Profile For AdkMatt

Haha, I never got to listen to this part of the message because before I could, my QC was blowing up with messages from my DM to his fleet frantically telling them that it's just a company-wide message and clarifying that it doesn't mean they have to come take a drug test right now XD

This is what gives me confidence being a new driver XD. Knowing that there are people who have been on the road a lot longer than I have been, yet they have no idea how to do many critical aspects of their jobs, and they STILL have one somehow!

Do they make you send an advance macro now? What a pain. It used to just be preauthorized.

Not 100% certain to be honest. My mentor always paid out of pocket and got reimbursed. I never specifically asked, but the answer looked pretty obvious to me, haha.

He played you. Swift pays for scale tickets through the comdata card.

I'm aware of this and showed him how to request a company advance for these instances. It's also why I bought him food instead of giving him $10.50.

Did his trainer also make him fudge the back sheet?

If I'm honest, my mentor did this with me slightly. He only had me do 2 of the blindside backs. He said that doing 8 of them (or however many is required) was "absurd" and only had me do it the two times I did because he wanted me to realize that there's almost always a better way if you stop any think for a moment. He also said in the 13 years he's been with Swift, that he only HAD to do a blindside back less than 5 times.

My trainer was an own op. He was a fine trainer, and taught me well. My boyfriend's trainer was a company driver, and he was less than desirable to put it nicely. It's really the luck of the draw.

I agree with you here. I keep pretty close tabs with just about everyone from my class at the academy and the one that's doing the best (and having the most fun, at that) is with an owner op.

My point there was less about the ethos of an O/O vs a company driver, and more about the prospect of having a co-driver 'for free' being a much larger financial motivator for an O/O to abuse the system than a company driver.

There may be another layer to this idea though.

I know how I posted a couple days ago about how I felt my training experience was sub-par, which is a conclusion I may have come to a bit hastily because over the past few days, things have been going very smoothly for me and I've actually been enjoying myself.

However, this past weekend, I stayed at the Love's just south of Chicago on I-55 because they couldn't get something that picked up earlier than this morning. In the middle of the night Saturday, someone knocked on my window, another Swift driver. He asked me if I could help him squeeze into the spot next to me. After he was in, he got out and told me he had just gotten off his mentor's truck a couple days ago and because his mentor (an owner/op) never let him back, he had only done angled backs a small handful of times (and never actually in between other vehicles).

I talked to him a bit more, asked him about other things he may or may not have learned from his mentor. Trip planning? No. Tandem sliding? No. Scaling a load? No. He said that he doesn't even have the money to scale a load even if he wanted to, so I bought him dinner the next night. I gave him just about every good tip I know, but that's no replacement for developing skills under the supervision of a trained eye.

Other drivers will watch guys like him and have a laugh, but honestly, I find his situation very upsetting, and I'm sure there are many that are just like him, upgrading to their own trucks every day. I feel lucky that my mentor was a company driver. Not that I have anything against O/O's, but if a company presents a golden opportunity, there are always going to be those that will take advantage any way they can.

This may just be more of my naiveness talking, but this is just how it looks from my perspective. It might be a bit deep for a post about somebody running over a fire hydrant, but these thoughs gotta go somewhere, right? Haha

Small update on my situation. My new DM just called me to introduce himself. Told me that he drove for 25 years and had no problem answering every stupid question I might have for him, haha. Definitely get to breathe a sigh of relief now, haha. He even has a conference call every week so his drivers can chat with one another.

I'm going to sprinkle a little bit of pessimism into the mix here. I attended Swift's driving academy in Memphis this past November, went to orientation and 200 hours behind the wheel with a mentor in December, and now I've been solo with for a little over a week. So since you are going to do 3rd party training, I'll leave that part of the experience out.

The mentorship was alright. I actually kind of enjoyed it for awhile. However, my trainer was different from most. We didn't drive teams like most students do after the 50 hour mark. Because I was the only one that drove, there was a lot that I didn't get to do because he wanted to keep running as much as possible. He did all the trip planning, he dealt with almost everything on the qualcomm, and he seldom let me back the truck on my own without some kind of input. The bad part is that now that I'm solo, things are rather scary for me at the moment because I never really got to do anything on my own.

So speaking of going solo... well, it's not going great to be honest. Firstly, I'm technically running without a driver manager at the moment, because I was told that there "aren't enough DM's" to handle anyone new at the moment. What? If that wasn't bad enough, they didn't have a truck available for me at the terminal when it was time for me to go solo. So they gave me a bus ticket to Jackson, Mississippi, and gave me an address of where I'd find my truck. I wasn't informed of it, but this truck has been abandoned by the previous driver. Garbage everywhere, reeking of cigarette smoke, batteries drained, all the permits were out of date, equipment missing, broken vent in the sleeper (so freezing cold air bellows in all night). You name it, there was something wrong with it.

So I got a load and took it back to Memphis (also finding out that the truck shakes violently around 55mph or so). I told them what was wrong with it, but nobody was interested in getting any of it fixed (comfort nor mechanical issues). So all I have to work with is a filthy truck that's falling apart and my mentor's DM to help me with some issues if I need him. Just yesterday, I was given two loads: one delivering in Philadelphia tomorrow, and the other going to Atlanta. This load had an issue and couldn't be delivered today, so I declined the next GA load. I was sent a message back basically forcing me to recommit to the load, even though I KNOW it was going to be late. So I contacted my interm DM and he told me that I was being played by the load planners and to re-decline the load.

So at this point, I'm not really sure who I'm supposed to trust at this company (besides other drivers, they're pretty good people). I didn't want to write a whole topic on this because I know the other forum users would look at it as another Swift-bashing post. I'm not ready to say that I hate the company, but this first impression has certainly made things sour for me so far. I'm going to stick with it though. I know how important getting that OTR experience is to getting new opportunities.

So if you made it this far and still want more information, ask away, haha.

(By the way, Errol, congrats on the 1 year at Swift! Yes, I saw your name on the anniversary board, haha)

I almost got stuck myself out here. Had to keep going longer than I wanted because many exits were not plowed. Came up to my usual Nashville area stop (the huge Flying J on exit 182) and it seemed like every truck in the state was trying to park there, haha.

I have seen 35 and 36 CPM

This is correct G-Town. I upgrade to solo in a couple days and will be at 36 CPM.

Hey Barry, I went to Swift's academy in November, and I'm just finishing up my one-on-one training to go solo in a couple days, so maybe I can answer a couple of these for you.

First, after I submitted my application, I called the recruiting line from the website and they started getting me set up immediately. They just do a brief background check and they will likely want to get you to an academy the next week or ASAP. Yes, drivers take their trucks home, as long as they can get you freight going through wherever you're taking your hometime. Pets are not allowed on company trucks. There are no APU's on Swift's trucks, and most trucks do not have an inverter, nor will you be allowed to wire one up. However, the new '16 Cascadia Evolutions do come equipped with inverters. My trainer's truck has one. In the case you need one for medical use, I believe they make an exception.