250? come on dude, that's just silly...

 

if at all posible pay for the school yourself....... that is my only advice.

 

That is Correct, he could make as low as 250.00 and I am sure there will be many weeks like that. A lot during training.

 

I can only speak from personal experience and the experience of those who stayed with Swift at the same time I did. If my experience is unusual then I easily stand corrected and will admit my mistake.
During training the pay was ok. Something along the lines of $350/week the first two weeks, then $450 the next two weeks, and $500 the final two weeks.
Went home for four days, got a $500 bonus for my first drop. That was nice.
After that it got pretty hard. 0.26/mile is not very much. But I knew that going in.
If the miles had been there, I could have survived. And the miles were there when I was running. They had a fair (imo) system of 'do a short run, then do a long run'. By short I mean less than 100, by long I mean 400 plus.
But when you're not rolling, you're not making any money. As I've stated before, my rig kept breaking down. Usually just for a day, but one time for 5 days.
I was supposed to get breakdown pay ($25.00/day I believe, or maybe it was $50). Never got it. Perhaps if I had been one of those guys who yelled and screamed at his DM I would have. I'm just not that type of guy. I ask politely, and you either have the honor to live up to your word or you don't. If you don't I ain't got much use for ya.
I will admit that Swift will give you a variety of driving experiences over all types of terrain. I think company drivers who stick with them past a year and O/O's who lease outside the company do ok or even really well. And if you're single and have no obligations, Swift would be a great company to work for IMO. But if you have mouths to feed and bills to pay, that first year is going to be incredibly difficult, especially if you're the sole bread winner in the house like I am.
I did indeed get paychecks of $250. Sometimes I got less. Sometimes I got more. If I had been on a dedicated account perhaps it would have been more steady. I was told that you had to be with Swift for 6 months and have a proven record of being an on-time driver before you were eligible for a dedicated account though (the only exception I heard of was one driver from a very small town who just happened to be the closest driver for a new account).
So all in all, if you are desperate and have to get your foot in the door by hook or crook, sure, go with Swift. You'll learn a lot and they stress safety.
If you can get in the industry by any other means, please do yourself a favor and do so.
Listen to the people on this board, not just me. Hell, ignore me completely. Read some of the other driver's stories. But do your research and call around if you have the luxury of options. And don't believe what a recruiter says, they are not your advocate. YOU are your advocate.

 

I'll just add something further. IMO, Swift is a company that has grown too fast. They simply lack the infrastructure, the support, to live up to their promises. There were two days in particular where I needed a trailer. One time was in Gary, IN. It was on the weekend and I needed a load, but couldn't get one without a trailer. I was finally told to go to one location, only to be told when I got there that they didn't allow empties to be taken out.
Same experience in their Atlanta terminal.
That's two days right there where I made little money. $15 I think for a trailer hunt.
To have to wait 24 hours for a load is a killer. To see all those brand new Volvos and wonder 'why didn't they also buy some new trailers?' is very discouraging.
I actually liked my DM on a personal level. I don't think Swift keeps you grounded out of malice, that makes no sense. But it's like the Phoenix terminal being out of snow chains (making me hunt all over for them myself), or being stuck for 5 days waiting on a part. Or allowing drivers to put their lock on empty trailers so you can't use them. Why do these things happen? The rules and competency level of the terminals varied from location to location. Some were very well run. The Edwardsville terminal was awesome. The Fontana one was so nasty I wouldn't let my dog sleep there.
Why is it so difficult to hire mechanics who speak English? Again, I'm sure they did the best they could with the tools given them. But when my Qualcomm breaks down and the guy who is supposed to repair it can't understand what the symptoms of the problem are, then there is a high likelyhood that the underlying catalyst won't be remedied. And so it wasn't.
Perhaps I just drew bad cards. I'm by no means an all-knowing font of information on Swift, and am not trying to pass myself off as such. I can only tell you what happened to me. If you go with them, make the best of it and good luck.

 

When I worked for swift there were many weeks after I went solo that got 120-350 dollar paychecks not to mention it took WEEKS for them to reimburse me for my scale's showers and tolls. One of the main reasons I left there was because I simply could not afford to live in the truck any longer. And its not like I was eating at the truck stops either, I was buying stuff to make PB and J from wal-mart and that is all I ate because that is all I could afford, never mind being able to pay bills back home. My wife and I almost got divorced over all of this because I was actually spending more money than I was making for about a two month period.

I really don't want to bash Swift because I do know quite a few people that do extremely well there. But for me it was just a horrible expierence, but to be honest I always have had bad luck even when trying to go into things with a great attitude. BOL to you and your husband but like many others have said if you can get around going to Swift then I would do that.

 

That's my main point though, you could insert almost any of the training companies into the scenario and it would be 100% true. There are people who have rough starts in this business.

 

Sounds like the past couple of weeks for me, well the income anyway. I manage my money so my bills are always paid.


I will add this, do any of you actually complain? I called the head of operations and told him what's going on. We are all numbers on paper but when you talk with a man on the phone and you tell him that you are making a couple of hundred and obvioulsy can't live like that, well obviously he can't disagree with that. Now be clear with your facts and be prepared that he is going to pull you up on the computer. I am a runner so they pull me up and they see that me sitting is bad for me and bad for the company. I tell them straight up, yes you can fill my seat with 30 more tomorrow but good help is hard to find.

You just have to be persistant. I told them I wanted my old dispatcher back who only does teams now. Told no by some supervisor, but I spoke with head of safety and he spoke with head of operations and I think that's what they are going to do. They don't want me to leave. But I complain, so everyone knows what's going on. You have to complian, that's all there is too it.

 

Bottom line clawsoncrew and anyone else thinking about signing on to any of the mega-carriers (Swift, CR England, Prime, Stevens, etc) is that your first 6 months or so are going to be pretty lean. You'll have to endure 3 weeks of no pay while you are going to school, another 4 to 6 weeks of low pay while your out with a trainer ($300-$500 a week on average).

And once you get your own truck the money is not going to start pouring in. You'll move up to making a whole $350 to $800 a week.
Some weeks you will do good but others not so good, so your paychecks will be very incosistent. Most companies generally assign new drivers older trucks, so you will be more likely to break down while on the road :cry:. If you are single, making it through this time period will be difficult. But it can be done, if you SAVE some of your money from the good weeks to help carrying you through the bad weeks. If you are married and your family is depending on you to send money back home to pay the bills, it's going to be really tough on you. I know several drivers that have gotten themselves caught up in a vicious cycle by taking advances on thier paychecks, just trying to make it.

 

Trust me when I tell you that I complained a lot. I even had everything saved in my laptop so when I would go in to talk to my DM and the terminal manger I had my facts straight. They told me they would work it out but after another couple weeks of hardly any money my wife pretty much told me it's time to leave there before she left me. The other huge part to me departure from Swift was that when I was given good loads they had unrealistic time frames for me to run them in. My DM even told me that if I did not take a load because I didn't have the hours for it and make it ON TIME I would be fired. That combined with the low pay made me abandon ship. :sad: