Climber/Owner making $4000 a year

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Ouch.

Here is a part of hackman's extremely long email he finally wrote back to me after I went the polite route. What do you think?

"I do understand how the industry works and never disagreed that it was a low price for that job...But again, the only options were either take it for that price or don't take it at all. America is a capitalist economy where businesses that can provide the service for the lowest price are the ones that get the job. If prices are too low then the business runs out of money and fails, but if costs are low then the business is profitable and remains. Survival of the fittest...That's the American way and the American dream. Companies like Davey and Asplundh aren't setting their prices as such because they owe it to the industry, they are setting them as high as they can and still remain competitive with the industry and are setting them as low as possible while still remaining profitable.

If I hadn't taken the job, neither one of us would have had the work and I would be going on week 3 of having no jobs so I am still glad that I was able to make some money over the last week. It is frustrating just how little credit you give me and how little you seem to think of me... After all is said and done I completed the job successfully and profitably so perhaps I do have more skills than you seem too think."
 
It's never been a problem for the guy to bid jobs except (now that I think about it) only with the larger tree jobs. I'll just take the advice, and say I'll need to be there to make the bids on large jobs, so we're making money.

I stopped by after a job of my own to see how the other guy was doing. It's hard to hold in my chuckles right now. He had the tree half down, and he was using a wood chipper on the front lawn the size of a moving box. It chips into a bag, and then he dumps the bag into his 1/4 ton pick up with a camper shell. It looks like he'll be into it for 4-5 days like I said. My bid was to have the tree gone by lunch, and grind stump all in one day. I need to ask him how slave labor is working out with the new business and all. His ground worker who hasn't touched bark with work gloves before in his life will make more money on this than he will. The laughter is hard to contain.

Fuel
Dump
Labor
Ins
Lic
Loan Payments
Maintenance

So it costs you $1400 to get out of bed in the morning? You could've been done by lunch, had all your bills paid, and gone on to the next job which would've been pure profit.

Ouch.

Here is a part of hackman's extremely long email he finally wrote back to me after I went the polite route. What do you think?

"I do understand how the industry works and never disagreed that it was a low price for that job...But again, the only options were either take it for that price or don't take it at all. America is a capitalist economy where businesses that can provide the service for the lowest price are the ones that get the job. If prices are too low then the business runs out of money and fails, but if costs are low then the business is profitable and remains. Survival of the fittest...That's the American way and the American dream. Companies like Davey and Asplundh aren't setting their prices as such because they owe it to the industry, they are setting them as high as they can and still remain competitive with the industry and are setting them as low as possible while still remaining profitable.

If I hadn't taken the job, neither one of us would have had the work and I would be going on week 3 of having no jobs so I am still glad that I was able to make some money over the last week. It is frustrating just how little credit you give me and how little you seem to think of me... After all is said and done I completed the job successfully and profitably so perhaps I do have more skills than you seem too think."

Humble and honest. I like that guy better. Get him to join.
 
Last edited:
Ouch.

Here is a part of hackman's extremely long email he finally wrote back to me after I went the polite route. What do you think?

"I do understand how the industry works and never disagreed that it was a low price for that job...But again, the only options were either take it for that price or don't take it at all. America is a capitalist economy where businesses that can provide the service for the lowest price are the ones that get the job. If prices are too low then the business runs out of money and fails, but if costs are low then the business is profitable and remains. Survival of the fittest...That's the American way and the American dream. Companies like Davey and Asplundh aren't setting their prices as such because they owe it to the industry, they are setting them as high as they can and still remain competitive with the industry and are setting them as low as possible while still remaining profitable.

If I hadn't taken the job, neither one of us would have had the work and I would be going on week 3 of having no jobs so I am still glad that I was able to make some money over the last week. It is frustrating just how little credit you give me and how little you seem to think of me... After all is said and done I completed the job successfully and profitably so perhaps I do have more skills than you seem too think."

Gee, he writes just like you do. Same word progressions, same sentence structure, same punctuation.

Strange, strange indeed.

You wouldn't be making this whole debacle up would you? Trolling for attention...that sort of thing?
 

Latest posts

Back
Top