Swift Flatbed Division... ?!

Discussion in 'Flatbed Trucking Forum' started by RedRover, Oct 8, 2016.

  1. TROOPER to TRUCKER

    TROOPER to TRUCKER Anything Is Possible

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    That's crazy
     
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  3. FerrissWheel

    FerrissWheel Road Train Member

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    This might be useful in this thread.
     

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  4. FerrissWheel

    FerrissWheel Road Train Member

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    There are only 25 FB mentors in the company, only about 10-15 ever take students, and I'm counted in those numbers. And normally 50 students are going through mentor phase at a time. And since the ones that do wind up with FB mentors take about a month to go through the process, alot of them never hit the road with a flatbed till they get thier truck.

    According to our FB VP, they are supposed to be putting a limit on how many they hire at a time, so this isn't as big of an issue. Time will tell.
     
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  5. RedRover

    RedRover Road Train Member

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    I should have gotten your driver code man. My dude sucked and I have only secured loads with a group of like 12. I had a guy I was going to team with, he went with a flatbed mentor supposed to be 50 hours and somehow ended up off the truck in Houston no longer working for Swift lol.

    Anyway consignee didn't answer. Guess they were closed. I'm 9 miles away and parked with 3:20 left on my 70. Figure I will try to deliver early tomorrow if they will let me and ask for a load I can pick up on Thursday and get at least 6-7 hours run off of that. Then I'll be getting 10 to 11 hours back every day. Don't want to start and end the week having #### near the same number of miles lol
     
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  6. RedRover

    RedRover Road Train Member

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    I will say, I am getting flatbed pay still for driving these vans. And 15 bucks extra stop pay off that Sams Club load. Wish I was getting securement pay. I can throw a tarp over lumber and also bungees on a hell of a lot faster than the guy at Sams can live unload a floor stack van.. And get paid for it.
     
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  7. FerrissWheel

    FerrissWheel Road Train Member

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    That thought had occurred to me, but Terry found out I still had my mentor status and had someone lined up before you were even in orientation.

    And as for your situation, sometimes these planners are too good at thier job lol. Some will try to run that last minute out if you let em.

    That's one of the cool things about flatbed, yeah it takes some time to get every thing secured properly, but it beats sitting in the cab refreshing Facebook. 3hrs after hitting the dock and still no forklifts. All the deliveries thus far are usually done as quick as I can get everything put away. Or quicker.
     
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  8. RedRover

    RedRover Road Train Member

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    OK, so my check is now posted for me to see and here are the results...

    I grossed 1131.56 this week, for 2769 miles. I'm already considered platinum, so I received a 70.30 performance bonus and 15 dollars for an extra stop. Also I'm on accelerated pay, so because I scanned my bills for that 1420 mile trip by Wednesday at midnight, it's on this check(as it should be).

    And it was a slow week, no securement pay or tarp pay. The most difficult thing that I had to endure was reaching go scan radio stations in the middle of nowhere.

    As long as this is an average week, I've gotta say, I'm pretty happy with it. Where I was two months ago and where I am now couldn't be further apart. Now to just learn to actually manage my #### clock, so I get an extra trip or two in each week lol
     
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  9. Lepton1

    Lepton1 Road Train Member

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    @RedRover, it appears to me you are a "runner". I'm glad that you survived "training", such as it was. It's a shame Swift doesn't have enough mentors to cover the needs of their flatbed division.

    If you ever need help with securement on a "puzzle", use this thread or PM me.
     
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  10. RedRover

    RedRover Road Train Member

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    I can't justify being out here sitting. If I call my DM who acts like there are no loads, or the Qualcomm gets me nowhere, I call the planners myself and ask them what they have on their load board heading in a certain direction or to a certain state. That seems to work. My shortest trip was 500 something miles. I'm on my second shortest load at 724 now. The rest have been 1400 or so. Like I said, could have done more but I don't take any unnecessary risks with ice and snow in the mountains and I take my time. There have been a few times I have let my clock run when I shouldn't have, or stayed on line 3 while I walked around the aisles of a truck stop for a while. Oops. Stayed on duty while I waited 30 minutes for a shower once too. So many places I could improve, for sure. I wouldn't be in time trouble, sitting around waiting for midnight right now if it wasn't for screwing up my clock. I'm learning though lol.
     
  11. Lepton1

    Lepton1 Road Train Member

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    You can edit your clock on the Qualcomm, everything but drive time. Do that before you approve your logs. If you clicked on duty to take a shower because you were on duty for fueling or post trip, then first change duty status to off duty when you get back to the truck and realize the situation.

    Next, split the on duty time with the scissors function (I can't recall all the commands, but play around with it). Cut that block of on duty time so you have a 10 minute segment at first, followed by a long segment after that.

    Then edit the long second segment of time by changing it to off duty. In comments you simply say "Correct duty status".

    I edited logs this way frequently.
     
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