SWIFT

Hey all, my bad about posting the link. Made the mistake of not DELETING it before I posted. I'm sure noone utilized it anyway haha.. Taker easy

 

It is amazing how someone with less than 30 posts has more wisdom than all those with posts in excess of 1000. You have hit the nail square on top of the head; or to match your screen name, you have hit a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth with two outs for the win. Several have posted on here (with a sound of great hopefulness) that Swift is going out of business. My question is, who would they kick around and ridicule than. ALLLLLLL companies have problems. A company is really what you, the driver, make of it. I have worked for some lousy employers (outside trucking) in my years but have made it a good job all because of MY attitude. If there WERE a perfect company, everyone else would be out of business. As long as there are people (drivers and management) involved in companies there will be no perfect company.

 

Tip please correct me if I am wrong but didn't those 600 drivers quit before Swift took complete control of MS? If so where does your argument stand? Just wondering just a former Swifty needeing clarity.

 

No one is really making money right now off of OTR freight. Good news is, so many flatbed companies went under that right now there is a huge demand for flatbed. I hear some of my customers complaining on the outrageous rates they are being charged, and they have no choice but pay. Give it another 6 months and it should be into the truck load sector. The difference between a little company and a big company is usually the size of the credit lines they can tap to stay in business and survive market changes (also their war chest savings). I will be the first to say Swift is just profitable, but we are far from going under. Also, we are about 3 billion in sales. We are almost done with reducing our fleet through attrition, but keeping our same sales focus. This brings better utilization for our drivers.

Wes

 

Its a little better now than 3 months ago, hopefully it will get kicking in June, I have not been under 2600 a week since March, so that says something, also had some 3400 + weeks thrown in there as well.

Swift has the muscle to weather some economically difficult times, I am confident we come out on the other side, stronger, not bigger, for bigger's sake..but stronger.

Jerry is hopefully going to focus on issues instead of numbers unlike the now fired Team Cunningham.

 

hehe apparently nothing new as I was at the Denver pilot a few days ago and a driver was asking for a ride to Albuqurque (sp) NM - said he got tired of the crap at swift and quit - needed a ride home. nobody replied though. If I was going that way I may have offered but he could have walked home quicker than what it took for me to get outta there with a load.

 

Pay - They start you out with $0.25 a mile ... I have seen no-one else that pays lower.

Trainer Exp - They are great but they do not have time. Several students only got 20 minutes hands on training shifting and then an 1.5 hours of solo practice before getting tested.

Home Time - My home is near a major terminal and they had trouble getting me home even though I was 160 miles away. I thought 6 weeks out would have gained me some deadhead time ... guess not. I know others (one that lives in Atlanta) that has trouble getting home too. Another example ... I was in Michigan with 4 other drivers ... I got a preplan going to SC and told the other drivers that is when one of them smiled and said it was 20 miles from his house and he requested home time. It looks like they have dispatchers not planners.

CDL School - They had issues with drivers getting their CDL revoked ... check into it for the latest info.

Equipment - Is good. They bought a large number of new trucks from Volvo and have them sitting at terminals. Has to be expensive to have those trucks sit.

Miles - Some drivers claim they don't run well ... I never had that problem (except for a off week every 6 weeks or around home time when they are trying to get you home) ... I averaged 2,700 weekly (I was 100% on time and did not turn down any loads).

Hope that helps.

 

My miles for Swift were awesome... for the first 2 weeks I was out. After that, it sucked. :/ I live about an hour from Scranton/Wilkes Barre, and they had the Sears account out of there. Even though we have drivers dedicated to it, I would always get stuck pulling those loads for about a week or two after hometime, it seemed like. You know the load... those 250-400 mile loads that pick up at 1000, and has 3 deliveries with the first one starting at 0800 the following day. Last del is 1800. All 3 dels to stores, none of which are in a mall but on back roads, or have their delivery docks by an alley. No preplan till next day to deadhead back and get another to del the following day somewhere in NJ. I did have one in a mall in NJ, was a drop and hook. Unfortunately, all the docks were full. So was the parking lot right in front of the docks. So, I had to drop my loaded trlr on the other side of the lot, come back, pull out the mt and drop it over by my loaded trlr, rehook, and drop the loaded back in the spot. With traffic going by the store, mind you. WHEEE I HATE SEARS LOADS.

Ya, doing that crap for 2 months straight kinda sucks the life out of ya.

I made it west of the Mississippi twice. Once, when I was with my mentor. And once about 2 weeks before I quit. Oh wait, did it twice with my mentor, so 3 times total. Don't forget, any trip that ends or begins west of the Miss loses 1 or 2 cpm. Doesn't matter how far west you go. You could have pulled the load out of Maine, and dropped it in West Memphis... you just lost 2 cpm for the WHOLE trip.

But, they did give me a foot in the door, and they DO have good miles if you get a bit lucky. All in where you live I guess. And having terminals all over can be kinda nice, just wish they had mechanics that were worth a ####... but that's another story. Hehe.