Junkero's Swift Adventure

Finally I can update on my travels.
Saturday June 5th I went to my local rat hole Grayhound Bus station and loaded a bus for Phoenix, for Orientation and Flatbed training. Our local Bus station is a frumpy stop surrounded by the crazed homeless and prostitutes. It is not a place I would want to stay at for a long period. More on that at the end of this post.
The best way to describe the bus ride would be, the driver was a Salmon heading upstream to spawn. This guy was the worse driver I have ever seen. I sat in the very back of the bus and I was the bathroom door monitor. That back seat gave me the vantage point of looking straight down the Isle and out the front window. It was like looking down a gun site. At any given moment the front of the bus would be pointed at the left edge of the road or the right edge of the road. At one point he hit the "wake up" grid on the edge of the road and I was getting worried. I could see his overhead mirror and he was rubbing his head and moving around. He was on and off the gas pedal once a second, you could hear the motors turbo spool up every time he did it. I could see all the passengers head moving forward and back and side to side as this knucklehead driver drove us to our destination. Half way there, at a stop, I went over and confronted him. I asked him if he was ok, because he was showing sign of fatigue with his sporadic driving. He didn't take this well. He got indignant, that is where I told him I have never seen anybody weave something that big down the road like that. Lord knows how often he weaved into the lanes next to him.
We finally arrived in Phoenix, and there was a herd of drivers in training standing at the front door waiting for the Swift shuttle. That shuttle took a few trips back and forth to get all those people to the hotel. I took a taxi with three other drivers instead of waiting. Got checked in to the hotel. I was told I would have a roommate. I wondered how that would work out. Would this person snore louder than I do, fart all night long, poor hygiene? A while later a large guy opened the door. We were in the same age bracket and discovered that we both snored. I really got lucky getting this guy, he was orderly and not a screw off. We both sawed up a couple of cords of wood this week. Funny thing was, we ended up sitting next to one another the whole week in orientation and he was going Flatbed too.
Orientation was as to be expected for this type of job. First the Pee Test. It always amazes me how many fail these things, nerds! Next the Road Test. This part I was not sure how it would go. It had been over a month since I last drove and I had not really mastered the shifting yet. Well I went out and ground some gears for them and didn't hit and curbs. Did try to run over a stop sign post but caught myself, it was a pretty tight turn. The Road Test guy told me that it wasn't too bad, and that we all started out somewhere and that this is what the trainer program was all about.
They didn't send me home Monday so all was well so far. My roommate and I were first on the shuttle every morning. Orientation was fun and informative. We sweated out Tuesday and Wednesday waiting to hear if we were hired. Finally late Wed. they gave us our driver numbers. They started getting the People driving Vans over to their mentors and my roommate and the other Flatbed guys all stayed for the Tie Down Class. Tie down class was good, but it was hot outside so it was a little uncomfortable. I'm sure what we worked in is nothing compared to the scorching heat or sub-zero temps you may have to load your truck in. I'm ready for it.
Here came the problems. Flatbed Mentors. Looks like there are not a lot of them out there and that a lot of them had had Trainees in their trucks for a while now and most of them wanted some time to go home. Well when Friday Afternoon finally came around they had no flatbed trainer/mentors available.
Here is where I have a little problem. It was looking bad on Thursday mentor wise, So Friday Morning I told the gentleman handling the flatbed trainees that it was fine if they sent me home to wait for a mentor, I had some tasks to handle there. I had looked up the time the bus was leaving Friday and none of them were good.
They either Got me home at midnight, no ride home from station, or I had to hang out at the Phoenix station until 1am so I would arrive at a time I could get a ride home.
This guy could careless about how this would turn out. He said he would have to get authorization to have me stay one more night at the hotel. He didn't even try to get that authorization. Here was another silly thing. There had been another gentleman going flatbed, and he lived in Oklahoma. At 3pm they hand him his bus pass and lolly gag getting him to the bus station before his 4:20pm leave time. His ride was at least a 20 hour ride home. I could tell the trainee DM really didn't care so much about our predicaments, it was one big "bum rush" to get us out of his hair.
Here was what I had to do to get home. The bus leave time for me would have put me at the for-mentioned slummy home town bus station at midnight and I would have had to wait there or wake someone up to come get me. The route I had to choose so I could get a ride home and not have to wait at the local arm pit bus station was to wait until the next bus came. That one left at 1:45am. So I parked me and my three bags next to a wall socket and waited almost 10 hours at the Phoenix bus station and watch some movies and shows I had on my lap top. Darn hard concrete floor. Thank god the bus driver on the ride home kept us straight as an arrow. Now I wait for a Mentor. I'm looking forward to being out on the road. Well the cat and the GF are happy to see me...

 

And one more thing. I spent 5 days at Swift headquarters in Phoenix. I asked several different people what the password was to get into Swifts WIFI system. I was given many different password by people with laptops running at the Drivers Center there. Not one worked. I still don't know that password...

 

I have a nice Swift Driver Number and now been sitting at home for 10 days now.
Kind of stressful sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. No Flatbed Mentors available. I did get to spend time with my son for Father's Day, we went to Disneyland.
Thank goodness we had passes to D-land it can be rather costly to go there.
I'm not sure how long I can hold out on this. I'm not making money, and I don't think California's unemployment covers me at this point. I have my bags packed and can leave at a moments notice. I'm bugging the crap out of the Swift Trainer People and my Recruiter. I'm trying to be positive on this, but there does come a time to be realistic and pull the plug on this and find another company or something. Leaving some poor schlub hanging for weeks is poor planning. We will see as Wednesday approaches.

 

Ok, Now we are talking. The adventure starts in earnest tomorrow at 4pm. Taking another crappy bus ride to El Paso. Heading out to parts eastward on Friday. I talked to the Mentor on the phone, and he sounds like a good guy. I can't wait to hit the road.

 

Finally on the road, actual honest to goodness truck driving going on here. My mentor is a great guy, positive attitude, understanding as hell as I grind his gears. In Texarkana on our way to Rhode Island. Life is good
Junkero

 

Started out near Bristol Virginia, this morning, Rhode Island, tonight. I'm kind of frustrated that the shifting is still not up to par on my part. Mentor is being patient with me, this is a long haul so we do more driving that shifting. My mentor loves Rap Music, some night while he is sleeping I'll play come country or something to rock him to sleep...

 

What a day! Started out in Rhode Island. We had to go around a bunch of construction in Connecticut, I saw lots of nice old houses and some beautiful scenery. Dropped off our Trailer off at the New Jersey terminal, and headed to Atlantic City. Now sitting in a nice air conditioned hotel with a shower. No truck stop nearby. In the morning we pick some a trailer for a well known band. Tomorrow my trainer and I are rodies..grin