Been with Swift for 3 months now...

welcome, always good to have more positive impressions, I'm just past six months and while I have no other company to compare to it to I also enjoy driving for swift. I just tune out the negativity I hear in terminals.

 

Congrats. I am just finishing my flatbed OTR and then I have my phase 2 flatbed class and road test. Then, God willing, I should be solo boy. I have been extremely, pleasantly surprised by the experience so far. Very professional and big. And way more helpful and friendly people than I would have figured for a company so big. Especially in Phoenix. If you need someone to hold your hand and wipe your bottom while you act like a spoiled brat, probably not so good an experience awaits you. But if you can shut yer' trap sometimes and do as you are asked (or told by the guy who gives you the truck and writes your checks...you know...the BOSS!) and do it reasonably well, it is probable to get plenty of miles, be treated well and build your resume.

I have been impressed, as well, by the willingness of higher up level people to take some time and talk with you. I will not name names as that is in bad taste, but I will say this, there have been, amongst several other corporate and shop types, two terminal managers and a --- division --- who absolutely were nice as hell. And they started as drivers, back in the day. Hopefully the wife and I can go O/O in time, but to be able to learn the ropes as a company guy in the interim is not so bad at all.

To hear some guys tell it, with Swift (or any of the big companies) you spend all your time face down and cheeks spread. My impression now is that 99% of the ones doing the whining were/are contortionists and actually spread their own cheeks and did themselves much more so than Swift did. And many of the rest of the whiners actually have not had experience with Swift, but figure it must blow ponies because they are a big company and their brother-in-law's cousin knew a guy that got screwed over for no reason at all.

All in all, not so different from any other big company. And invaluable experience to learn the ropes and go where Redd and Blackwood900 and others are (O/O's with tons of experience). Since I have become a flatbedder those two are sorta two of my benchmarks. Even if they both would sooner probably run into a bridge abutment than drive for Swift

 

I am looking at Swift for getting back on the road in the near future. I've been out of the driver's seat just over a year, with two years of flatbed experience before that. Any idea what type of training period I'd be looking at? How is the flatbed division to run for? Its in my blood and I just don't feel right about pulling a box.

 

Being in New York, if you went with Swift's flatbed division, it would be a bit difficult for them to guarantee you home time (not saying impossible, but you really need to talk with a recruiter about this). Unless they've added flatbed boards in the northeast, you'd have to run out of Gary (IN), Greer (SC), or Phoenix (AZ).. someone currently with the company can tell you if they run them out of other terminals now.
If you ran out of Gary, you could expect a lot of steel loads, and stright flats. If you run out of Greer, expect a lot of stepdeck loads, with steel coils as a backhaul. Phoenix.. always seemed to be exclusively flatbeds (although they might drop those and pick up a stepdeck if they end up in the vicinity of Greer).
It was a decent experience for me.

 

Still the same yup. I'm still learning the ropes and I have no complaints.

 

They also had Shoals (IN) and Eden (NC), but both of those are shut down now. I heard they paved Eden shortly before they shut it down. I remember one big mud puddle in particular.. quite a few trucks got stuck in it. The terminal manager (Brian Hewitt) brought in a motor grader to level it out, and he filled that hole in. He was feeling pretty victorious about that. Less than two weeks later, the same mud hole was back to its original shape and size, and we started calling it "Lake Hewitt" from that point on.

 

New signature quote.

Thank you!

 

I am lookng in going to HH Division I have to wait till I retire from the Navy in Nov but I am doing alot of Researching. What I was told run Mon to friday be home Sat till monday for 34 Hr restart

 

I work for swift for six months.They arnt that bad like people make them out to be,they paid me for all my miles and tolls.But it does make a difference if you have a good DM.Mine was a jerk and that is being nice.