Question:
Hi, everyone. I am new to this forum. I heard about it while listening to the Midnight Trucking Radio Network a few weeks ago.
I am a 51-year-old former computer programmer who voluntarily left that field after a 29-year career. I was just plain tired of it and burned out by it--tired of and burned out by the office politics, back-stabbing, CYAing, and all of the other stuff that you hear office workers everywhere complain about constantly.
I have spent several months pondering new careers. One that I have seriously considered is truck driving.
There are a Swift driver training school (Sacramento, CA) and a Swift terminal (Lathrop, CA) within 90-minute drives of my home. Swift is recruiting new driver trainees. I spoke with a recruiter the other day. Among other things, he highlighted these points:
* Swift guarantees you a job when you complete training.
* Starting pay is $700 - $800 per week, before incentives, layover time, dock time, etc.
* You get two days home for every seven days you drive. You will be on the road for seven to 14 days before you get home.
* You will be driving for about ten hours a day on the days you drive.
I had been giving this some long and hard thought, and then I found this forum. I have spent much time reading here the last few days. Based on what I read here, trucking is a pretty darn rotten career to get into. From what most of you say, trucking is fraught with extremely long hours, miserable working conditions, lying and dishonest companies, low IQ employees, and so forth. Now I am wondering, should I?
I have some further questions:
* What is Swift's reputation in the industry for training drivers and their treatment of drivers?
* Is what the recruiter told me true?
* I am single and live alone. How does a single person take care of practical matters such as answering the mail and paying bills when he away from home for weeks at a time?
* Are there many drivers over 50 years of age out there?
* Does trucking really suck, as most of you seem to say in this forum?
Any feedback, positive or negative, will be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer:
Swift is a training company. It is a place to start and really little more for the vast majority of people who go there for training.
How good your training will be at Swift, or any other training carrier, will depend on who you get for a trainer. There are people out there who try to teach and others who just are doing it for the extra money and could care less. You will find this at virtually every company that hires and trains new drivers.
Since you are single your best bet for taking care of things at home is to either get a post office box (a decent sized one) or have a friend o family member go by your place and gather your mail while you are away. Then just make sure you get home every month to take care of all your bills.
(As a side note on this: Many companies, if you know your account number, can and will tell you via the phone or the net what your bill is and you can often pay online or over the phone with a credi or debit card.)
I am too far out of the loop with Swift to really comment on current policies (was there in 1999). About the only thing I can tell you is that you will be more a number than a person a Swift, and it is this way at most large carriers unless you just happen to get one of those 1 in a million dispatchers.
Answer:
Forget it boys. No need to waste our time with the same responses every other day. Shuffler has a very good current topic here for the poster to read and the archives are full of good info for a bad job.______
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I'd rather die on my feet like a man than live on my azz hiding in a truck.........Sir James Brown

Answer:
It is a DECISION you and you alone have to make
This is a GOOD SITE to get the GOOD / BAD , POSITIVE / NEGATIVE insights and lots of info.
I have an EX TECHIE working for me , mid 50's had been with NORTEL before the drop in HI TECH.

Answer:

Please tell me more about your mid-50s ex-techie. How long has he been trucking? Is he OTR or local? How often is he home? Overall, does he like trucking?
Any way you can put him and me in contact with each other? As his background and mine have at least some similarities, I would like to pick his brain on the subject of trucking sometime.
Thanks.

Answer:
Monday afternoon about 2pm go visit the truckstop if it's still there and stay untill about 11pm
watch the zoo,watch people wait for showers,wait to get fuel,wait for food,try the food,walk around the parking lot( watch your own butt,pretend your invisable and nobody can see you,don't walk right in front of parked trucks where the driver can't see you,don't walk inches behind trucks,they might back up)
as you walk around watch people circle looking for parking spaces,watch them have a hard time getting into parking spaces
or just find a safe zone at the end of the parking lot to watch the trucks cicling and backing
look at the general condition of the place,trash,bottles full of pee.nasty restrooms,your life will be public restrooms
check out the people
i bet by 11pm you be thankful you can go home and not have to sleep in your car at that place and spend the whole next day there.
after that,you make the call if trucking is for you.If you think thats not bad,go home and go to bed like normal and after you get up after a nights sleep decide to get some more rest because your going to go for a ride ,leave at 8pm and see what it feels like to drive 11 hours all night long
if you don't fall asleep and kill yourself,you will probably rethink the deal,if you get so tired and your smart enough to pull over before you kill yourself,you just got fired . If your still hanging in there at 7am and made the 11 hour drive,now pretend you have to wait to get unloaded and finally get to dive into bed at 10am so you can get some rest to do it again that night.If your up for another long night,don't waste the gas,go the next day and sign up for truck driving school,your probably a mutant who loves self abuse.
No cheating by stopping anyplace to get coffee that doesn't have truck parking
Answer:
Man zig I just wish you would have posted that before I started driving
Sure as hell would have made me rethink it before I took the fatal plunge

Answer:

I've suggested it in the past to people,never did get a report back if they did it or not,they probably went home and kissed their front door and forgot about trucking
Answer:
\
He better not kiss that front door. The guy might be straight. Government Ain't YO' Friend. Nor your Servant.
A Tax Reduces Incentive & Capacity. A Regulation is also a TAX.


Answer:

But, in trucking, the pay is never the same each week. Some weeks you could make $1000, other weeks you might make $300. Can you budget without knowinfg what your pay is going to be week by week?

But you will be on duty more than 10 hours a day. And likely you won't be paid for On Duty- Not driving.

Never been with Swift, but there is a good reason they are the butt of many jokes. The horror stories abound.

It isn't easy.

Yes.

I think so. Others will disagree. It depends on what you want out of life and how much BS you are willing to put up with.
Answer:
Thank you all for your responses. The verdict is in. Based on what most of you say, trucking really does suck. So, I will be seeking a new career other than trucking.

Answer:
Well I agree trucking does suck but where at in Cali do you live? I live in the Fresno area you say you live up in northern California? I know Mike Lowrie is a training company in the Sacramento area but a smaller one, they usually haul hay and tomatoes during the seasons and then just flatbed frieght in the off seasons, its all in state driving as well, I have talked to some of their drivers and most seem to like it and stay there for at least a year which is good for a training company I believe their turnover rate is like 25% so its a little bit better than all the OTR companys. Morning Star in Los Banos trains and hires for all the seasons as well,Panella is another option too, look in the paper and on the job banks for smaller companys that offer training best bet is right now during all the busy seasons, I mean there are other options than Swift hahaha not much but some, like I said I don't know which town you live in exactly so I can't tell you where to go but those are a couple of options if your prepared to work your @$$ off and not get much to show for it in the long hot summer days of the San Joaquin Valley, its suppose to be 109 tomorrow I can't wait

Answer:
Alot of training companies guarantee you a job, kind of, but thats aboutall they guarantee. pay will fluctuate, time on the road will fluctuate and rarely are the conditions going to be what a recruiter has told you. There's a reason so many spend big bucks becoming a driver and don't last a year. there are no guarantees other than a job.
I would like to know the compoany that starts adriver at that rate. Since the average driver makes 40k a year and it falls in the middle of the 700 - 800 a week. it's fairly easy to understand that newbies are well below that level. You'll do good to make 30k your first years with the imaginary incentives.
Loading/unloading, PTI, Fueling, repairs etc. all add in to your weekly work time. You'll manage to log 70 and work close to 100 hours a week. It's a fact, you won't be paid for all the extra hours. It's time you give away.
Sounds to me like that recruiter was really blowing smoke that day.

Answer:

Truely amazing,the guy comes and reads about it and determines it sucks,yet people who actually do it can't seem to figure out the job sucks.This guy can't even imagine how screwed up it is,but managed to see it ain't to swift a job just by reading about it.
another one saved
Answer:
Whats really sad is those who come here for information and get it then go for it anyway. Then within a year or so they are looking to get out because they have had to experience the many negatives the hard way, by doing it. You know alot of them are still in deep debt for their schooling.