missed that shuttle and I almost freaked the F out running around the parking lot trying to figure out how to get to class on time. I think you can be late once but don't quote me. Be on time everyday. If it wasn't for that student that had his own car that morning and was leaving at the time I was running around the parking lot, I would have been screwed. Thanks Derek! Don't do it. Be EARLY for the piece of mind.

Be patient. You are going to do 6 million straight backs on the range and things are going to get repetitive and boring at times. Just take advantage of the training because there's a method behind the madness. You are preparing for your state CDL test so be prepared. Ask questions always and plan for success.


Don't forget things like your phone charger. I know I"m missing some things here. I"ll add more to this as I think about it over the road in the next day or two...

 

Find out if you need to pay for your drug test too. I had to pay for mine but I know some others that showed up got theirs for free. I'm not sure on that but you may have to pay for it. And don't pee in front of the girl administering the test. She don't like that.

 

Yeah that is correct. Now I remember how it worked. The drug test for us was free but I had to pay for my physical before training. When I got to the Swift school there were a few people that hadn't had a physical before school and Swift shuttled them somewhere to get one for free.

 

There is so much that you see day to day out there it's hard to remember it all. I like those little things that we come across as drivers that we can reflect on as we drive. It seems like sometimes we have too much time to think and reflect on things.
It's weird all those little things that seem to stick with you. I remember driving down a state highway the other day and I saw this hawk just kind of hovering over the road. He wasn't flapping his wings but just kind of floating on some breeze or stream of wind and he was looking down towards the grassy median, I'm guessing he was looking for lunch. But the image stuck with me. As my truck and I got closer to him he just stayed there about 25 feet off the ground. Hovering. As I was about to go under him I leaned forward in my seat and looked up to get a closer view. He was beautiful. Corny and I'm not a big bird nut or anything but it's just those stupid, little things that seem to stick with me on any given day. It's those things that give me a greater appreciation for this opportunity.

I actually love writing posts on here. It gives me an something to look back on later. Kind of like a journal.

####, you got lucky. This year though when I did my physical the girl at the desk asked what company and I guess they billed Swift. That works for me!

 

I'm currently at the Town Pump Flying J in Missoula, Montana.

I was just through this way a couple of days ago when I came through with a load from Oklahoma City to near Spokane.

Now I'm going back the same way with a different load. This load current load picked up this morning from the US Postal Service in Spokane and it's heading to Denver.

A weird thing happened. When I accepted the preplan it stated the delivery time was for 0800 on 1/31 but when I got the dispatch the delivery time changed to 0230. That makes a difference as those few hours were my wiggle room. I guess it doesn't matter much at this point as it's going to be late regardless. It's a JIT load too...

I called Phoenix and told the guy about the change in delivery times from the preplan to the dispatch. He said another driver earlier that night had the same issue. And, I talked to a driver at a scale house today and he said he had the same issue as well. Weird indeed.

Another issue I had with this load came up later in the morning, around 0500 when I creeped through the Spokane snow onto a scale to check the weight of my load. On the plan it stated the load should be almost 30,000 lbs. When I dropped and hooked and grabbed the BOL there was no weight to be found. That got me curious so I went to the scale to check it out. My total weight came out to be something like 47,000 lbs. I thought back to how much my truck and empty trailer weighed and I think it was about 34,000-ish lbs. That would make my load only a little less than 13,000 lbs. Not good as I knew I was going to be going over some snowy passes with a relatively light trailer. This was going to affect my delivery time.

My total miles today were barely over 200. Sad. I did my best but there was traffic in Spokane with the snow, wrecks and then it got real messy going into 4th of July Pass. The first sign indicating that chains were required was completely covered in snow. Kind of ironic. The two yellow lights on top were blinking but you couldn't see what the sign said. I was thinking and hoping that the sign was a warning for some slippery conditions and not a sign stating we had to chain up. But of course, I was wrong. The next blinky sign was clear and we had to chain. Crap. I pulled into the busy chain up area before the pass and pulled my brakes. Then I sighed and stared straight forward for a couple of minutes procrastinating.

I began the process. The hellish process that I wanted to avoid for so long. The last time, and only other time I've ever had to chain since going solo or even in training, was up on I-70 in Colorado when I hit that snowstorm months ago. I had the help of Onroad because I was short some chains and asked to get some. This time I was on my own.

It was a cluster cuss, to say the least. I was putting chains on backwards with the little half-moon adjustments on the inside of the tire. Redo. I put them on with the smoother side facing out instead of against the tire. Fail again. I went through 5 pairs of gloves that got soaked through. I sat out in the snow with khaki cargo pants getting wet and dirty like a moron while my yellow, neon reflective vest kept hiking up my back so it looked like I was wearing a day-glo tube top. Fail Fail Fail. I was wet and frozen, dirty and cussing up a storm calling those chains every name a proper dirty-mouthed Jersey boy could muster. I lost my chain tighter tool about 6 times in the snow as I put it down to pull or adjust some of the chains that made it onto the tire. I dug and kicked the snow begging the gods of snowy tire chaining to please let me find my beloved chain tightener tool. Please. I found it then lost it again somewhere in the snow. I barely managed to put my "doubles" on the drives. I cursed these chains the most. I consider myself somewhat strong but can those double chains get any heavier?!? #### you, double chains! #### you! As I struggled to tighten the half moon adjusters on the double chains on the inside of the drive tires, I banged my head under the trailer and emerged from underneath cursing again, dirty khaki pants with soaked wet knee stains, my wooly cap half falling off my head covering the ear on one side while propped up almost off my head on the other side. I looked deranged. I was sweating and took a few breaks inside the truck to change gloves. I went with my nice, thicker insulated gloves first. Then the orange, then the reflective yellows, then some old pair I had from when I first started - I don't even think they are work gloves, probably ski gloves or something, then finally went to pair #5 the paper think Mechnanix slip on gloves. I sat in the truck, warmed my hands and pulled forward so I could get out and adjust my chains. I finally had all of them on and they seemed somewhat tight. I had a set of doubles on my drives, another set of singles on the other drives and a set of singles on my front trailer tires. Probably 3 out of the 6 chains were decent. One of them I had put on backwards with the tighter half-moons on the inside of the tire I decided to leave it as it was. I was done. It was then, after about 1.5 hours or so, that I heard the last thing that I wanted to ever hear come across the CB...

"Looks like they shut off the chain requirement lights eastbound, we're good to go...c'mon..."

No!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got on my cb and asked another driver. It was confirmed. I just wasted almost 2 hours. Dirty. Wet. Beat up from the chains.

Another driver walked up and asked if it was true and I told him what I heard. As we discussed this trucks were going by without chains. I'm sure they were happy in the warmth of their trucks, tires unmolested by heavy, rusty, nasty freezing cold chains. I cursed them silently as they cruised by.

I sat in the truck for a few minutes to reflect. The chain up area slowly cleared until I was the last one there. Unchaining, the whole process in reverse however I had the added bonus of unhooking the inside of one of the doubles chain the wrong way, allowing it to fall flaccid and limp into the hub between the two drive tires. I unhooked the inside of the tire first, then the outside, forgetting about the middle connection. The whole heavy ### chain assembly fell between the drives and it was nearly impossible to find the one link I needed to disconnect to get the stupid thing off. As madness entered my psyche I imagined scenarios. Scenarios that I knew I wouldn't make happen but for a brief moment I really wished. I saw myself torching the chain since I couldn't find the link that was somewhere buried between the two side by side drive tires. Ok, I don't have a torch. I imagined myself just driving as it was, chains flipping around the hub, crashing into the underbelly of the trailer as I laughed and drove down the road like a madman. I figured that probably wasn't a good idea either.

I found the missing link and unhooked it, freeing up the final double from the drives. I pulled forward and, for a brief minute, thought about continuing forward on my way, chains abandoned all flattened and half covered in snow behind me as I merged back onto I-90. Leave 'em behind like a hitchhiker that had worn out his welcome and had stepped out at the rest area to take a leak. Ok, I couldn't do it. I might need those again. I trudged back out into the snow, picked up every chain and threw them haphazardly onto the chain holder back by the catwalk. I got back in closed my curtains and changed my clothes. Then I just sat for a few minutes, alone in the chain up area, staring out the windshield relieved that the whole thing was over. That was 4th of July Pass.

Lookout Pass didn't require chains so I was able to get by there without chaining up. I guess next time I will be better at chaining. I learned from these mistakes and the next time I'm going to take my time and think about everything I do before I actually do it. It was exhausting. The rest of the day was pretty slow going and I was finally able to hit the coveted 62 mph top speed as I got close to this Flying J. What a day...