bad luck towns?

[treeman82]

I'll work almost anywhere. There are some towns I might not be too crazy about (distance, traffic, etc) and then there are some that I like more than others... but there's only one that I really dislike for some reason. I spoke with a couple of people about this, and I could only ever tell them that I didn't like working in this particular town.. I didn't know why, but I just didn't like it. Well, I guess this town is bad luck for me or something, because I just finished doing a job there last night, and this would add to my history with the town.

First job, for this woman who was a former teacher of mine... problems getting paid.

Second job, for this person who I met through one of the forums... just didn't work out well. Money problems, and other things.

This past fall one of my good customers refers me to a friend of his. That friend got me about 4 jobs.

First job, take down an arborvitae. Get it done, lady tells me that she'll leave a check if she's not home in the evening. I arrive to get the check, or meet with her.. nobody is home, nobody answers the phone, I waited 1/2 an hour in the cold for somebody to come home.

After that I bunched everything together... 1 sugar maple removal, prune 3 dogwoods, and 1 big sugar maple. Fine. Wood was supposed to stay on the removal... they changed their minds after it was on the ground. Told them $500 to get rid of the logs... log truck driver nailed me for $450 to take about 2/3rds of the wood. (1) 16 footer, and 4 pieces already cut to firewood length. This one didn't work out well. The friend of my customer... I had to take some dead and broken branches from a sugar maple over the house. Get the branches taken care of... I'm out of the tree which had beaten the heck out of me... can I go up and get another one... right over the roof. Bust my butt on that, go today to get paid... hand him the bill, no check, or anything... just thank you.

I've gotta stop going to this town. I've never done any damage... but man my wallet, and my head hurt every time I go.

 

[mckeetree]

Around here the bad spot for us is out in the rural areas. I mean extremely rural.
Seems like every job we take out in the sticks there is some screwed up issue to deal with. Fact is about half of them are nuts and the other half ranchers that are mucho cheap. We did a job for this rancher the other day and he starts in with this "Well I got seven Mexicans and two chainsaws we could do this job on our own" crap. I told him look, buddy, we've already started your job and can the seven Mexican ranch hands bit. When we got finished he said he didn't feel like he owed us all of it because it took less than a day and I told him it would take all day. Then last year one guy who lived in the back side of nowhere dog decided to chaw on my leg for a while.

 

[techdave]

Hi McKee Tree

i feel your pain brother. I live and often work in a rural area and mostly its all good.

But a small percentage of the locals are either cheap muthas or criminal wierdos. Especially PITA are the jobs where the customer might be real adult who goes "down the hill " to San Diego to work during the day.

So we end up dealing with his or her meth addicted or dope sucking off-slug.
Lots of smart mouth opinions from a jperpetually teen-aged jerk who cant even shave or wash his clothes. Oh boy an afternoon of that is like having your paycheck shoved up you ___ a nickel at a time!