My Time With Swift

Good luck to you Ironrider. Not every company is a good fit for everyone. For example, it was just a year ago that I was on the hunt, looking for a company to go with just like you. I even looked at FFE, but for whatever reason I don't remember now, I passed. One thing I think you may have overlooked or missed concerning Swift and their fees for the school, yes they do take out the fees for that each week during the first year of employment with them. That is just common sense and all companies with their own training programs do that. But not all of them will pay that money back to you during your second year of employment like Swift does. So essentially, if you can stick it out with Swift for 2 years (and that really shouldn't be as hard as some make it sound), your training would be totally free costwise.

 

Your comments about your dealings with the two different recruiters are a perfect example of what I've been saying about companies are made up of the people who work for them. Take that for what it is worth.

If you want to pull reefer, Swift does have a reefer division as well. I cannot answer any questions reqarding it because I don't do reefer, so therefore I know nothing about it. To me, the only benefit to reefer is the broader load opportunities that are offered to you. With a reefer trailer you can haul both dry and reefer loads. With the dry van, you only get dry. On the down side, you have a higher probability that more of your stops are going to be live load/unloads than you would have with a dry van. And when I say live load/unload with a reefer, I'm not talking about waiting for an hour and you are on your way. I was at a grocery dc this past week (so yes, this does happen to dry vans as well, but more frequently with reefers) with an 18:00 appointment. They told me to tune my cb to chl 7 and they would call me when they had a door. After 4 hours of listening to them call drivers with appointments after mine, and listening to other drivers say this is standard operating procedures for grocery dc's and one guy had waited 12 hours the last time he was there, I finally got a knock on my door telling me to drop my trailer in a door and grab an empty.

Dry van is mostly drop and hook, but we do get live stuff too. I think the longest I've ever waited for a live load or unload was 5 hours, but that kind of stuff is rare. If I could remember, I could probably count on one hand how many times that has happened. Oh, and just because it was supposed to be a preloaded trailer you are picking up, don't bet on it. That 5 hour wait was for a preloaded trailer that wasn't loaded yet. And I arrived to pick it up at the end of the pick up window I had been given.

When dealing with starter companies, hope for everything, expect nothing.

 

Wow! I must have been really busy. Been relagated to the 2nd page. Guess it's time to bring back to the top.

Sometimes I really feel like a yo-yo. It seems like they get me on a route sometimes and just get me going back and forth. 2 weeks ago, I picked up a load in Columbus to get me home which was going to Missouri.

After I was done visiting the family, I left out on sunday and headed for Missouri. Hit a little bit of snow heading out, but nothing real serious...until I hit the Indiana-Illinois border. Then all hell broke loose. Well, ok, maybe not, but things were definately getting dicey. Stuff got real bad when I got onto I-72 heading west. The winds were gusting about 50 mph and had the snow blowing so bad you could hardly see. Had an east bound driver call out on the cb to hit the breaks cuz there was a jackknife immediately in front of me. Manage to come to a stop safely, then looked in the mirror to see a a couple of cars behind me sliding off, then a truck with his trailer not in a straight line. He did manage to stop safely, but I bet he needed to change his shorts! There were cars and pick ups hitting the ditches all over. Managed to get through that mess ok and made it to my final with no further adventures.

My next load went to the Chicagoland area, then I went to Pennsylvania, then to Wisconsin, then back to PA. Back and forth, back and forth. Then they broke the pattern and sent me to Virginia, then from there I went to Kansas City, MO where I sit now. I've got a load from the terminal here going to St. Louis. First step in getting me home by friday...I hope in time for Christmas.

The weekend crew from Memphis really made my hit list this past weekend. My load going from Wisconsin was about 850 miles going to PA. I picked it up on friday and had an appointment time late monday morning. I had plenty of time for a 34 reset so there I sat and planned on leaving sunday morning. At midnight saturday night, my qc beeps with a message that this load can deliver early and I should get rolling to ensure an ontime delivery. They woke me up for this?! Yeah I was hot. I informed them I was finishing my 34 and thanked them for waking me up in the middle of the fkn night and hoped I wouldn't be too tired to drive in the morning when I planned on leaving. Didn't hear from them again after that. I gotta wonder if that was her first night on the job.

Enough with the madness, 'tis the holiday season.

I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and plenty of safe miles!