Diary of a current Swifty

I'm aghast!!!!!!!

 

I'm surprised you didn't get that bicycle out and chase after the ###### thing!!!!

(Thx for the updates! Treat yourself to a salad....yich! Chase it with some real food, okay!)

 

Heh heh....you remember in Dorothy's dream state there was a wicked witch of the west on a broom...and after the dream the same figure, now the nasty laughing neighbor rode up on a bike....and you are in MO, about the same with tornadoes in KS ...just struck me a bit funny...that's all!

 

My short career with Swift has ended. Here is how my experience went...

Well, I got on the truck with a "mentor". The first week wasn't too bad, biggest issue was that Swift will not allow you to idol the trucks under any condition, I had to sleep in the top bunk, of course. There was not even a vent for me to open, so when it got up to 115 degrees in the truck, I was soaked with sweat, and I was not sleeping, for obvious reasons. I drove a little, he drove a little... things were not fun, but I could take it.

Second week, mentor now is pushing me to drive as a team. He plays video games or sleeps while I drive, he drives while I lay in the bunk (not sleeping.. not while vehicle is in motion). We drive to parking lots to the stores where we are to unload the next day, so there is not so much as a bathroom I can use within walking distance when we get to wherever at 3am in the morning after driving all day. Then we get up at 7am, unload the truck ourselves, 43,000 of freight 1 box at a time, until 1pm, of course this is all done off duty to "conserve our hours" then he drives for 5 or so hours while I'm trying to lay down in the sleeper (again not sleeping due to the bouncing, etc..) then I drive 11 hrs while he goofs off and sleeps all the way back to the distribution center in southern Oklahoma where we begin the whole cycle over again.

After 2 or 3 runs, we would stop in Oklahoma city so my wife could drive 3 hours to pick me up and I could have a half day with my family before I had to drive 3 hours back to Oklahoma city to drive all the way to Colorado in 1 day over the Rocky Mountains (as a 2nd week student mind you) so I can spend the next day unloading freight and driving back to Oklahoma... etc...

I was getting so little sleep, that it was starting to make me ill, and my mentor said "we will have to introduce you to Red Bull". I told him no... I don't need red bull, I need sleep. Your "conserving hours" in your log is totally illegal and defeats the purpose of the law, and is causing me to drive in dangerous conditions. Also added in the fact that he gets paid every mile I drive, and he drives, while I get squat, it wasn't worth it. No sleep, smell like I have been hanging out in a sewage pit after just a couple days from living and sleeping in a sweat box.

He then showed me the math, and proved that Swift expected me to run that way, and it was true. If I didn't "conserve hours" the way he was showing me, It was not possible to complete the runs in the time they expected them to be completed, especially once I went solo. So I hung it up.

 

Did you request a mentor change? Or relay your problems when you were contacted for mentor eval? I ask, because many don't, then wonder why bad mentors keep mentoring.

 

suck it up fanndango