Swift Is Good

Apparently you forgotten your own post, this was answering your post.

 

I believe you missed the point... while there drivers who want to change things for the btter, and to see things, like wages, changed for the better... that ain't going to happen as long as there are so many apathetic enough to think that working 24/7 with 3 or 4 days off a a month, and getting paid $350 a week gross... god.. $450 then! is a good or even fair wage. Please consider your $450 a week and then divide by the number of days you will work (approx. 26) which means you are getting paid $69 a day. But wait... you work and are on the job 24 hours a day... so hourly.. it costs Swift $2.88 an hour to drive that truck and to work for them...

Now tell me... who's got the good deal and who's the gettin screwed?

You see, the problem with ALL these big companies is just this... and the problem with drivers who don't look at the entire scenerio is that they see $500 a week!!! or $450 a week!!! but fait to undertsand that they aren't even making minimum wage... infact, I did this math for another driver with a years experience who made $49,000 last year, driving 4-6 weeks at a time... his actual gross pay worked out to $6.19 per hour for actual time worked.

The driver like the one you just disrespected works for a company and is paid by the hour PLUS mileage in some cases... and is paid for every hour worked! This is how ALL drivers should be paid, but it won't happen and will never be, as long as people like you come along and think working for free is a great deal!

As for school... no one paid me to go to college either so I never expected anyone to pay me to get my CDL at school. Not a good comparison. And the driver mills have actually made it easier to put drivers on the road... so I don't believe it's harder than 20 years ago... lol.

Thanks for listening.. and good luck. Be safe.

 

first of all ... these are TRAINING wages, not a salary. you wouldn't find me leaving my current job for a 450/wk (or even 500/wk) salary. for those that cannot or chose not to remember, training wages are generally less than what a person earns normally. you have to get your start somehow and i'm willing to make the sacrifice but you wouldn't catch me doing it if i thought there was nothing more to it than 500/wk.

no one in this field works 24 hrs a day either. last i checked, we were bound by this thing called hours of service. so the most you're working - worst case scenario - is 14hrs/day. you are misrepresenting data and trying to manipulate readers of this thread into believing you actually have a point.

i could really care less about how someone else is paid. otr is either a means to an end or something you do because you enjoy it. there are plenty of opportunities for other jobs that do pay better, you're right, but in the mean time, a person has to gain experience by working their way up the ladder. you're right, i am totally okay with this - as are the numerous other people who replied to the thread after my rude post. so it's not just me ... i guess there are other idiots out there too.

point is this: no one's forcing you to do what we're trying to do. personally, all i want out of this is some experience so i can move onto greener pastures. and, if swift is a good fit, then that's a decision for me to make, right? "F"(orget) what you think about it.

 

Never said I was being forced into anything... your point is well taken. I guess. What is your point? You are willing to work for free (or peanuts). So have fun.

"F" what I think about it? Now that's nice. lmao... why do you feel you have to disrespect everyone you comment on? yer a funny guy... don't spend all that money in one place. And..... drive safe.

 

My boyfriend started school with swift in january. He chose swift because the promise of making about $1000 a week, freedom, and the fact that they told him that it would be no problem for him to split his hometime between me and his child in another state.

First the school was a nightmare... he started in TN and had to be transferred to TX half way through and started over due to the FBI shutting down the TN school. Then his mentor was a mental case who constantly put her truck into shop status when she was running late. This resulted in swift saying he hadnt actually spent enough time on the road due to being in the shop so he had to stay out longer. Finally when all was said and done, he had to wait three weeks for a truck.

The pay... I wish we could go back to student pay. That $450 a week was more than hes making now. Since he got his truck in may hes gotten 1 $1300 check and 1 $750... The rest have been under $300. You cant live off of that. The reasons are numerous, they cant find him an empty, the truck broke down, shipper didnt have supply (had to wait all day), I could go on and on.

The managment is crap. Today, they couldnt even give him an address to his shipper. Apparently it didnt have one... when he called for help they told him that they couldnt help him and that his best course of action was to contact local law enforcement for an address and directions. This was after he spent all day running from one place to another looking for an empty. And his DM refuses calls unless they are an emergency. This often results in waiting ALL DAY for a response on the qualcomm.

And then trying to get home time is a joke. Last time they told him he wasnt due any because he had 2 days off in VA... it was 2 days they didnt have work for him. Now, hes been trying to get home for 2 weeks. And todays mess up with the empty will put him even further behind. This is not a good company if you have people waiting for you at home. The stress in us is often unbearable, we never get to see our loved ones and having to look at small paychecks makes it even worse. You think... why are we doing this?

All I can say is use them and lose them. I know how hard it is to get started in this industry for you guys. I've watched by boyfriend struggle when this job was suppsed to be the answer to our financial prayers. Pay off the school ASAP and then get out.

 

I can tell you exactly why I'm with Swift. I did local work in Seattle for several years and decided that Seattle was too expensive to continue to live in, so I moved to Colorado Springs, I figured this would be a perfect time to go OTR.

I called and talked to tons of companies and Swift was the only one that would hire me, apparently local work does not count as experience to the insurance companies. Swift said they would hire me and send me out with a mentor for 6 weeks if I could pass a road test and DOT physical. This was the best deal I could find. Every other company wanted me to go through their school and owe them $3-4k if I didn't stick with them for a year, unacceptable. I already had plenty of experience and a clean record, there is no reason I should owe anyone any money or be trapped with them for a year in that situation. It also helped that I have over $10k in hand to start out with so the $350/$400/$500 per week wasn't such a big financial hit.

In seven days I will have been with Swift for a year, there have been good times and bad, but overall the experience has been positive and I do not regret my decision to go with them. I will probably stay with them until I have the cash on hand to purchase a truck without a loan. My monthly bills only add up to $700(including rent) so this is not an unreasonable goal to achieve in a fairly short amount of time.

Right now my next step is to become a Mentor so I can assure that some people get a good start in the company/industry.

 

Well, I've been looking at Swift for several months. The one thing I like about them is they have Terminals everywhere. Some are probably better than others, but still they're there.

Having money saved up before a guys goes on his training expedition is a pretty good idea. Thanks for your story Lumberman, it is really helpful in my decision.

 

Do you think a union job will take a newbie and put you in one of their trucks?
The answer is heck no they will not you will have to work on the dock first untill they decide to put you in their truck.

You having a cdl means nothing to them in the union they will put you in the truck when they want usually 1 year after you start with them.

Just because you do not want to work for the training wage you do not need to talk down about the people that will put in their time with a training company for that pay.

You do not work 24/7 on the truck you will not generally work more than 14 hours a day.
If you think any union job will pay their drivers 24/7 while they are on the truck driving over the road you may be sadly mistaken.
If you think companies should put the drivers up in a motel again you are mistaken.
You have to do what you have to do if you want to drive otr.

Personally I am getting the feeling that you were one of the people that washed out from your training company, you could not pass their driving test or maybey something else went wrong.

 

Another thing I dislike about union jobs, this is from experience, I used to be a teamster, you sit on a #### list if you're out of work waiting, then when you do get hired on you get treated like dirt by the company you work for because of the your Union "brothers" who think its with thier rights to act like ##### H0LES, for no other reason than them being union. Thank you but no. I most likely will not work for a union shop again.

Im from the Chicago area, maybe its different elsewhere, someone correct me if Im wrong

 

mr. g ... thanks ... i could probably learn a thing or two from you. glad to see someone is getting what i've been struggling to say here. hope to see ya out there someday.

i've heard this same thing from teamsters in my area. however, when you're working, you're earning some good coin ... but what about the other 6mos out of the year? i got an uncle-inlaw that's in AK and he's been sitting waiting for teamster work for the better part of a year (he's a trucker). i'm sure some of that's freight in alaska, but i'll tell you what: being a teamster doesn't put food on my family's table ... paychecks do. and, even if they're less than union wages, they're still money and they happen year-round.

the one union job i'd look at though ... UPS. those package delivery guys make some good money and have decent benefits too!