Swift...... I enjoy my job

I was assuming you were not talking to me Nana.
I was writing that after reading all the pages since I had last checked in.
It was long, but only half of the post I would have written if I had gotten into my full spiel on many of the topics.
I could write a freakin book, but It would be boring and all full of stats and crap on how to create a good profitable trucking company, that also pays its drivers well.
As I said, nobody would read it.
Swift may quickly get into having it's issues again. With Jerry looking to sell some stock and make it a public company again.
As soon as stock holders get involved in a trucking company it normally goes down hill fast. All they look for is the bottom line, and a trucking company's biggest expense is it's drivers. So they are the first to loose out.

That mentality almost drove swift out of business just before Jerry bought them back. Share holders in a trucking company should have 0 say in operations. They can have all the degrees they want, it will not help them run a trucking company.
This has been proven time and time again as the educated children of trucking company owners take them over and run them down.
The board does the same thing.

 

"Long Timers"?????? Polite terminology for "OLD FARTS" I guess!

DM's and Fleet Managers don't generate good freight to trucks...you need to make and retain Planners as your friends. But it does come with a price...if they need your help you can't say no...even to a 100 or less mile plan...but if that "crappy puddle jump" run does come to your truck...it is usually followed by one or more good runs "stacked". In fact, the closer you are to planners...the more grief a DM can put you in. Doesn't make any sense since you are putting good miles on your DM's stats, and the DM doesn't have to do the work...but they (DM's) have egos too.

 

Just comes with the territory. I hear it everyday on the radio. But I also, pretty much equally, have good exchanges over the radio with folks that know I'm driving a Swift truck. You drive like an idiot, you'll get called out. It's not just Swift because I hear them call anyone out. Swift gets it more (it seems) because there are more of them out there.

That's how it goes most of the time. Most of it is flocking. One person has a bad experience and tells his friend. Next thing you know the next 100 people that hear about that first guys bad experiences now all of a sudden hate Swift and think that all Swift drivers are non-driving idiots.I guarantee that well over half the people that bad-mouth Swift and/or it's drivers have never worked for them and are only going by what they've heard/read. What I find humor in, though, is the people that have the time and effort to come up with "funny" phrases to put down the company. Yeah.

 

Yessir! That's what some of these drivers don't understand. I see them day in and day out coming up to the dispatch window asking for a load and when told there is one picking up about 20 miles from the terminal and delivering about 100 miles away, they start ranting and raving about the little miles on it. Little do they know, in refusing that load, they probably simultaneously refused a 750+ mile load, lolol. When I was OTR, my "N" button was missing from my QC.

 

I did a little "fill-in" work for Walmart (Robert LA DC) and Home Depot. It was kind of a PITA for an inexperienced driver (at least for this inexperienced driver). This "fill-in" work was followed by dispatches of 1196 and 1385 miles. Probably just coincidence, but maybe not. I think that, expecially early in "newbiehood", every dispatch can bring a new learning experience. It could be a bad, new learning experience but it is experience nonetheless and increases the slope on the learning curve a little more dramatically than day-in-day-out, Point A to Point B dispatches. Just my $0.01 worth....I'll get up to $0.02 in a couple of years!

 

Right after you have put aside all the good information you have gained from your year on TTR!


Did you see that....OBGYN is having a ONE YEAR birthday party next month here on TTR!!!!!!!!!

 

Wow. I just love it when someone who is not part of the company b****es about the pay scale and available mileage.

*ahem* I will start from when I worked here as a company driver. My average was 11,500 miles per month as a solo. Let's do the math on that:

11.5K x 12 = 138,000
138,000 / 52 = 2650 give or take a few.

When I left Swift as a company driver, I was making 34cpm. So:

2650 x .34 = $901/week gross or $46,852/year.
But that didn't include the mileage bonus I collected each and every month I was here. They have since stopped the mileage bonus (I think) but have other ways to reward productivity. Like choice of loads, among other things.

Since I've been back as an owner/operator:
This past week, the loads I ran paid 3,270 loaded and 117 deadhead miles but I actually ran 3,678 practical miles, including the side trip I made for my own purposes that was about 100 miles. So we'll just subtract that 100 miles. So:

3,578 - 3387 = 191 "over" mileage, or 5.3% of total. Not too bad.

And I'm thinking 3,387 paid miles from Tuesday to Monday isn't so bad either, at 92cpm base plus (I think) 28cpm fuel, or $1.20/mile. $4,064 gross. Minus fixed costs of around $1K = $3,064...minus about 550 gallons of fuel (yes, my truck really does get 7 mpg and better) so $1,650 at $3/gallon leaves me $1,414...out of which I will pay taxes and set roughly 10cpm aside against future repairs and emergencies. After taxes and business accounts, I have about $850 cash in hand. Remember, I would have that entire $1,400...if I wasn't thinking of this as a business.

And that's just one week.

All this being said, the reason some Swift drivers don't get miles and then sit around the terminals b****ing about it is they turn down runs they consider to be too short. After turning so many loads down, dispatch finally says, "Fine...this guy wants to sit, let him sit." While those guys were out there complaining and talking smack about the company, I was at the dispatch window asking what's available. 150 mile run? Sure...what do you have to back it up with? Oh...I see...you want to run me 150 loaded miles so I can pick up a 1,500 mile run. No problem...sign me up. So the first three days of my week, I've already knocked out 1,650 miles and still have 4 days left. And getting loads to run.

Sitting at docks? I have sat at exactly two docks for more than two hours since I've been back. I came back at the beginning of July. Two docks out of 34 loads. And while I was sitting at those docks, I was busy on my computer chatting with Ms. Nana and some of the great folks here. Not very productive, sure, but not completely miserable either. The bulk of my work is drop/hook. Have to log that as I do it...but how long does it really take to drop a trailer, hook another trailer and do a walkaround?

But, Swift is a terrible company, I have no idea why anyone would ever want to work here and oh, by the way, they cheat their drivers. Riiiiight.

P.S.: Turnover rates are so high because so many people start into this business and then realize it really isn't for them. And Swift isn't going to "make" them stay if they don't want to. Check the real success rate for any training program. They will be about the same across the board. Why do some other companies have a lower turnover rate? Probably because they won't hire someone until they have 3 years experience with no accidents. But you can't walk in off the street with that. You have to earn that.

 

That isn't fair Injun...hitting them with actual, correctly broken down numbers. But I can almost guarantee there will be someone who will find some fault in your "system" since it JUST CAN'T BE SINCE IT IS SWIFT!

Congratulations on a good return!

 

Sitting at the dock waiting ..........wasn't that an Otis Redding song?

Is it just me or does Injun get y'all all excited when she posts? Her posts make me want to grab my tire thumper and go jiggy on somebody.

OH......I fogot to put "trip planners". You know what I like about our fleet? Our fleet manager won't do the "window thing. You can walk right into the office and up to the trip planners and dm desks. We all talk, visit and watch each others backs.

 

It's not all Swift, although they certainly have a hand in it.

It is largely Taiowa Transportation, LLC.

Swift is not responsible for my success or failure. I am.