Team Driving for swift.

Good point...and non-argumentable!

Watch out for that pointy stick!!!!

 

Texas-Nana i have a few ? for youns since me and the wife are thinking of going there, if you dont mind us picking your brain a lil

I was gonna PM but i dont have 50 posts so ill do it here

How long you been there?

Did you go to there school , if so which and where and how was it

What is there pay scale like , what should you all be making at 1 year, they give you any hassles over getting it

Are they good for getting you home for important dates B-days etc if they know well in advance

How are you and hubby spliting drive time

How much are there insurance family plan if you have it

What are you all running van reefer etc.? I was thinking of trying flatbed out

How much drop and hook are you all seeing , and unloading are you having to do , time waiting on loads etc.

I probly have more but cant think of them right now

Thanks a bunch for any help you can give us feel free to add anything you think we should know

 

So VERY true! I thought that myself after I posted. LOL

 

Sure you can pick my brain but I need to tell you that I'm VERY new to this. In fact we're so new to trucking that I mainly know that I don't know much.

All I can tell you is my personal experience.

I went OTR the beginning of April. See....I TOLD you I was NEW LOL

Yes both my husband and I went to the Swift Driving Academy in Phoenix. He attended in Jan I attended in March. We had very different experiences at the Academy. He found it very impersonal but instructional. Me? I loved it. I'd still be there if I could get paid for it. I had wonderful instructors and found everyone from the head of the Academy down to the paper pushers to be nothing but supportive and helpful. Shoot even the doctor doing my physical would come and check on me weekly to see how I was doing in school. When I had food poisoning and was out for 4 days several people would call to check and see if I was okay and needed anything. I got to school and became convinced I couldn't do it. They were convinced I could. They were right and I was wrong. Every time I'm at the terminal I go and visit.

You see I got to the Academy in the middle of a life change with huge self doubts and a hurricane of emotions. It and this forum have been where I "found myself" again. (Long drama filled story that only women wallow in LOL)

Plus I lost weight at the Academy....how can it not be a good place? I refer to it as "The Swift Driving Academy and Weight Loss Center". LOL

Then there were the other students. Oh my gosh. I just love them! So many different types of people and all of us helping each other and wanting the best for each other. I would NOT have made it without the other students. Steve, Kent, Robert, Roger, Jim, Karen, Candi, Grace, David, Manny, Dale, Roger (the other Roger lol) and Jonathan are people I owe a great deal to and miss still. Some of them I talk to regularly by text or cell.

When I went to school what they did was have one spouse pay and the other was free. I've heard there are changes so I don't know if it's that way now. I will tell you that when you're told it's easy and they pass anyone no matter what that's a bunch of poop. It's hard, you would be well served to get ahold of the CDL manual from the state you'll be attending and learn it in advance. For the maneuvers, well what I finally got was it's mathmatics. It's all about angles and percentages and getting out and looking.

Hometime. ROFL hahahahahahahahahahaha yeah ummm okay. hometime. Sorry. Well, if you have a good DM and we do now they try. But the truth that recruiters for ALL companies don't tell you is this: freight is what rules. So if there's freight going to your home area you get to go, if not..........you don't. Pretty simple eh? They try, I've seen that. They REALLY try but the truth is you may not make it home on the exact date you want. So request a day or two early and then hope.

Currently they're trying to have no one stay out more than 3 weeks. Note: trying. You can only take 3 days at a time. If you take more you can lose your truck and have to wait to be reassigned one. They can also use your truck while you're on hometime so take your valuables with you. *sighs* hometime.


Get a dr that will see you on short notice and tell the family "see you when I see you". That's my advice.

Pay: We're new, we make bottom of the scale.


Splitting the driving: I'm going to be honest with you, we've struggled over this. My husband has had this theory: Me big Heman me do all driving. You lil woman you sit and look pretty. Me big man me do all pick ups, all deliveries, all trip planning, all stuff, you lil woman you hold steering wheel. I love the man and he loves me but teaming doesn't allow this idea of him doing all the hard work. So that didn't last long LOL We've just about got it straightened out now. Run it off your DOT hours period. You'll probably find a rhythm that works best for y'all. We thought ours would be me on nights but it's not. I hate the nothingness of night driving. He hates the heavier traffic which doesn't bother me so we're happiest me driving early morning to mid afternoon and then him taking it through late afternoon to early morning. One big suggestion I have for you is to not assume you know more or better than your team driver and decide you need to back seat drive her all the time. You might find yourself without a team and without a wife. Just my 2 cents.

We run van, I would touch flatbed if you paid me a bazillion dollars. It's hard HARD work and you lose a load and kill someone you're going to prison. There's a lot of flatbedders on this forum and they can tell you a whole lot better than me but that's my own little cowardly opinion. I've got two friends running flatbeds and they love it but then they're in their 30s are all buff and work out etc. I'm sticking to vans thank you very much! LOL

Driver unload? Oh no thank you. LOL I've not had one of those, they tried.........they paid for a lumper. It may happen one day but you'll hear the screams when it does.

Most of what we get is drop & hooks. Live unloads aren't to bad but I hate live loads. Well.......okay most aren't to bad but that's when it can get horrible. Waited one night for over 5 hours for a live load that was an APPOINTMENT. sheesh. But then again........waited one night for over 7 hours for a hook because they'd loaded it onto a Werner trailer. LOL and the end result was that Swift and Werner worked it out and we hauled a werner trailer. Talk about people looking at us funny. I started saying we stole it. Trying to hold down costs for the company by stealing trailers. ROFL Stopped for fuel and had two werner drivers ask "is that a werner trailer?" I said "no". They said "um okay". LOL

I digress, sorry.

How long do we wait? Did you mean for a trip or for a customer to load? Most customers want you in and out so they are quick. A few have people who get their jollies by making Drivers wait. Small man syndrome and my opinion is that women in charge of the docks are the WORST.

If you meant waiting for trips, it depends on where you are. Freight is hotter out west, but you'll run if they send you back and forth. However, if you're waiting on freight toget you home for hometime..........you're sure to be sitting and waiting. LOL The most you wait is if you have some cruddy dispatcher waiting on a load that he needs a team for. He'll not dispatch you, take the Las Vegas load off you and then hold you in El Paso for 2 stinking days waiting for the load from Mexico. Oh sorry.........ummm yeah ElPaso is a fun place to wait!

The insurance is medical, prescription, vision, dental. For employee we pay about $20 a week each. It's a good plan compared to most companies today.


You want my suggestions? LOL Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Ask yourself if you can accept not knowing where you'r going, when you're getting back. Can you live in a small metal box with your honeybunch for 24/7? I don't mean like life is now.. You're ontop of each other and not in the fun way. There is NO privacy, no 15 minutes to yourself to calm down and take a breath when you irk each other.
Can you let garbage roll off your back with the dock foreman chews you out for things other drivers did? Can you smile and be polite even when you know the man needs you to jack his jaw?

Are you willing to have everyone and their grandmother tell you how crappy Swift is? Can you remain sane when other drivers act like they never EVER made a mistake and that Swift drivers are the only ones that have ever parked in the wrong place, gone in the wrong drive, backed poorly and taken FOREVER to get that d$(% trailer in the narrow slot at the Pilot? Can you tolerate hearing over and over that other drivers resent new drivers because there's experienced drivers who can't get hired or because Swift pays low and therefore they won't work there? Are you willing to take a hot load for the planners and for your dm when you really wantd to book into a motel for a day. Can you endure sleeping while your team drives over the God forsaken roads of California that are worse than a pig path? And can you restrain yourself from running over the road crew that chooses to stand in your lane? (had two walk out in front of me this week alone) Is it possible for you to watch every 4 wheeler on the road and be prepared for them to tailgate you, cut you off, enter the highway and then BRAKE in front of you just before they flip you off? Can you spend 3 days in the rain in a truck stop in New Jersey and not lose your mind? If so then you my friend are a good candidate for Swift Transportation. Welcome aboard and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do because I love it.

 

First off, I've never worked for Swift, and never will in a million years, but just had to say Nana that was a pretty nice write-up there. Surely you have your head on straight, and no doubt you've probably helped a few newbs with that post.

 

Haven't been online in a while. It looks like Nana did a good job answering, I can also answer any questions you may have, so feel free to PM or post.

I run teams with a friend of mine and we both live local here to Phoenix. We ran 48 for a while prior to that, and I ran solo prior to that, but are currently running on a dedicated reefer fleet of 34'ish trucks. I hadn't really thought about doing flatbed as I don't think Swift even makes it worth it, perhaps one day I might take up heavy/oversize hauling, but most likely not for Swift.

Just to add as a bit of contrast, our situation is a little different on the dedicated fleet, our schedule consists of our dispatches being between 12:30 and 19:00 depending on where we are heading, but I would have to say ours is consistently 14:00 - 16:30 95% of the time. Our loads are between 1700 and 1900 miles and we run it with no real breaks except our swap over. We hit our destination normally around 10:00 am or so (sometimes earlier depending on if it is a shorter run) and hit our deliveries (normally we have multiple stops), then we do our empty call and fuel, then we run back to Phoenix empty, arriving normally around 04:00 - 07:00. At that point we both go home, then call in and find out our dock out time on our next load once we get our text about it. Rinse and repeat basically. Time off is needed less since you are home basically every other day for about 8 hours (sometimes longer), but it's not impossible to get.

This is one fleet's example, but there are others such as the Wal-Mart fleet. I have a few friend's who are on that one and they run from the DC here in Phoenix to their destinations, then they get a back haul to run back normally. They spend a little longer out then we do, and the mileage is about the same.

The reason I am writing this is because positions like this are in Swift and are obtainable, just ask questions and get to know people on those fleets. That is the best way in, as they are not very likely to call you up and ask if you want to get on.

 

Great stuff Nana

Thats some good down home brain picking ,just the kinda stuff we wanted to know some real world experince . Thank you so much

 

Nana,

Excellent post. Do you and hubby hot bunk? I mean someone is always in the bottom bunk. Does Swift allow inverters, portable generators?

Hunter

 

Thank you all. I was afraid I sounded to harsh about it.

Hunter, we do hot bunk. But if we get the chance to have a few hours still we jump on it as my hubby sleeps better. Me.....I've reached the point I think I could sleep standing up in a tornado. The one thing I NEVER do is sleep in the seats. I make sure my body knows the seat is for awake time. This was hard for me as I love to read and doze in a chair. But I can not take a risk of dozing off when driving so I'm teaching my body that chairs are awake time now. (and I mean when we're standing still as I never ride the passanger seat if he's driving.)

Swift does not allow inverters or generatiors on company trucks. However most people carry small ones for lap tops etc. If an inverter is found on your truck it's immediate dismissal.