Swift Training Completed

Well completed 8 weeks of training with Swift. I went 2 extra weeks for the pay and some additional backing I thought I needed. I had a pretty good experience overall and learned alot.

My mentor I rated overall as good. He could have been rated excellent but at times he was very impatient, knew everything about trucking and would talk down to me about my skills but he would in the end tell me I did good. My biggest learning curve was backing the alley dock. He has been driving for over 30 years and he was excellent at it but he expected me to be as good as him in 2 months. He is on a dedicated account for Dollar Tree which requires unloading of up to 3000 boxes in 4 to 7 stops. He could unload about 500 boxes an hour and thought I should be able to do the same. Well I wasn't about to kill myself in that trailer trying unload at that rate. The good part was I only had to help him on the last stop.

From the start I took over all the communications on the Qualcomm except when I was in the sleeper. We did on average 3 loads a week sometimes 4 with one backhaul in the same week back to the DC. I drove about half way to the first stop and back to the DC after the last stop mainly because his 14 hour day was about done after all the stops which included his driving time and unloading time. I did alot of night driving. I usally could drive as long as 4 hours before I needed a restroom break. He thought I went to the bathroom too much. He complained at first but by the end he got use to it..

By the start of the second week I did all the drop and hooks at the DC's and all the paperwork. I hated it at first but by the 4 week it got easier. Also I did alot of backing up to the doors at Dollar Tree's which gave me alot of different types of backing around dumpters, corners and all the other obstacles behind buildings.

Our loads were in Tennesess, Kentucky, Arkansaw, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisianna and Florida so it was mostly 75% interstate and the rest was US hiways and city streets. I got alot of heavy traffic experience on both the interstate and city driving and some hill climbing in I-24 around Chattanooga and I-75 and I-40 around Knoxville. I wouldn't consider that mountain driving. He was very surprised that I could read a map as good as I did but I learned that as a kid when my dad moved around alot because of the military so I was use to the road.

My experience at the truck stops wasn't that bad. We did mostly Pilots for fuel and showers. I was surprised at how clean the showers were at the Pilots. My worst experience for showers was at the Swift Terminal in Memphis. Man that was nasty and I will never shower in there again.

My logging was shacky at first. It took about two weeks before I start getting neat with it and he stayed on my butt till I got it right. I had 4 missing logs in the 8 weeks and they were all my fault. Three logs I put in the wrong driver code for 3 straight days because when I did it the first time I looked back at the previous page copying over information..you know what i mean.

Sleeping in the truck did take getting use to and I remember having some wild dreams when the truck was idling. I just knew we were still moving down the road even though we were sitting still. In the end I was able to sleep with the truck moving but of course I wont have to worry about that when I get my own truck.

All in all I got along really good with my mentor and his family. I ate at his house and took showers too and they made me feel at home. The really nice thing about the whole experience was I was off every weekend and I stayed at the Best Western Hotel for two nights and got paid for it.

I never had any issues with Swift during the whole time. My overall experience with them was pretty good. There is one person who has a very nasty attitude when dealing with people and she works in the new driver training area but you had to learn to just ignore her and get what you needed to have done without alot of conversation with her otherwise she could make life difficult.

After I got off the truck I took my road test which took about 15 mins and I made 4 right turns and pulled over the for the next guy. For the backing test I did 2 alley backs in a old long nose Freightliner between 2 trailers and passed. Then I took a simulator class and a log class. When I get back on Wednesday I will take a all day backing class then I will wait for my truck and will be on my own.

I am glad that part is over and now I am ready for my first solo load.

I hope everyone here is doing good

Marty

 

I am far from a recruiter I just happened to have had a good experience so far with Swift and shared it. Is it so hard to belive that you can have a good experience with Swift? If it had been bad I would have shared that as well. I have no reason to be biased about Swift one way or another I chose to go with them for my own reasons and I expected things to be worse and was prepaired for that but so far that has not been the case. I don't expect things to go my way everytime either but I wont cry about it when it doesn't. They are a big company and things can fall through the cracks but if you follow procedures things will work out. That's no different with any big company.

Marty

 

Thanks Tip and I can imagine that it was way different back in the 90's at Swift but I hoped things have improved since but you never know.

Marty

 

Life on the road? Well I will have to answer that in a few more months but I do like the going on the road to different places now I have to see if I can adjust to doing to it everyday on the truck. So far I have enjoyed it. I got to see the Katrina's effects first hand in New Orleans and it is unreal what happened down there and after two years its still shows.

As for trucking as your next career? If you like driving and enjoying what the USA has to offer in different places then I think you will like it. I been to alot of places that I have heard about but never seen and I haven't even been out of the Southeast yet so I have a long way to go but so far I like it.

Marty