Who's The Worst Of Them ALL to work for?

Don't be discouraged. Look around. There will be something fairly close by. Don't be afraid to go somewhere that you may have to stay at school away from home in order to attend the program. If you can't stand to be away from home for a few weeks of driving school, you simply will not make it as an over the road driver. Most driving programs have a number of financial aid options since it's training directly related to career development. Be patient and look around. You'll be able to find a very solid program upon which to build your career.

Best of luck!

Georgia Joker

 

You think that is good money, and you compare it to the average American's median level. You show by that statement that you do not understand the industry. Perfect recruiter or dispatcher material! That furthermore proves what I have been saying and that is the best recruiters and dispatchers are former or current drivers, not the person behind the phone, who as yourself, do not understand the industry. In this industry where you are forced to obey a set of rules that are well over a 1000 pages long and you are away from home for extended periods of time, you are not under fair labor laws, you have to deal with clueless people such as yourself, beleive me this is not good money. If a dispatcher at Swift seems to think this, then that is just 1 more reason to steer clear of Swift.

I am using the miles that Swift publishes as what there drivers are running. Of course O/O's are the best operational trucks and then teams. But A mentor truck should not be treated like a team. They should be treated like a trainer-trainee, like they are. Again, you dont understand the industry. That trainee is there to learn the business and polish his driving skills not make the trainer and the company rich. A mentor truck should never do the miles that a team does, BTW, 3k-4k per week are not team miles, but yet you compare them to a team. Well that shows another reason why I would not drive for Swift-the true colors show, in what kind of miles they expect a team to have. In most companies about 6k-7k is a team.

Fat chance that will ever happen. JB has been trying that for 20 years, and so far only about 15% of their drivers are O/O's.

Another Swift selling point. I was hearing those same things from Swift recruiters when I started driving. Swift has been advertising that their top company driver made almost $100,000 last year and( he was not a trainer).We all have heard people trying to defend this fact, but they cant. When DOT saw these claims they investigated Swift and the actual pay for this guy was only like $68,000 since you cannot make almost $100,000 as a single driver at Swift unless you are doing it illegally. Also if you notice these big layoffs they are based in only a few industries, not across the board in every industry. If you are building your business on the back of a certain industry, then you deserve to go belly up. You should be diversified. And for your info, Swift being a privately held company, they cannot go to any shareholder for an influx of capitol, they have only one principle owner, and unless the financial mags are wrong, he does not have enough money to financially sustain the company at current standings.

 

I realize that reply was directed toward Bongo, but I feel compelled to answer.

SOMEtimes the truth hurts, but the truth is much easier to
"handle" than ignorance.
Ignorance is useful as an excuse,
but only if one has a good excuse for
being ignorant.
And the difference betwixt ignorance and intelligence is
intelligence has it's limits.

Remember, it is better to be thought a fool, than to open
one's mouth and remove all doubt.

It's twue!
It's twue!

 

Timtruck just for your info is actually a terminal manager and knows more about the industry then you care to think.

 

I dont recall saying it was easy, do nothing, and get paid more then the average american. Your right Tim, its hard work to earn the money, but regardless of how hard you have to work, its still more then most, as a starting career wage. Drivers do make the best dispatchers, that is why I hire good dispatchers. Tim I probably understand the industry better then you, I have been in almost every aspect of it for almost 11 years now. Just on the office side, I worked at 8 dollars an hour, 70-80 hours a week for my first year in the office tracking trucks and working every holiday. Think drivings is hard, come to the woods with me and let me show you what logging is all about in -30 weather, cutting, stripping, chaining up your skitter so you dont roll down the mountain, and then hauling the logs to your truck to take down the mountain. I was paid 12 per hour for that. I think you read the posts, but you dont comprehend the posts. You look for an argument. If your working like many americans for $20-28,000 a year, just making ends meet, working two jobs for this money. Ya, 44k a year is good money for them. I am not going to argue the merits of more pay, right now it is what it is. I hope it gets better, but it will probably not happen any time soon.

Once more, your reading the post, just not understanding it. At no point did I say a team does 3-4k miles a week (12-16k miles a month). I said mentors do. Depending on the level of the trainee, and what week he is in, those are not unreasonable numbers. Teams are generally 20-25k miles per month. I am starting to think that you probably have trouble understanding whats written in your company policies, and DOT regulations. It happens, just slow down and re-read whats written.

We are almost to 25%. I can't comment on JB, other then they are really no longer an OTR company. They are primarily intermodal and dedicated now.

I have solo drivers that make 70-80k on a dedicated tire account. I have owner operators that easily top 100k. You should see what Owner Op transcon teams bring home. I searched the internet trying to find where DOT audited pay. Didn't find anything. I think it has to do with the fact that DOT has nothing to do with companies pay, claims of pay, etc.. Are you aware of the responsibilities of DOT? Pay is not even a concern for them, just miles would be relevant for them. Tim, people can make good money, its just not given to them, most have stuck with it, made a name for themselves, or went into business for themselves as an owner. Just because you have not, does not mean others can not.

Tim, you have much to learn. It all connects. Which segmonts would you like to discuss. Lets start with the credit crunch and how it relates to trucking, and all retailers and manufacturers. Short term loans are constantly made to all of these. It's called the float. This is where you have to make immediate payments to employee's, property, merchandise etc.., but you don't receive payment for a while. You see this in trucking alot, and affects trucking companies the most. Drivers, office, fuel etc.. are paid weekly. The customers you haul for generally dont pay their bill but monthly. That is what a float loan is, to bridge the gap. That is why I say when you see companies maxing out their line of credit, that is bad. It's even worse when there is no credit to be had, because no one is lending, and the small companies have a tougher time floating until they are paid.

Manufacturing sector: Big items are not selling, so they are not producing, so you are not hauling as much. This is both for imports and exports. When they down size (Think auto industry), their employee's lose their jobs, and they do not buy as much.

Retail sector: People that are being layed off are not purchasing, people worried about being layed off are not purchasing. Credit card companies are reducing credit and not lending. This means purchases are down, and alot less freight is hauled.

Banking Sector: CIT just cut 50,000 jobs. Why, because if you are not lending as much, or people can not borrow as much, you dont need all those employee's.

Energy Sector: Price of oil drops, because global demand is down, and the global economy is down, which helped raise the value of the dollar. I do not foresee to many layoff's in this industry since most places are already at capacity for production with existing oil needs. You will see oil based (not fuel related) drops in employment. Remember that plastics etc.. are made from oil, but if consumers are buying less, then less need to produce as much plastics etc..

Unemployemnt will be approaching 10% by first quarter of next year. So that is 1 out of 10 adults without a job in many industries, and you don't think it affects trucking? Diversified helps, but it doesn't gaurantee there wont be layoff's even in trucking. Conway announced shutting down 50-60 terminals recently. That is just the tip of the ice burg to come in January.

Thanks, I know we are privately owned, the debt to purchase Swift was secured with bonds publicly traded. We still report our earnings to those bond holders, and they are not worried. Do you know how much line of credit Swift has? 250 million. You know how much has been used? Zero. The main reason is because we are profitable, and have money in the bank. Its not a huge profit, but it's far from bankruptcy. If the owner of Swift needed additional money for what ever reason, he owns the Arizona Diamonbacks baseball franchise, Phoenix Coyotes NHL team, the stadium, Swift Airlines, Swift motorcycles, Central Freight Lines, a huge construction company in Las Vegas that builds casino's, a steel plant and much more. I receive all the magazines. I have never seen anyone say Swift can not financially sustain anything, unless your reading it off the bathroom stall and taking it for gospel.

Wes

 

I guess I missed something. I didn't see where he said your husband was chearing or even insinuate it. He was illustratiing how some spouses don't tell the one at home everything. After many years in the military and in leadership positions I can attest that wht Wes is saying is true. And it went both ways. More than one husband came home from a cruise only to find his house empty and wife gone. Yet all the while she let him believe everything was okay.

 

I can't say more because it's still under investigation, let Swift cover its own butt, I'm not going to give them any heads up. Let's just say it had nothing to do with my husband's job performance, or safety, nor did he fail a urine test, nor did he steal anything. It does have something to do with retaliation on Swift's part. My husband quit Swift twice, and they hired him three times, what does this say about their perception of his ability to drive his truck? If he was a bad driver they wouldn't have hired him back the second or third time, now would they? He was always on time with delivering. Had 78 students assigned to his truck and graduated 35 to solo status, the others were not deemed safe and my husband refused to complete their training, yet they were all given trucks. He would tell me about some of these students and I'd ask him "how did they get their cdl?" They couldn't even drive the truck. He never sugar coated life on the road and was completely honest with them about the realities of long haul.

I think it would have been sufficient for Wes to say that the trucker can lie to the wife without going into specifics. He didn't have to expound on the matter by saying "he's where he wants to be....with the mistress", which he added for dramatic effect.

 

OK, here I am, she got me into this thing now, who am I?? TruckrsWife's husband, get it...othehalftw...was going to go with betterhalf but got threatened with a tire thumper you know the one attached to her arm and shoulder. Anyway, HELLO all, you too Wes. Something tells me we might actually know each other by face. To get things started, my wife and I have for years joked about her saying goodnight to her "Sancho" and I should kiss my Juliet goodnight. This was always outloud on the phone in the truck-stop. Usually in the restaraunt--remember the phones at the tables? But we always had a big advantage, its called trust in each other. Also in the later years with the advent of the cell phone, I would call her every night to check on things at home after my days drive, knowing everything was good and also knowing that talking to her would put me to sleep. You guys know about that one..lol
About what is happening with Swift and my terminated contract Wes, we can't go into any particulars other than to say there was no bad conduct on my part, I was following Swift's rules, using the management available to me at the time. No drinking, no theft, no accidents, no write-ups, and the only log issue was one 11/14 hour violation (4 weeks prior) from bringing my line down from sleeper what the scanner thought to be 15 min prior to my 10 hour break time. A very common occurance with Swift. When things get settled and we can talk openly, Wes, I will swing by and shake your hand (maybe I should leave TW at home on that trip)

 

At least Im not a bus driver who couldnt make it at Swift(of all places), so they had to settle for that and then get on here and tell us all how it is, after working for SWIFT(of all places)!

 

I would suggest not taking the comments personally. Wes was trying to make clear the position those in leadership often are in when dealing with these types of issues. Many here say they want facts and validity of claims and then when those are given the one who provides them is ridiculed and basically called a liar.

Actually, I came home to be a dad to my son through the last years of high school. He appreciated that and as a bus driver I got to be involved in more of his events with jazz band and choir. Why don't you get off your high horse and understand that you aren't as smart as you have convinced yourself you are. I come here to help drivers with my years of experience in life, management, commercal driving and research. Why don't you learn to counter someone's arguments without being on the attack? In my years I have found that those who attack the loudest are those who really have nothing of value to say and that is why I am done with this conversation with you.