Swift Flatbed Division... ?!

To answer the question very late in the game... You are paid for the last 2 days of orientation at the minimum wage for your home terminal. Whatever terminal you do orientation at will be the home terminal for at least the duration of your mentorship. If the minimum wage in your state of domicile is less than that of the terminal, you get the higher wage if the two.

Then you go to securement, also paid. In Phoenix, it was paid at 65 dollars per day, plus a bit of tarp pay I believe. It's very easy days work. You basically carry some heavy tarps and then carry them back. That's it. After that you tear down and re secure a few loads. If anyone comes into the terminal with a load that needs to be broken down, you do that. If they have a load going out, you secure it.

There would be times we would be standing around waiting on the flatbed safety guy in Phoenix and someone would come in, so we just took the initiative and went to see what they were carrying and how it was secured. The reward was usually that we were normally told to fold the dudes tarps and carry them to the catwalk. If you have ever had a real job in your life, you won't find flatbed difficult to do in terms of workload. I imagine climate will change my time a bit. But the work itself isn't super hard. Compared to other fleets, it's slave labor, but that sit saying much. I'm stuck hauling reefer and practically beg stores to let me unload these #### things just to get some exercise lol

 

Almost had a very serious accident this morning in Houston. I was heading to my second stop and exiting from 610S to 610E when a truck apparently hydroplaned into the barrier. As I was changing lanes to avoid, two other vehicles in front of me had the same idea. They both hydroplaned and collided. So I tried to shoot the gap, while slamming both feet on the brakes. My sleeping mentor ate a face full of dashboard and shifter knob. The guy in the first truck had gotten out to survey the damage and I was maybe a foot from pinning him against a guardrail and a 20 foot drop. And a woman was ejected from one of the other vehicles and I almost ran her over. She was dead on the scene. No other injuries that I know of. They canceled life flight.

So I am on the phone with dispatch letting them know I'm going to be late because there was an accident, and the first question was "is the load okay?" Followed by a hard braking event notification on the Qualcomm and a message that basically reprimands me for my following distance.

Apparently my following distance wasn't too bad if I stopped from 64 to zero and avoided making contact.

Let that be a lesson guys and gals... Always look into the future, and no matter what, that load is the most important thing.

 

Okay, today was the last straw and I have requested a new mentor.

Yesterday we got back from Houston and the near death experience. I woke up to find that we wouldn't have a load last night. Suspicious because Target has never NOT had a load. The only time they didn't was Thanksgiving and even then when we asked for one, they gave us a load going to Austin with 5 stops, 500 miles round trip. But I didn't say anything as I knew it wouldn't be but a good night of rest and they would have one in the morning. What was suspicious about it was that the mentor left me with the truck and told me to drive on his line 5(illegal) and park the bobtail at the same Pilot I took my previous 76 hours at. Well first of all, I told him to get ####ed, I'm not driving on his clock to even the stop sign at the FDC. So I logged onto my own clock and against company policy, drove myself to the truck stop, which of course was so full that I couldn't even park in the fuel island like the rest of these savages.

Fortunately, the Cabellas across the street has an RV and truck parking lot, so I parked it just in time to prevent getting a violation. I went to sleep and woke up to a load alert on the Qualcomm and the Dial In app on my phone. Houston with a turn around and 7 stops. Same run as the day before, where I almost died. Well, a run is a run, just get me moving. Go drive to the truck stop up the street, again against company policy, and burn some of my shower power and eat breakfast and take all of my money off the comdata card before they find a reason to take it back.

Come back out and no load... Hmm, weird, it was just there! So I text the mentor and ask if he accepted it or rejected it. He said that he didn't accept fast enough. Ok cool, I will just sit here in the truck.

At this point I knew he was lying to me. Target aren't some #####es like that. They give you more than 30 minutes to accept a load that anyone would take. 850 miles round trip, with 400 deadhead miles paid at the loaded rate, with 7 stops at 35 a piece. Every owner op would take that load. Even a company driver would take that load.

So I called Target dispatch and asked them what the deal was and they said we had rejected the load. Funny, I know I didn't reject it. So I requested another load, any load, the longest haul they could possibly give us and the next one they had available isn't until tomorrow(night probably) and won't be sent until 7am when they send them. So I message the mentor back, not mentioning that I knew he had lied directly to me about it, and told him I called them and a new load offer would be sent at 7am and whatever it was, no matter what, I was accepting it. And he told me that I'm not accepting anything, he needs to make sure he will be able to get back and take it.

I told him to come back and sit in the truck at the truck stop with me until tomorrow and he would know for certain he could, otherwise he needed to be up at 7am to accept the load.

He told me that I need to not tell him what to do and worry about myself.

So I did. I was on the phone with the driver development coordinator within 2 minutes explaining the situation, talking about everything I didn't bother to call them about previously because I'm not a ##### like that... And also requesting my 50 dollars for every day that I have had to sit on this truck or in a hotel while he did whatever it is he does.

Coordinator looks and see that in 4 weeks now, my utilization is... Ready for this?

127 behind the wheel hours! He looked at that and asked me if I wanted a smoking or non smoking mentor. Simple as that. If I didn't think I would get an abandonment on my DAC, I would leave the key in the truck and catch an uber to my house. I'm pretty close to doing that actually.

If they don't resolve this ####, I'm getting on the phone with the Maverick and Melton recruiters that keep blowing my phone up and correcting what seems to have been a very big mistake. I swear my only issues with Swift to this point have been mentor related, but I have only dealt with the dedicated Target dispatch and load planners. So maybe it will be worse dealing with the terminals and their various flunkies. I don't know.

8200 miles in 127 hours is an average of 64 mph. In a 68mph truck, doing dedicated target runs that are pretty much all city miles. Doesn't take a genius to figure out who the problem is. No service failures. No accidents. One hard braking incident report because an accident unfolded so I had to change lanes, where another accident unfolded so I locked them up to prevent killing someone. I'm safe, fast, efficient and I deserve to be trained to use those skills in all terrain and in all weather. Not happening with this guy.

Sad because he is a great teacher, very calm and doesn't get over critical about my boneheaded mistakes. He should work at the academy where he can go home every day and not worry about money.

Won't be too long before he's turning in his truck at the rate he doesn't take loads. At any rate, I don't want him to blame me, because I run my ### off every time I get the chance.