What Should I Do ? Swift Has Me Stuck And Giving Me The Run Around

Wow. I don't know what to say. I'm not accusing you of anything, but there has to be something missing from the story. I hope it all works out for you. Good Luck

Lol you would think that I did something horrible to the company . With the way they are acting . But the boss man himself told me it was just "business" and they can't spend money on someone who technically doesn't work there anymore . And when I leave they have to do standard procedure . I understand that part but damn at least let me come back and get all my stuff.

Wow. I don't know what to say. I'm not accusing you of anything, but there has to be something missing from the story. I hope it all works out for you. Good Luck

Hello to all my old friends who decided to pop in!! Good to see all of you are doing great!

UPDATE: Got load back home but missed it due to truck being broke down. DEF issues and doser assembly malfunction . Wont be ready till Wed . Because I put my two notice in and my last day fell on Fri. Swift Refuses to pay for my hotel until then , or bus fare back home. The told me "you should have driven back to atlanta when you had the chance " Meaning i should have just done it without the ok i presume , and once you quit the company we aren't spending any money on you anymore". They even told the shop here H&H to not let me back in my truck to get my stuff after today. Another issue is we all know that our trucks is our homes, so I can't possibly grab all of my belongings with just my one travel bag that i have in my truck. Asked about how am i supposed to get all my stuff with just my two hands and my travel bag? they said not their problem figure it out...

I mean.... Damn..... they are treating my like i abandoned their truck and its my fault that it broke down. It seems Swift is acting like a spiteful ex spouse who is trying to get me in anyway they can at the moment . I always been a top notch employee and person to them so i know i don't deserve this.

I don't know trucking truth family , but this is definitely something ill never forget. Send prayers my way.

Damn, that's some bull****. You seem like an upstanding guy that's done things right. Hope you get home soon and that the new job is an improvement for you.

My two cents. If not already done. Call someone at Swift and ask "Where do we stand with each other?" Explain that you have no problems with Swift and you are not trying to burn bridges. Ask them what procedure they want you to use to get your stuff. Explain that you are still with their equipment and still have Swifts best interests in mind. If they are considering this truck being in the shop as you properly turning the equipment in, all you want to do is get your stuff. Tell them you also want an opportunity to give it a quick cleaning as you are not one to leave a mess behind any job.

I hope this makes sense and can be of some help. Good luck. Keep us posted. Just always be nice. Stand up and smile while on the phone. It makes a difference. Pretend you are trying to work out a difference with your best friend. Also stay in contact with your new company.

Yeah I had that idea so I got back on the phone with the head man and we came to an agreement that I could go back in my personal vehicle and get my stuff . And of course it counts as a turned it truck . So I don't get an abandoned truck on my record . At This point I'm just focused on my next opportunity with Gordon Food Service which will be a huge upgrade for me . (Yes I'm one of the wierd guys who likes the physicality of food service jobs haha)

Thanks guys

My two cents. If not already done. Call someone at Swift and ask "Where do we stand with each other?" Explain that you have no problems with Swift and you are not trying to burn bridges. Ask them what procedure they want you to use to get your stuff. Explain that you are still with their equipment and still have Swifts best interests in mind. If they are considering this truck being in the shop as you properly turning the equipment in, all you want to do is get your stuff. Tell them you also want an opportunity to give it a quick cleaning as you are not one to leave a mess behind any job.

I hope this makes sense and can be of some help. Good luck. Keep us posted. Just always be nice. Stand up and smile while on the phone. It makes a difference. Pretend you are trying to work out a difference with your best friend. Also stay in contact with your new company.

Well that kind of sucks, but at least it makes more sense to me than the "you have to stay out until they get you back" thing. If you give sufficient notice they shouldn't be expecting you to work past that, imho. The same way that you wouldn't expect to continue driving past your last day if they let you go.

Anyway, all's well that ends well. Good luck at your next job.

Yeah I had that idea so I got back on the phone with the head man and we came to an agreement that I could go back in my personal vehicle and get my stuff . And of course it counts as a turned it truck . So I don't get an abandoned truck on my record . At This point I'm just focused on my next opportunity with Gordon Food Service which will be a huge upgrade for me . (Yes I'm one of the wierd guys who likes the physicality of food service jobs haha)

Thanks guys

My two cents. If not already done. Call someone at Swift and ask "Where do we stand with each other?" Explain that you have no problems with Swift and you are not trying to burn bridges. Ask them what procedure they want you to use to get your stuff. Explain that you are still with their equipment and still have Swifts best interests in mind. If they are considering this truck being in the shop as you properly turning the equipment in, all you want to do is get your stuff. Tell them you also want an opportunity to give it a quick cleaning as you are not one to leave a mess behind any job.

I hope this makes sense and can be of some help. Good luck. Keep us posted. Just always be nice. Stand up and smile while on the phone. It makes a difference. Pretend you are trying to work out a difference with your best friend. Also stay in contact with your new company.

Glad to hear all is working out so well. Good luck in the next endeavor. Keep us posted. The more experience you get the bigger and better the opportunities that will come your way.

I just have to respond to this thread because it has been bothering me since it first got posted. Deonte is a great guy and we have enjoyed him being in here - his enthusiasm was refreshing, and he really seemed like a decent respectable young person, which is hard to come by these days.

What bothers me about this post is that it leaves the impression that a decent well known company has done him wrong. I don't like what happened to Deonte, but the real truth here is that he just didn't know how to deal with quitting his trucking job effectively. He made a classic rookie mistake when he quit (I'll explain in a minute) and he didn't follow our all important advice of sticking it out for one full year. I saw where he stated:

Due to some family issues I had to quit and take a local job

I don't need to know his particulars, but this goes back to something we've talked about often in here which is not letting the tyranny of the urgent run your life and force you into quick, or possibly bad decisions. Often times we think we have had our hand forced, when in reality we caved under pressure. It is a wise man who can understand the difference.

Now here's what stood out to me as a rookie blunder. Deonte, gave us this information:

Even though I had the chance to just quit and leave while I was on my hometime in Atlanta , I didn't . I decided to do things the right way and I put my 2 week notice in and even went back Otr as normal during my 2 weeks. Big mistake.

Okay, for anyone who is new to this and reading through Deonte's difficult experience, here is what he should have done. Let me preface this by stating how much I wish Deonte would have just jumped in here asking us how he should go about this before he got into a bind, because we could have given him this good solid advice and saved him a lot of trouble, and kept him from accusing Swift of doing him wrong in a way that he will not soon forget. I've been through this whole switching OTR jobs thing, and I know how trying it can be. Deonte had an unfortunate chain of events working against him when his truck had to go into the shop - that is not the fault of Swift. The way he could have prepared for the unforeseen is a common but simple practice that OTR drivers do when they know they are going to turn in their two weeks notice. Look at what Deonte said:

I had the chance to just quit and leave while I was on my hometime in Atlanta

He decided to do the honorable thing and put in his two week notice - that is great! But here is what any experienced driver would have done if he knew he was going to give notice, go back on the road for only two weeks, and then expect to be brought back so he can start another job. He would empty out his truck while he was at home prior to his last two weeks.

I've been down this road before, it is very simple to just go ahead and empty out your truck and run for two weeks without all your conveniences in the truck. It is not hard, and as long as you have a few changed of clothes and some canned meats and some crackers along with you then you can still survive without spending a fortune on food. Had he come in here for some advice before he started the accusations, that is exactly the good solid advice he would have gotten from me. Two weeks isn't that long to live a Spartan lifestyle for a bit. Just have enough stuff with you so that you can throw it into a large duffle and leave. Part of being a successful truck driver is being prepared for the unforeseen events that throw off our schedules, those unplanned delays. That is why we lay out a strategy to try to get to our receivers early, we never know what kind of delays we may encounter on the way. It is the same when we want to leave our jobs. Deonte had no way of knowing his truck was going to have issues, but had he planned ahead for a contingency he would have not been inconvenienced like he was.

Continued...

I completely understand Swift not wanting to spend money on a guy who just bailed. I don't think people realize just how long it takes for a new driver to get to the point where the company is actually starting to make a dollar off of their efforts. Deonte was probably just barely at that tipping point in his career where he was starting to operate in an efficient enough manner so that he was turning a profit for the company, and then he jumped ship. He can accuse Swift of doing him wrong, but he didn't give them a whole lot of a chance to benefit from his efforts. In all fairness to Deonte, he did seem happy with his relationships at Swift:

The issue is not so much as my dispatcher who I have had a great and productive relationship with , it is the supervisor who is making things difficult from trying to save dollars on empty miles driven

He just didn't give them enough of a chance to prove how great it can be to work for them. By leaving before he reached that all important one year mark he didn't give them the opportunity to benefit from his improvements as a new driver, and to be honest with you, he short changed himself in the transaction. He now moves on to an incredibly difficult job for newbies with a lot of stops everyday in ridiculously tight parking lots and very tight schedules for delivery times. He will have a lot more physical demands on his young body and will experience some fatigue in his job. All these are good reasons to have stayed on with his first job for one full year of safe driving experiences

You couldn't pay me enough to do food distribution. Assuming the gas station has a fast food joint connected with it, I have to share the already-cramped station parking lot with them. 80% of the time they have to BACK UP from the road, and believe me, gas station/food joints more often than not are located on very high traffic roads. You have to be a master at backing, without even a year of driving OTR I can bet you're not at that level yet.

The theme is common with them, about 12-16 stops on a 14-16 hour day. Good luck with the job young man, don't expect it to be easy.