Starting at Swift 1/19/10

A company has two reputations. One of them is the actions of their drivers which earns comments such as those by Palazon (yes I realize it was meant in good fun, but it is still an earned reputation.) The other is how the company treats their drivers.

While there is nothing I can do about the latter, I hope to do my part to improve the former.

 

Thanks for the advice there. I've already been through an outside cdl school, not a company school like you did. Did all the backing and driving and all that. Got my cdl in Sept, 09. Even started at another company and was on the trainers truck for 2 weeks, but for reasons that aren't important here, I'm no longer there. The important thing is that now I have a second chance and I'm going to do my best to not blow it.

Having a good attitude, a strong work ethic, and confidence in yourself will get you somewhere. Even with all of that going for you, the company can, and quite possibly will, screw you for no reason. All you can really do is do the best you can and face the challenges head on.

Good luck to you and I hope to see you all on the road!

 

Well, made it back from orientation last night, so I'll give an update. The info that my recruiter gave me said that orientation is 3 days. I don't know if it is the same at all terminals (I would think it would be), but orientation is only 2 days. There were 18 people in orientation with me, a couple were rehires, and a couple were experienced, but we all had to go thru the same stuff. Tuesday morning was spent doing physicals and drug tests, and a little bit of paperwork.

After the physicals, we went out for roadtests, usually about 3 or 4 at a time. This was basically a quick run up the road to see if you can handle the truck, turn safely, and shift. At this point, I'm thinking that Swift may be hurting for drivers, because I had heard stories about a couple of other newbies (and one guy there had 30 yrs experience, couldn't downshift, and coasted across the tracks out of gear!) who had some real issues. Such as not being trained to double clutch, but can't really float either. He never could recover a gear, had to come to a full stop 3 times, and when the instructor told him where to turn or go, he seemed confused about what to do and never watched the trailer. I know that they will be going out with a mentor and learn how to do all the right stuff, but you have to have a good basis to start with. I admit, I wasn't perfect. I ground the gears just a little and missed one shift but was able to recover. I guess I'm just amazed that some of these guys even made it thru school and got their cdl and didn't get dropped yet. I guess I was just trained better than that and have higher expectations of myself.

Tuesday afternoon was some more paperwork and some videos. Pretty much the usual stuff. Wednesday was more of the same. Videos and paperwork. The shop manager came up and spoke to us for a while concerning the equipment, how the trucks are setup, and so on. The afternoon was spent with some more videos and then a quick log class.

After that, our student driver manager spoke with us briefly and then we were cut loose. I guess normally they have some mentors there ready for some of us, while others will return home and wait. This time there was some kind of problem with our paperwork or something so they couldn't get any of us "coded" into the system to "hire" us, so we all got sent home.

All in all, I would say "So far, so good." I'm waiting now to hear back about when I get started, which hopefully will be soon. Then it's 6 weeks out with a mentor!

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. I'll answer when I can. Web access is a little difficult right now, but I'll check when I can.