What would do you in this situation?

Because I'm not an owner op and I have mouths to feed. I'm not currently financially in a position to wait for 10+ days to be reimbursed for the fuel. But don't get me wrong, when I say I pretty much do what I want, I do pretty much do what I want.

Swift doesn't pay for truck wash.... They pay for mine though. At least once a month, maybe twice if I have to go off road with a load. Why do they do that for me but refuse to let others? Because I do it and scan the receipt with my bills, and if they question it I tell them I'll gladly take my cdl to TMC where truck washes are mandatory not a luxury. Same with dispatches I get. I don't get them. I don't get load offers like most people do, which is at the mercy of whoever feels sorry for me. I take my ### to the planners and I barter for the bigger loads. I'm willing to haul any type of trailer. At this point I have pulled doubles, tanks in Utah, stepdeck, skateboards, vans, reefers... I just talk to the planners and talk them out of the biggest loads they have, regardless of what "fleet" I'm on. I don't really talk to my DM. Hell, after the shakeup happening in Laredo, I don't even know if I still have the same DM anymore, or even the same home terminal. I didn't ask. It's honestly been that long since I've called to ask them for anything.

If I have a problem, I call Phoenix. Need a load? I call Phoenix. I wasn't in the Pacific Northwest by accident. I told them to send me there because there were states out west I haven't been in, passes I hadn't driven and I'd never had to chain up before. I had them send me loads going that way. In a way it bit me in the ### financially that week. But ask the folks who pull for Swift how many times they've gotten a 416 mile deadhead on the company side. I can bet not many. They tried to give me a deadhead to Worland, Wy and I told them it didn't get me where I wanted to be and told them where I wanted to go.

Like I said, they know who is running for them. People have said I couldn't be the top driver in my fleet or division or even under my DM. Well maybe I'm. Of the top driver in flatbed. But I don't haul only flatbed loads, so maybe they are right.

But they have only questioned me for deviating from the route one time. I was on 40 going to Memphis to Virginia and a tanker and flatbed had collided on 40, burning one truck and the flatbed flipped and lost the load. I went about 120 miles out of route to avoid Nashville and called for a fuel solution. They asked why I went so far out of route and I told them. They complained and I said straight up, it's my clock, my cdl, my paycheck. I'm doing what I need to do to get the load there on time.

They have never questioned me about it again. They don't even ask. They know when my truck is moving, it's for a reason and it's with a purpose. They know I'm. It out here ####ing off and burning up diesel for the hell of it. They know if I bobtail from a spot where there isn't any freight that it's not to head somewhere and sample the nightlife. I'm going where the money is.

For a company that micromanages people the way Swift does, they aren't ignorant about truck movement. I was doing phase 1 securement and asked the dude to show me what sort of info he can see when he punches in my driver code. He did me one better and punched in a random driver code and showed me exactly where the truck was, how fast it was going, what the traffic and weather were like, what their drive cam had last picked up, everything. Big brother ####.

They know what I am doing and say nothing. It's because what I am doing is making them money. Not bravado on my part at all. That's the reality. I'm not out here to sit around on my ### and be at the mercy of planners whenever they get around to me.

And Ferris knows who I am. You're probably right. I know who you are too. We do post in the same group, so does the VP of flatbed. And you know it's me because I post about doing things like this all the time, right where he can see it. When people are in there complaining about miles, I straight up tell them how I go about getting miles by doing an end run around my slow ### DM. I know he has seen it. He liked it on Facebook for God sake lol.

Hell, I personally went to him when I got a message on the Qualcomm about 70+ percent idle time and told him it was ######## for them to be sending me those messages in the first place. He said a #### that idle your truck. They aren't stupid, there's nothing to catch on to. I don't even attempt to hide it. I run my ### off, I don't tie up their phone lines and I tell it exactly like it is. The reality is they don't say anything because I make their job easier. They don't have to find me loads, they don't have to fill home time requests, they don't have to worry if I'm going to struggle taking back to back to back loads that are 1200-2000 miles and manage my 70. They probably wish more drivers acted in the same manner tbh.

 

There is indeed a TA in Billings. I stopped there and sat for like 6 hours waiting on a load and then I finally sent a message telling them I was going to deadhead in the direction of my home until the fuel ran out and they can recover the truck, or they could get me the hell out of Montana. 400 miles deadhead, paid. They even dispatched it separate from the load I was supposed to pick up so the 400+ miles would be on that check.