My first year at swift

Well it has not been an easy journey working here but I do recommend them as a starter company. Some of the things I like about swift is that they did not give me a problem about driving my personal vehicle to orientation which a Werner recruiter told me to leave my car at home at take a bus. I do like that swift is not forced dispatch so I can reject a garbage load if I want too. Some of the issues if had are thing you’ll deal with almost anywhere for instance my first trainer was useless and I didn’t learn jack from him and I’m better off without him. My 2nd trainer on the other hand was much better and easier to get along with. Also to anyone thinking about working for swift you can request a new trainer if you want too. Just be mindful that your next trainer could be worse than your current one, not in my case. I call there training program a blessing and a curse. They speed you through training and want to put you in a truck as fast as possible. Because those trucks make money when there’s a body in them moving freight, not to mention there’s more students than trainers available. I went solo after just 4 weeks. If I had to do 2 months which i believe prime does with my first trainer I’d lose my mind.
I had worked on Walmart dedicated which I hated doing delivering to the philly metro area and jersey, I was able to get off it upon my request. I did Walmart because I was new at the time and didn’t know what it would be like. Just as I took a lot of garbage loads at first cause I didn’t know any better. They have been good about getting me home on time although but there were a couple times I almost didn’t make it. Definitely give a minimum of 2 weeks notice of when you want to be home. Some of the problems I’ve had could happen at any company. My least favorite things about swift are that they are very stingy when it comes to vacation time. They only give you 5 days after a year and you don’t get 2 weeks till close to the 10 year mark.somthing else I can’t stand is them telling drivers where too fuel and how much fuel to buy. Unless the place I’m filling up is 10 cents more per gallon than someplace else a few miles down the road quit your whining. The last but not least thing I dislike about swift is there’s no weekly home time option. I do otr and intend to for the remainder of the time I work here but some drivers might want to be home on a weekly basis. If I had a woman in my life I would definitely want to come home weekly. So with my first year behind me I may jump ship in the next couple months I may do another year, I’m not sure as of now.

 

The pay is decent I average around $1,000 per week. A good week can be anywhere from $1400-1700. I don’t usually sit and wait for a load except in CA as that is the slowest state for freight especially in the winter. During spring and summer it’s a little better. I turn loads down mostly to the northeast as I hate going there as do a lot of drivers. I still make money even excluding the NE. Plus as you gain experience at swift you’ll learn where the good places are and which places suck. Some shippers and receivers are just not worth the hassle. Besides if I reject a load something better always comes along. One time I was filling up the truck and another swift driver was next to so I asked where he was going and when he said RI I almost bursted out laughing. There’s maybe 1 truck stop in the whole state, I would never take a load there.

 

One other thing I forgot to mention earlier is that the service department sucks as you have to hold them at gun point to get them to fix anything in a decent amount of time.