Missed the bus being late on day 1? Good way to get sent home on day 1. Swift is anal about being on time.
I think where you do orientation matters quite a bit. I started at the Syracuse terminal, and though many parts were slow and boring, we were busy pretty much the entire time. The man who runs the show is retired military and kept us on our toes. An older guy fell asleep during one of the sections, definitely a no-no, but he got himself promptly dismissed when the snoring started. You have to keep in mind that for a large company like Swift, orientation is probably the first personal contact they have with a prospective driver, and they prefer to weed out the obvious losers right away. So my advice would be to treat the experience like a prolonged job interview and be professional and honest with everybody. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time and all goes well. Make sure to talk to family and friends whenever you can, because starting out in this industry (at least otr) can be lonely sometimes. Good luck.
It was not intentional all the paperwork said 6:45 so I was on time and they did not fault me for the bus showing at 6:30 and leaving
I started Orientation today as well. Lets just say that so far the whole experience has not even come close to all the negative hype on line. I'm optimistic on the training I will receive, and so far it seems like an alright place to work for. I come from the moving and storage industry, so this will be a change for sure. Btw.. just a urine test is whats to be expected at swift for the time being
Well today was day 2 of orientation and we went through a lot of information. We started pretty promptly at 7:00 and the Experienced Drivers started Road Testing and we watched a Powerpoint presentation about the company the watched two movies of the President and CEO talking. Then we got into the good stuff such as Payroll after that we watched more videos on Benefits and Sexual Harassment and we did this all by 9:30. Then we got folders with more paperwork and received our ComData cards. Then we met our Driver Development Coordinator and that took us to lunch time. Of course it was another sad lunch but I was hungry and did not care. After lunch we had a 2 hour log class, which was fun and boring at the same time. After the log class we got to take a break and I got to meet my Mentor. I am actually kinda excited to go with this mentor we seem to have a decent amount in common already. He showed me the truck since it was going in for service for the evening and he was going home. He told me where I can put all my clothes and stuff and let me know that the office will have his key so I can put my stuff in right when I get to the terminal in the am. He actually drove me back to the motel and when I got here. I did some laundry and 3 of the guys from my class found me and said we have been waiting for you to get dinner. SO we ordered Italian chatted till it got there and ate and I finished my laundry came back to my room to pack to checkout in the am. Overall not a bad day. One more day of orientation and I should be leaving either tomorrow night or Thursday morning on the truck. Will let you know more either tomorrow night or Thursday when we shut down.
