Swift...... I enjoy my job

Out on the road you will see some of it.
Mostly it is in jokes and small comments, mostly not all that serious cookie.
Many of us still are nice to other drivers we meet on the road. Willing to lend a hand if we see someone with an issue we can help with.
Or just to hold the door coming or going from the truck stop, and wishing people we pass a good day.
I try at all times to be nice to my fellow drivers on the road. It does not cost me anything to be nice, so why be a jerk.
Sure you will find bad apples in every basket.
It is the same in any business. Many of the jerks in other fields are the bosses, in trucking there really are no bosses in the trucks. The boss is normally some college educated person that knows almost nothing of what it is like on the road in a truck.
But they feel they are better than you because they have a degree.
I personally do not do well with that mentality. So I save my ire for the people that act like that in respect to me.
Drivers however are just drivers.
We come from all parts of the country, from all backgrounds. Many of us are college educated, or retired from other fields. So I have much more respect for my fellow drivers than I do for any desk jockey in this industry. And I can tell you that allot of the drivers out here could do a much better job behind that desk than they can.
Because we know what it takes to move the freight.

On the swift thing.
I commented early because for some reason people do not see the miles some of these drivers are putting in. Many that leave the training company's do so because
1. they are burned out from running.
2. they figure out that trucking is not for them.
3. the grass is always greener.
and many other reasons.

I never worked for Swift. I did work for Central Refrigerated. Another company that is owned by Jerry.
We were the same way at that time as swift, with the miles.
When I was full OTR with them I took home 800-1000 per week. While on starting pay. Remember, they have .08 cpm perdiem. This made it so that my take home was almost exactly the same as my gross.
I did not like it at tax time, but it made it easy to know what I would take home every week.
Swift drivers, due to running dry freight have more chances for drop and hook freight. So they have a greater chance of better miles than Central.
Swift and Central run the same way.
They bid on long distance freight SUPER cheap. They do not make much per load, almost like JB use to do. They aim for .01 cpm profit. And keep a very narrow margin.
As long as they can get the contracts, and deliver on time most of the time they will keep the contracts. Because they are bidding .10-.25 cpm cheaper than anyone else can touch the freight for.
The more drivers you have the more cost you have.
These are employee's. You have to pay for benefits, social security, Medicaid, etc. On each one. If you have less employees doing more work it will increase profit margin. Paying a lower rate of pay per driver lowers what they need to charge also. And it will give the drivers incentive to want to run more hours.

I was going to comment on how to legally run 4000 miles per week. By using a reset every 6 days, but I do not think it is necessary. And it is rare that you really can get dispatched well enough to make it work often.

 

dick jones pay close attention to this . This will help you understand how it can be done. I will not justify myself to you or anubody else herewe all thought the pissing contest was over y bring it back up?

 

I agree with that FACT but I also know that isn't the way this mentor runs his training nor is it the way our fleet manager runs his fleet. It's a special thing.

Actually I think all drivers in training should have to spend at least a week on a fleet like ours. Most trucks running out of the DC do at least 3-4 dockings a day and that's the long haul trucks that are solo, team, mentor trucks that go on to pick up back hauls. We also deal with close quarters and it'd be good training to have to learn to dock in the middle of customers, idiot drivers and all the junk walmart store managers think they should store in the dock area.

As for the guy that called me fat........I just figure I can get back on my diet (which I was already planning to do lol) and lose more weight but he can not lose the fact he's a jerk.

Plus.....us fluffy girls will keep ya warm in the winter and shady in the summertime.

 

I think some of the long timers who are mentors or teams can pretty well call their own shots as to runs. They build the relationship with the DM and the fleet manager. They get good pickings. Even we have a little clout on our fleet. We don't use it except to ask for days off to see the grandkids but our DMs and trip planners know they can count on us to run our hearts out if the loads are heavy and we'll take the low mile local runs if they're backed up just to help out. So you "earn" favors.

 

OBGYN said you were in this video Nana!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDY4nR1IqCs

 

Oh crap....here comes another one!!!

 

I'm not going to view either video......so there!


Dick Jones....do I understand correctly? You're planning to ask a friend of yours to violate Swift employee privacy and look into another drivers' records and tell you what the records show?

Please tell me I've misunderstood. Surely I've misunderstood.

 

I hope you know you're not who I was telling to bite my DOT bar?

 

Thats what it sounds like to me. Lets hope his 'friend' is smarter and tells him he is not risking his job just to satisfy his cuiosity. Seems it would be simpler to just have a cup of coffee with the fellow driver and perhaps learn what he knows to get planned like he does. onlyg8tors is definately someone that is all about teaching and helping to make better drivers, not trying to inflate his ego on the web. We all know how communication in this medium can sometimes come off with the wrong intent or be taken wrong by a reader.

Just my 2 cents

-SgailDreugan