Swift Transportation

I started with Swift straight out of trucking school. Truck school, putting around in empty 28' trailers does not prepare you for real world of 78,000 lb loads chugging up and down places like Donner Pass or the Grapevine. I had a great opportunity with Frito Lay, but I blew their backing up test. (First in a 53' trailer).

Believe me, I needed to go out with a trainer. Training consists of running OTR teams with a Swift owner operator. Pay was minimum wage for that month, but when you had been dead broke for a year and a half, it seemed like a small fortune LOL. Long story short, the guy was an A-hole..but he NEVER raised his voice at me when I was destroying his new 10 speed transmission, if I missed an exit...or the big one... I mis-shifted taking 78k lb. load up steep highway grade and stalled right in middle of freeway. He didn't even blink.
He said "move over", like it was no big deal. Long story short, Swift assigned me a truck. It was very early summer. It felt like paid vacation because I was running Western 11 and all of the sights. Just being so new and not knowing Swifts' "system" affected my pay. But by 7th week solo I was running 3k a week. Swift was so desperate for local Amazon Drivers from my home terminal, that I got hired on. Swift let me keep my sleeper 6 months and live out of my truck. They had showers at terminal. I banked 15k in 6 months not even trying. Pay was 20.00 an hour ( 2016) but 60 hours a week plus back then, Amazon runs were 5 hours of driving and 7 hours of sitting.
I ALWAYS treated my managers with respect and they ALWAYS treated me in like manner. I never had any of the night mare scenarios you hear about.
I stayed there 2.5 years and only left after they lost the Amazon acct.
Swift was good to me, I had 2.5 years of solid experience when I left. Staying 2.5 years looks rock solid on my resume.
I would highly recommend Swift to newbies. You need that paid training more than you think.

 

They lost the Amazon Acct. I was on