The Swift Experience

I know you’ve seen and read reviews about the MegaCarrier, but I also know you’ve seen so many people bash on the company without giving reasons on why you shouldn’t work there. I know, because I was once somebody like you. Foolishly, this was my first company, and I did not stay with them anymore than 5 months. The first 4 months were teaming, and the last month I was solo. Here’s how it all went down...

 

When you start your career with this company, you’re treated to 25 days of OTR with a mentor, practicing your driving, backing, and customer etiquette. Once you’ve completed the mentor’s checklist, you’re ready for company evaluation.


The evaluation was a written test, which asked questions about trip planning, driver safety, hazmat, bills, etc... just typical things you’ve learned thus far in your short career. Once you’ve completed this test, you’re giving a driving test.


Someone rides in a passenger seat of the vehicle you’ll be driving, ensuring you shift up and down properly, make lane changes correctly, and just the overall safety. If you stall the truck, they don’t care.


I completed everything in Phoenix, AZ. Once I was done, I was given a load heading to their Lancaster, TX terminal. It was a two day trip in a 62 mph, 8-speed Cascadia. I was excited to finally be upgraded from student to company driver. This truly is a thrill, but little do I know, I would not be working here long...

 

A couple weeks before I upgraded, I was talking to another guy I met during orientation. We had exchanged numbers during that time, and talked about once or twice a week. We wee both in the fence about solo and team, neither of us knew anything about trucking, and all we heard was “teams make all the money here, teams get all the good freight here.” Well, we decided to team.


To team at this company, all that was needed was a head nod from two drivers toward the dispatcher. From there, you’re a team until you decide to break up. Again, this done with a simple phone call.

 

So I upgrade in Phoenix, AZ and they get me a load. I bobtail a few miles from the terminal to pick up a preloaded trailer. This trailer is going to be dropped at the terminal in Lancaster, TX, where I’ll be picking up my teammate, as soon as his evaluation is done.


I was so ecstatic about being out from under the eyes and ears of my mentor, I was so happy to be out of training and on my own. However, that feeling soon faded away once I got into the truck with a teammate.


He didn’t do too hot on his written test, but instead of retaking the test after another 10 days on the road with his mentor, the administrator filled in and corrected his wrong answers and just had a talk with him. I’m not sure how his driving test went, but we got into my truck that same day and headed out on our first load together.


Keep in mind, we’ve both been away from wife and kids for 25-28 days by now, teaming with a trainer, and we’d like nothing more than to go home and visit for a little while. In fact, we were under the impression that we were heading home.


We took a load from Lancaster, TX to Rogers, AR, after being told this load was taking us home. Since I live in Central Arkansas, I thought this to be the truth. However, as I was driving later that night, we received a message on the Qualcomm for our next load. It wasn’t taking either of us home, but trying to get us out east. Sadness and frustration filled my heart, but I knew there was a way to get home... and so did the teammate.


In fact, he made more phone calls in a 12-hour period, calling terminal after terminal, speaking to dispatchers, planners, you name it!, that I thought “####! as much as this guy calls around to get the information we need, he’ll be the perfect teammate!”


Yeah, right. After a long night of driving and him talking on the phone, relaying messages to me after each call, we finally shut her down in a Walmart parking lot. Got up the next day, surrounded by customer vehicles. Thought we’d never get out of there.


A lot of waiting this morning because we hadn’t received confirmation about our hometime, and we were really waiting on a load. One load came through, but it wasn’t taking us home. More phone calls. Finally, we go home.


This guy made phone call after phone call until he got what he wanted. Soon, you’ll see how this worked for him again.

 

Backing up a little bit, I will admit that getting us home was great. I did appreciate what he did to get us home. After our hometime, we were assigned a terminal manager out of Ocala, FL. Neither of us lived in or near Florida, I’m from Arkansas, He was Missouri. So who knew what was going on.


This dispatcher clearly didn’t know how to take care of a team. He gave us 600 mile loads, and 250 miles loads, etc. A team run is more like 1,200 miles or so, and after reminding this dispatcher three different times that we were a team truck, he continued giving us solo runs. Now, had they been drop-and-hook, different story. They were all live loads.


So then we get the load going to Jacksonville, FL. No problem, but the load didn’t deliver for four more days. We weren’t allowed to drop the load in our Ocala terminal - 90 minutes away. We ended up having to sit on the load in Jacksonville for four days.


It was nice seeing the beach, and just being a tourist, but we had no money, weren’t making any money, and this company began to show me how much they cared for their drivers. Yeah, they don’t care at all about you, man.

 

This guy’s mentor didn’t teach him anything when it came to that e-log. I had to teach him how to edit the logs, how to accept loads, how to arrive and depart from the shipper/receiver, how to look and see how long you’ve been on break, everything! I didn’t mind teaching him because I wanted him to know these things, but after 30 days, you ought to know by now.


The first time he got into the driver’s seat of the truck, he told me that all he wanted to do was sit in that seat and drive. He waved his hand toward the e-log and said, “I don’t know much about how to do all that computer crap.” Come again?


You’ve had 27 days with your mentor and you don’t know how to arrive yourself at the shipper? How to accept loads? You don’t know when you’ve been on break 31 mins? Yes, these were real issues at this moment.


I told him, if you need help, wake me up. In the first month, I was woken up a bunch. No problem, he learned. The problem is that he was a slow learner, and I began wondering how a trainer -who makes 1 penny per mile of their trainees for six months after the training is complete- could let this guy get away with knowing nothing about the Qualcomm or even how this company operates. This confused and frustrated me quite a bit.


We were running down the interstate in Florida and I’m in the sleeper berth. I heard a noise like plastic hitting plastic, then I heard the teammate blaspheme God Almighty, hit the brakes, and then I hear, “Are you alright. Yeah, I’m alright. Are we good?” Then he drove off. I don’t know what happened, but I’m sure he hit something, or another vehicle.


So he wasn’t the safest driver. He never checked his mirrors while turning or maneuvering through truck stops etc. as a seasoned veteran, I could understand not looking in your mirrors Every turn because you’ve gotten use to it, but a rookie driver, less than one month of experience? Come on! He nearly tore the bumper off a Pete while turning into the truck stop. He would have succeeded had I not told him to watch out.


Several things like this went on. I just suspected him to be a slow learner, and maybe that was the case. His performance didn’t reflect onto the company. Yet!


I was at home one time, and he called me to see how you can tell how long you’ve been on break. On the Qualcomm, there’s a counter that lets you know how long you’ve been on your current duty status. He screwed up a 30-minute brake after 27 minutes of sitting idle. And because of this, he had to retake the the 30-minute break, and this time he was late for delivery.

 

At this company, you must call a dispatcher or planner to get a scheduled load. They don’t just give loads to you like Schneider and other normal companies do. Instead, you have to call someone and tell them, ahead of time, when and where you’ll be and when you’ll be ready for the next load. This works very well for the solo guy.


For teams, you do the same thing, only you can only speak to certain people: Team Planners. These slackers work a 9-5 job, and they’re off every weekend. If you don’t catch them during daylight hours between 9 and 5, you’re screwed. I’m not even kidding. Oh, and they leave early every Friday. So if you wanted to work through the weekend, you’d better call early Friday morning or have it set up Thursday.


I know, you’re thinking, “that’s no big deal, just call them when they’re at work now that you know their schedule.” The problem is when you’re the only one making calls, and your teammate is working 14 hours a day, to keep you on the same schedule 7pm - 5am.


So, I can’t call the team planners. The obvious thing to do is have the teammate call and get us some work. Remember how he called everyone who worked at this company the night he wanted to get home? Yeah, that ain’t how it works.


I couldn’t get this S. O. B. to call dispatch at anytime or anyplace. I told him when to call, who to speak to, and everything. Never picked up the phone to call. Oh, he’ll talk to his wife, whom he gripes about all the time, but he would never call and get money. Stupid, if you ask me.


So we ended up sitting here and there. But it is what it is. I couldn’t get him to do his job properly. And I decided to end our teaming experience when he finally went on hometime one week.

 

I remember coming into the Memphis terminal one day and our dispatcher had us both sign two documents. This was a write-up. Two of them, to be certain. Both write-ups were over late deliveries, both of which my teammate was 100% at fault.


My teammate admitted to being the one at fault, but the dispatcher told us that if one of us screws up, we both screw up in the eyes of the company. So that was new.


My teammate loves kicking back and doing absolutely nothing. The laziest driver I’ve ever ran with! I was down to my last 15 minutes of driving, at the end of my 70-hour clock, and we receive a load on the Qualcomm.


This load was something like 2,300 miles! It was a good load. Sure, I was going to have to take a 34 hour restart, which the planners had already put in place when scheduling the load, and this guy had nearly a full clock.


Well, he had plans. You see, on my 34, he had plans. Kick back. Watch movies on the laptop. Eat popcorn. Maybe a beer or two. He had plans, Jack!


This load, this money-making disaster, is going to ruin his precious little plans. So he starts to decline the load. I stopped him, naturally. I figured it up in my head and told him this load was going to pay us both $575 each. And then he questioned the timeframe, would we have the time to make it, etc etc etc. Just more BS from the rookie without a clue.


I knew almost instantly that we would have the time for this load, how much this load was paying me, and when I’d be able to get it there before he even read the entirety of the message. This guy, on the other hand, is thinking we can’t do this load because I’m taking a 34. Wow! This is my teammate. Slow learner, like I said.


This is one example. Another example is one time when we were late. I cannot recall where the lid picked up or delivered, but I remember we were loaded in the central timezone, and delivered in the eastern timezone. For those who don’t know, the eastern timezone is 1 hour ahead of central.


This makes sense to all of us, but not to him. He stopped to “take a break” I guess. He woke me up because it was my turn to drive. He said he was going to get some food first, I said to wake me up when you get back. Ok.


Well, the son of a gun didn’t get back for nearly two-and-a-half hours! Thank you! Our load is going to be late now. Yes, we were late.


The first time we were late, it was his turn to drive, and he wanted to screw off in the diner, slowly walk back to the truck, take forever tying his shoes, and he had to smoke a cigarette before anything else could happen! What!? Needless to say, the hour or two he messed around getting started that day is what caused us to be late.


I’ve mentioned the write-ups, causing us to be late, and unsafe driving practices. This is all true, however, it doesn’t reflect on the company, only maybe it does on the training portion. His trainer didn’t teach him how to back, how to watch his mirrors in a turn, how to operate the Qualcomm, or how to do anything that would literally be in his job description.


One night, we left out of Lancaster toward Memphis, and decided to stop at a Jack in a Box. Next door was a convenience store, but it was closed. This is where he parked us. Right there in front of the fuel island, facing the restaurant, but on a slight hill.


I didn’t notice, because it wasn’t my job to babysit a grown man, that he didn’t pull the brakes before exiting the vehicle. Yikes! We walked up to the door of the restaurant, and the dine-in had just closed. As we turned around, I saw that truck moving! I asked him,” is the truck rolling?” this was a gut-wrenching sight.


I ran, jumped on the steps on the driver’s side of the cab, unlocked the door, jumped in and pulled the brakes. The whole way back to Memphis, all I could think about was, “what if I had been in the sleeper, dead asleep?”


The next morning, we arrived in Memphis, he went home. I stayed out.

 

We drove a Kenworth T680. Nice truck, we felt cool driving it because not many company drivers at this carrier had the privilege to drive one of these beauties. So keep that in mind...


Let’s rewind a couple of days. We delivered a load in Washington, and deadheaded to the terminal in Sumner. The speakers in the bunk didn’t work whatsoever. Today, the teammate wants to see if this shop will fix this particular problem. I never understood why, since usually I’m the one sleeping back there while he had control of a radio!? The speakers aren’t working, it was for the best in my case.


We dropped our empty trailer in the yard, put the truck in the shop, and I went to sleep in a chair in the terminal. Couldn’t be in the truck while it was in the shop, company rule. Since I’m the one who drove all through the night to get us there, it would have been nice to postpone this little BS adventure of his until later. So I slept in the terminal.


About 8 hours later, I get up and the truck is ready to go. Still, those bunk speakers weren’t fixed. Shop doesn’t understand it. I don’t care. Let’s get in the truck.


Our empty took off behind another driver’s truck and, come to find out, it was the only empty on the yard of about 100 trailers. Figure that one out. The bummer was that the teammate didn’t know how to tell if the trailers were empty or not. Can you believe someone that stupid is behind the wheel while I’m asleep? I couldn’t either.


The terminal wrote something on a piece of paper and told me to go next door to get an empty. Ok. There was a customer there, and it was a huge deal. No. They wouldn’t let me in.


Ended up getting one from somewhere, then drove like 5 hours to Pepsi. We were told to pick up a preloaded trailer, the yard driver said “no dice!” And we needed up waiting there for another 9 hours until we got loaded.


He nearly hit Prime, who was parked in the door next to us, while backing at an angle. If I had not been in the passenger seat, I wonder how many incidents he would have gotten us into...


Eventually, we get moving down the road. I take a nap, and get up a short time later. This guy says,”I think the pre-pass is broken, because I went by that scale back there and it never flashed or made any noises.” Are you kidding me? That scale didn’t have a prepaid site! Wow! Did he run it? Was it closed? I wonder.


We finally got to Texas, and eventually, the Jack in the Box scene took place. I slept most of the way Memphis.


I had already told my dispatcher I was going to stay out while my teammate went home, and it was all good. Even though the teammate couldn’t understand why I’m still working when I was “suppose to be on hometime.”


Well, the next day was a Monday, and I ran my first load of the week solo. It felt so good not having the teammate around. I asked the dispatcher how to become a solo driver, and he told me to tell my teammate. No problem.


I called the teammate up, told him, and I was solo from then on.

 

After being on my own for a few days, there once came a time when I was told to bobtail to the shipper, by the planner and a night dispatcher, due to the terminal not having any empty trailers. I get to the shipper, they won't allow me to take my preloaded trailer unless I bring in an empty. No problem, right?


I was only able to use 9hrs 6min of drive time for the day. Planners used up 1hr 48min of my drive time looking for an empty trailer, and nearly 2hrs of sitting around waiting to hear where an empty trailer is located. That's nearly 4hrs of drive time that I didn't even get to put toward delivering the freight to the customer. I drove nearly 11hrs the next day, landed 2.5hrs from final destination.


Did I communicate the load would be late?


I sent my fleet manager a qualcomm message on the day all of this happened (one day prior to scheduled delivery) @1134, explaining the reason why this load would be late. Again, @1148 on the same day, I sent a message to the drive managers, informing them what I had just sent to the fleet manager, and telling them this load would not deliver on time.


Sent ETA information on the same day @1629 & 1630 to the fleet manager, as requested. Fleet manager then told me I would receive a service failure.


I gave this information to my drive manager the following day, and his reasoning was that I didn't communicate this load would be late, even though I did.


This happened to me, and it could happen to you. However, I never received any write-ups or reprimand. Just a couple days of back-and-forth with the fleet manager and dispatcher. It was a bunch of BS. I was stressed to the max.