Swift chooses 90 day exp over 7 yrs

Their insurance covered me as long as one of them were in the truck with me.
But now this doesn't count as exp on my driving record

 

No offense intended and I don't question your abilities. But I doubt there are any O/O smart to this business going to "throw" you the keys to a rig and say hop to it. They will want seasoned drivers with prior experience. Fact being O/Os are probably more difficult to go to work for than small and mid-sized companies.

 

No offense taken Carolina. Its just frustrating out her for the guys trying to make a living at this.

 

Au contraire! I had a discussion with a Swift recruiter just yesterday who told me " the way to make money your first year is to be a trainer ". He was trying to contrast that way of making extra money with more miles as a solo driver.

Silly me, I said " It makes no intuitive sense to me how I, as a new driver to the world of big rigs, could be " training " anyone in a meaningful way. "

His response? " Oh, absolutely we do it all the time ".

That being said, he was not talking about my training someone else with only three loads, but a few months of driving under my belt.

 

I've heard great things about Maverick. Now, I work with Swift and unlike a lot of people... I've had more or less a good experience with them. Just recently have they done something to screw me and I'm looking at ways of fighting it off my record. At least my fleet and driver managers are going to bat for me there and trying to help me, even if the company is trying to dick me over. However, my mentors were great. My dry van mentor was a tad pushy and always wanted to log illegal to which I gave him a flat no -- extra money isn't worth going to prison or a guilty conscience of killing someone. I've always stood by that even now that I'm solo. I'd rather bring home 950-1150 dollars a week than push for that extra 2-300 dollars of bring home pay if it means I have to drive even a single minute illegal or tired. I won't do it. So, my dry van mentor was the type who WOULD take advantage of you if you let him. I didn't and had no problems.

I couldn't have asked for a better flatbed mentor, however. Truly great guy who answered every single question I had and always helped me load and unload, shared all the responsibilites. I always looked at it like this, if you would consider team driving with your mentor for a living you had a pretty dang good mentor. I would team drive with my flatbed mentor if he ever asked me and we got a good run. He was an excellent human being.

So, don't buy into all of the generalizations. There are definitely bad mentors (and I don't think Swift has a monopoly on them, either -- I've seen several bad ones at other companies) but there are also some great ones. If you get on a truck with a bad mentor? Simply demand to be taken off the truck.

 

Recruiters lie. I'm telling you, Swift will not put you in as a trainer with a "few months" experience. You can apply to be a trainer after six months however, from what I hear, it's next to impossible to actually be accepted as a mentor before your first year. Which is still too soon, IMO. To be a mentor with Swift you can't have any service failures, accidents (major, $1500+) in the last three years, major log violations, DOT citations etc...

This crap about them just making anyone a mentor is ridiculous and the fact you think everything a recruiter tells you is truthful is comical. Recruiters are, for the most part, dishonest at the core.

 

Thanks for the reply. Some great advise here.
I have applied with Maverick just today. I see where this gets me.

Thanks again

 

I see there is no winning with you people. Look, I work with the company. I've read the Informer and Driver Handbook and the things you guys are suggesting is ridiculous. If you wish to knock Swift have at it -- a lot of it is deserved, IMO. However, this stuff about mentors with 30 days experience and 3 loads etc... etc... is flat out bulls***. But I just work for the company and have access to all of the handbooks, policies and Informer Kiosk... what the hell would I know, right?