swift... well it's mentoring system.

I started out with Swift too and had not one but two bad trainers. I got switched over when the first trainer blew the engine in his truck (O/O). It wasn't fun but I stuck it out. There were several things I knew going into the process:
1. Nothing says you have to like your trainer, just tolerate, listen and learn. And ask questions.
2. If somehow I knew there was no way I could live with being on a particular trainers truck for 6 weeks I could call Driver Services (Swift's title for the people in charge of students) and get swapped out.
3. Swift doesn't have the greatest reputation but it's easy to get started and provided you stick with it you will get the experience you need to get with a better company.

I stuck with it and got the experience I wanted. I even stuck around after my school was paid off and my school costs were reimbursed (12 months of paying each check and then 12 more of them paying me back). After a couple of years I became a trainer myself. I took the bad experiences I had in training and turned it around to make myself a better driver and a better trainer. 5 accident free years later I had enough experience to go pretty much anywhere I wanted in the industry. I left Swift on good terms and now work for a better company with better equipment, better bay, better hometime and so on.

I too am a veteran and among the many things I learned in the Army is to respect the rank (or position in this case) if not the person and also to take the good and bad experiences and learn from them. I'm sure you too had your fair share of idiot officers and NCOs to deal with during your service... you suck it up (within reason) keep learning, move out and draw fire (couldn't resist). In all seriousness, you made the mistake of not sticking with a halfway decent (despite its reputation) starter company. Swift is FAR from perfect but there's worse out there as you'll soon experience. You're not gonna find much better as a rookie with almost no experience and chances are you'll end up somewhere worse.

 

ya im at swift dude. no way can he change drive time. im telling you that right now. ethos is on point with this. he probably changed your on duty to sleeper berth which adds back to your 70. Thats all. But you can argue whatever you want no way did he change your drive time. im with ethos on this one

 

Also, as several posters have pointed out it's not possible to change your drive time on elogs. And unless something's drastically changed in the 18 months since I left Swift the trainers aren't paid to push students through training as fast as possible... they're paid all the mileage on the truck (both theirs and their student's) so the length of training is the same unless you get a crappy student who won't drive a full shift. If the student isn't ready after the training period is up (it was 240 driving hours and 40 backs when I left) they can ask for and will get close quarters training, backing training or extra time on the road with a trainer. They just have to request it.

 

There are a lot of scenarios where someone would go back and edit anything over 15 minutes of on duty not driving, and in truth he should be teaching you how to do this too. IF you waste half of your workable hours on duty not driving than you will never make any money in this industry.

 

Trust me, on Elogs, that habit will attract attention of the Swifts' log department real quick.

 

thats why swift changed their pay dor tudents. students payscale is students homestate minimum wage for on duty not driving. then they add a dollar xtra for driving. one manager told me the reason was students wasnt applying the time to get done since thewy were getting a guarenteed pay b4. this way, if they want to sit on their rearends most of time, their pay will reflect that

 

i beleive you can change your duty status to the driveline but wont be able to change it back. i never tried since i dont want to risk losing time or going into violation.

 

Its very sad that people put the $$ and time into becoming a truck driver and then dont want to actually drive truck. I dont get it.

 

I'm made a topic not long ago my swift trainer was a disgusting person as well old busted gold Cascadia smell of dried urine and BO, that was from the outside. It will say there are DM pets at swift u brought that issue up as well as him putting me on sleeper while on duty or pre tripping he didn't seem to care he simply said John is a great mentor. Long story short I went home more because my wife got into a bad accident. But I am with roehl now and happy.

 

I would not complain to anybody about showers. What moron would work for peanuts, and be told you are unable to get a shower. I would just pull over at a truck stop, get out, walk inside, and get a shower. I would not care about the load, times, ect.

Anyone that does otherwise, has no one to blame but themselves.