First swift mentor down 5 weeks to go.

I've been a driver for #### near 10yrs. My last 6 mo on the road was for SWIFT as a mentor for my betterhalf, after schooling she went with Prime for 3 months of grueling training. her mentor their was so hard on her she would calling me crying. I told her stick it out.. (any problems stick to your rights)...shes a Latino... she did and her and her old mentor are now good friends....her old mentor used her for a seat filler as the mentor was a leassor so for her the tires rolling was her money. anyways.
I got us both a gig running for SWIFT, told her she had to do the trainng part all over again but, she'd be with me. I told her " not going to cut you any slack- got to listen to whatever I tell you" she was at least it will be with you and it will be in "our home". she took to it like she'd been doing it as long as I was. ( hey I taught her). aftere the training part SWIFT wanted me to mentor others..... I said on no thats the the agreement on paper people. we are a TEAM. ..... as saomeone said earlier. SWIFT will use someone out on the road after 6 months to train someone.. that person really has no concept yet of what is even going on. so someone with 6 months and some greenhorn with maybe a month (fresh out of a school) no wonder why SWIFT has a bad record.........

 

I recently finished training with Swift in Syracuse NY. My mentor was an o/o and ran a dedicated account. He was very patient with me. He never raised his voice. He let me take as much time as I needed when I had a problem. If I was having a hard time on a back he would tell me what I needed to do to fix it, and let me do it on my own. When I was backing he was always outside the truck, within hearing distance, and many times I looked at him and said "what do I do now?". I learned very much from him. He had me using the q comm from the first day.

If you are going to train from the Syracuse terminal PM me and I will give you his name so you can ask for him as a mentor.

 

Hey, sparkinak...Be GLAD you got away from Swift as quickly as you did. My only good experience was with my trainer there, but all other experiences with that company were BAAAD!!!!. My average bring home was about $300-$400 per week. Was only with them about 8 months. Can't count how many times I sat at a truck stop for 2, 3, and as many as 5 days straight w/out a load. Was told in orientation that for every week out you get 1 day off. I usually stayed out about 4 wks at a time. When I finally got home, my DM would call me the NEXT DAY wanting to know when I was returning to the truck (despite telling him when before going home) says he has a load for me that really needs to go, so I go back to truck w/only 1 day at home I get back to the truck, and it's a 250 mile load! I make delivery, then sit for 2 days or more.
And the Qualcom!! I cringe at the mere thought of that beep. The DM knows when you are on 10 hr shutdown and likely asleep, but they seem to think they need to wake you up with that beep with some stupid mssgs about in-route percentages, and other mmsgs that have absolutely nothing to do with your own personal performance and nothing to do about whatever load you are under. I could go on and on about their stupid qualcom mssgs...Although one day, got a mssg from terminal mgr saying he had a bet w/another terminal mgr about which terminal could go longest w/out a preventable accident. Woke me up w/that mssg, so I sent one back immediately w/one word....concede.... Got fired from Swift over 3 preventables....I'm not proud about that, but I was so relieved to get away from Swift, that getting fired didn't upset me much!!!!! After 5 months of searching, I just got lucky and found a fantastic driving job. Scared, but intent on being more careful
Good luck sparkinak, give Averitt a try, you at least get home every weekend if you want

 

something about his story doesn't seem right to me either. there has got to be waaaaaay more to this story than what the OP is saying. something is horribly wrong when a driver gets booted from a truck within the first week.

maybe the guy was hitting rumble strips for long periods of time and didn't think anything of it. if i happened to be in the berth at the time, i'd wake up and be a bit aggravated, too. however, the "trainer" shouldn't have been in the freaking sleeper berth on the FIRST WEEK, anyway.

as far as mine when i was on the truck almost 3 1/2yrs ago. he never went into the sleeper berth until the final week. the first 5 weeks, he sat in the passenger seat to watch how i did things. he was also a fountain of knowledge when it came to handling the winter weather conditions. if it wasn't for him, and the timing that i had gotten on to his truck, i would have been toast during my first winter season.

oh yeah, he's still at swift and is about to hit his 19th year at the company. to this day, he has no accidents and no tickets. i was on his truck when a fleet message was sent about him having gone on his 2,000,000th accident free mile. he's definitely one of the few who is worth every single dollar he makes, and then some.