Worst thing swift ever did to me.

No company had to treat their drivers this way. I took days off and one word want said about it.

On a side note, needing therapy to get over your things being stolen from the truck is a bit much in my opinion

 

That is not true with many terminals.
3 days max before you turn the truck in.

I don't know if it is still the case, but one terminal had it at 2 days.

 

There was an owner op at Swift who had his truck in Swift's shop. The shop guys finished with is truck and parked it out on the ready line with the windows completely down. Anyone walking by could have opened the doors and gotten inside during the night and taken anything they wanted. Nothing was missing but the seats were soggy mess from the overnight rain evidently. @blsqueak can tell you the story.

 

I've had that happen to me as well, at the old Salt Lake terminal.
Get done with the truck and park it with the windows down, key in the ignition, and it was raining.

Jerks!

 

Anytime when i leave my truck im taking my valuables out of it. The only thing left behind will be maybe dirty laundry and food. Electronics come with me and my personal paperwork. If they want to take my truck have fun eating my food but you also get my boxers with skid marks to go along with it.

 

Yes, and Swift paid for it. Layover pay, hotel reimbursements. They had to pull up the rubber matting to check all the electrical and then when I got there found out that the carpet in the sleeper was also soaked and then the tire guy tried to tell me that he broke down the drive tires so that he could put on my new drives, and proved to him and the manager that he lied. Showed him photos of my truck when I turned it in and he looked, and said that no way that the rims on my truck then where the same that I came in with.

 

I remember very clearly Swift's policy regarding home time as explained in orientation. Yes, you can take more than two days, BUT if you DO then you need to clean out the truck and turn it in. If a driver takes six days or more then they can be terminated.

Here was the KEY POINT made during discussion of the policy: COMMUNICATE. Let your DM know exactly when you are going back to ready status.

The OP failed to communicate.

During my two years at Swift I usually bobtailed 60 miles home. I think the longest home time I took was three days. I ALWAYS set a ready time either before going home or would call my DM during home time. Often I would get a text or phone call with a dispatch offer (or new trainee assignment) during home time. If I was away from the truck and couldn't accept the load on the Qualcomm I would call my DM and have them accept it for me.

It's not your truck. It's an expensive asset owned by the company. They need to be generating X revenue per day for that asset. Owner operators know this very well. Therefore they will allow extended home time as long as that asset continues to make money with another driver.

I met a fellow Swift driver that would always take a week off, clean out his truck, get assigned a new truck, drive for a few weeks and take another week off. Rinse and repeat.

Communicate.

 

Big company would likely have said "so what? Why are you telling me." 90% of what my last company expected of drivers was told to drivers in the form of
Question: why didn't you do X?
Answer: this is the first I've heard I'm expected to do X. I'll do X from now on.
Reply: we've been doing X for 8 years.
Short time later: driver who told you to do X? We haven't done X for 2 years.

 

Swift really sucks. When I drove for Werner twenty years ago,you cloud take seven days without turning the truck in and could take 30 days without losing your job.