Hey Primeates (competitor Horror Story)

I have a very close friend who works for one of our competitors. (I'm not gonna mention names)

He just called me to ask how to set his reefer. It seems that neither his company, nor his 3 trainers (3 phases of OTR training there) felt it was important to teach the poor guy how to operate the reefer unit on their trailers.

I guess this would be an eye opening for us, and how great we actually have it.

I have a very close friend who works for one of our competitors. (I'm not gonna mention names)

He just called me to ask how to set his reefer. It seems that neither his company, nor his 3 trainers (3 phases of OTR training there) felt it was important to teach the poor guy how to operate the reefer unit on their trailers.

I guess this would be an eye opening for us, and how great we actually have it.

Did he ever think to ASK one of those 3 people during training. I find it hard to believe that someone is being trained to run reefers and is not taught how to operate it !!?? Weird.

My guess is that they have old and new ones like us. My entire training I only ever saw the new ones...got an old one and was like "where's the intelliset button"

Weird is an understatement...

This is neither an endorsement of Prime or an indictment of the "competitor"; it's a testament of how detached and checked-out your friend was during training. He had the compulsion to ask you for help, why didn't he speak up during training? Not sure what your point is, but it sure didn't ring true for me.

I guess I should have clarified a few things. When I asked him about his trainers, he said they pulled nothing but dry box trailers while he was in training, and this is actually his first reefer load since his upgrade.

I've known this guy for close to 20 years, and worked with him the oilfield for that time.

I guess the point of my post was to shed some light on not taking for granted what we have. That sometimes even the most basic things are over looked.

When Swift was training drivers for reefer on dry vans, because that did not have enough to reefer trainers. I would get calls from my DM asking if I could help out a driver over the phone set up a reefer. or when I was at a terminal if a new driver was getting on a reefer they would ask a reefer trainer or driver to go out and show them how to set up the reefer. I even had my DM loan me out to another DM to show her driver how to set up a reefer. It's seems to be pretty common when you have large mixed fleets to have van drivers coming to reefer. I have even showed other companies drivers how to set up a reefer when asked.

I would not call setting up a reefer a basic thing. Especially if you're coming from dry van or flatbed. It kind or like going from reefer to flatbed for me. Different animals. I just had a friend get fired for setting his reefer wrong on a Walmart load he has 10 years of doing reefer and van, he just had a brain fart and set the load at 20 instead of -20. But hay at least you helped him out.

Prime has cool video tutorials on our phone app for stuff like that.

Prime has cool video tutorials on our phone app for stuff like that.

Several present and past Swift Drivers have posted some cool videos on YouTube, as well. Additionally, Swift provides its drivers access to Swift University AND the "Shop" personnel who are available to answer any questions drivers may have about Swift's refrigerated trailers.

I wish I knew the name of Prime's "competitors."