The start of my first year with Swift.

We were told during orientation that when we put in for home time it comes up next to our truck on the planners screen. I'm calling that a lie. Today they were trying to send me to Albany, GA. I would have loved it...last week. My DL asked the planner where they were going to T Call it and of course the planner didn't know. My DL pulled the trigger on the load for me to get me moving. He said they would figure it out later. I had six hours of total time on my clock when I got it. I got the load picked up and it was overweight. I adjusted the tandems and weighed again. I figured it was good enough to cross the scale. I lucked out and the Oregon scale was closed for lunch. I went in and weighed anyway and adjusted one hole because I was getting fuel in Ontario, OR. Once I got fuel I weighed again and was over on my drives. I made the adjustment and called my DL. I had about 1.5 hours left and decided I would park the truck at the Boise drop yard and spend the night at the house. Getting another 30 minutes down the road wasn't going to make that much of a difference. My DL agreed and told me to get the load to SLC as soon as legally possible. My ETA is for noon...not 0730 like the planner wanted. There is no one to pick it up and that will still give a solo five full days to make the trip.

Spending the night eating a home cooked meal, getting a hot shower, and spending time with my beautiful wife. Good night all.

 

The miles/checks are still a bit unsteady, but they are getting a lot better. I had two weeks in a row where I averaged 3000 miles. This week will be a bit shy only because I'm heading home and they've been trying to keep me close to get me there. The money still isn't that great. I'm making .26cpm right now and on the 28th I think it goes to .28cpm. That will me nice. After that I have to wait two more months for a raise.

I'm sitting in SLC tonight. I have a load to pickup in the morning and then I'm headed to Boise and home. It was nice to sleep in my own bad last night. It's funny that now my wife's dog loves it when I come home. When I came back from overseas I thought he was going to bite me nearly every day.

Freight must be really slow. There had to be 30 drivers in the terminal and I don't know how many sitting in trucks. There weren't this many here when I was sitting in February.

That's it for now.

 

I made it home. I was out for a month and had no issues with my DL when I told him I wanted to come back out on the 27th. I read where others are having problems taking time off. I've not had any issues with it.

I'm currently working on compiling my stats for the first quarter. I can tell you it looks bleak but it's getting better. I saw yesterday that I was given my four month raise to .28cpm.

One of my buddies is having a really hard time getting home for an important date. He's at the point of quitting and has given Swift a date at which time he'll have to park the truck, rent a care, and drive home. When you start driving, every time you stay at a terminal, go in and talk to the planner and ask them if there is anything you can do for them locally. Since I started doing this I've had no problems getting loads going the direction I wanted to go. He stopped at the SLC terminal and was told there were no loads headed to Idaho in the next few days. I showed up the next day, the planner recognized me and I had a preplan headed to Idaho in a short time. It seems this job gets better with the relationships you develop.

That's it for now.

 

Here is my total miles driven and net pay since I went solo.

January- 6115 Net Pay $1345

February- 7977 Net Pay $1509

March- 8588 Net Pay $1685

I've been told these are the three worst months. While I'll have a few more days to work in March, those days will be on an April check.