well, I ended up losing any future contract work with another company over some of the stuff we have mentioned here!
guy calls me, needs my dad to climb, me on the ground to run my GRCS and rope stuff, and a chipper, I have to run the chipper due to liability, so I'm running the GRCS, then run about 100ft over to the chipper and wait on the mini to drag each piece to it, keep in mind we are chipping into his dump trailer, so I'm also having to get up in there to rake chips down so they don't spill over the sides
so, I'm doing all that, at no point in any deal EVER with this guy, was I supposed to drag brush, this is important later
when he originally called, he said it'd be one day, climb the bit over the house and drop the rest, chip anything <4"dia into the woods, easy peasy, not even a big tree
we show up to a 40" DBH white oak, limbs 50-70 feet long and the tree is well over 110 feet tall, limbs over the house, need to rig them down, can't drop the other side because the neighbors driveway and one of the larger sewer mains for the county, above ground through the woods, we drop anything that way and it'll be a crappy situation! oh and the woods aren't owned by the customer, so no chipping into those, there went a LOT of time
tree took us 3 days, we started on friday, saturday I have to re-schedule work to help him (I told the guy I had to leave by 4PM, he said no and that I would have to re-schedule, come to think about it, shoulda packed my stuff and left the minute he said this, I wasn't supposed to even be there day Saturday)
we ended up chipping anything that would fit because he was tired of moving logs and cutting stuff, not sure that made anything faster
he tried to tell me how to run my chipper (he doesn't own one, only experience is one or two day rentals)
he can't even untie a bowline, and he claims to be a climber yet he doesn't even own a climb line, just a flipline, saddle and spikes, and I let him try my stuff out, almost had to rescue him because he locked up 10 feet off the ground
we showed up early Sunday, last day to help (because he's headed to florida Monday), its pouring rain on us, no work's being done till it quits raining
I had a limb fall out of the tree while I'm standing under a huge piece we are lowering, this idiot took a 2500 ish pound piece and pulled it directly onto my lowering line, can't lower that now can I? the piece that fell gave me one hell of a bump ontop of my head, almost knocked me out, and he literally told me to walk it off and keep working
then, come night of day 3, he texts me at about 11:30 with a MASSIVE paragraph about how horrible I am as a ground guy and that he will never call me again because I said I wouldn't drag brush or cut anything, took 20 minutes to read it
keep in mind, first job we did for him was a no-cleanup, charged him $1100 for climber, rope guy and GRCS, he moved brush, that was that
this job he wanted a climber, GRCS, chipper, and someone to drag brush, for you guessed it, $1100 a day, hell no, not gonna happen
part of his paragraph he left me was that hes paying for 2 climbers and not 1 climber and a half assed ground guy... dafuq? who's gonna run the chipper AND GRCS that he had me bring? not him or his crackhead helper, I could tell that from the minute I saw that he can't tie his throwline to his throw ball (he cuts it off every throw and leaves the line on the ring...)
so, if this means anything to anyone, GET A CONTRACT, also, no matter what, the other guys flake on you and make it seem like your problem, had another one a few months ago, dude said "itll be 2 hours tops, I will be there with a grapple truck soon as you start"
we show up, its a maple next to 3 phase, and over a house + service drop, theres lights and lag bolts we have to pull out after waiting 30+ minutes on the homeowner to answer the door, then we have to move about 50 potted plants out of the dropzone, theres no parking or anything so we are parked up the road and carrying equipment to the tree, takes us the 2 hours just to get set up
drop zone on this ~40ft maple is about 15ft x 30ft, its directly in the middle, so really only leaves us a few feet on any side to drop stuff, 2nd tree we were to take down was blocked by the customers trailer, he can't move it because he sold his truck, I have to move it with my machine, so that took a bit too, original plan was to not move it because the grapple truck could pick it out in one piece and miss the trailer
the guy we were working for/grapple truck dude called me about 3 hours in telling me he wasn't gonna show up, the plan was for him to put brush in his truck as it came down so I wouldn't have to handle it a lot, well now im cutting and stacking in the neighbors yard to get it out of the way
job took us 8 hours instead of the 2 he said it would, yes I billed for it, a LOT for it to be exact
this was a few months ago, just this week he called me drunk to complain about how long we took, like dude, you never even showed up till we were gone, if you had the grapple there and the tree was ready to go like you said, it would have been a 2 hour tree easy, he cut me off to tell me "DonT BulChiT Me"
so yeah, sometimes it goes great, but lots of the time they complain about everything, don't do their job, make it your problem, and expect lots of free stuff
maybe have a pricing system per tool/machine if you bring extras, and this has to be part of the contract they agree to, so come time to get bent over because they messed up, you can write out a bill for exactly what you need, and they gots to pay it
my fault for not having a contract, I have NEVER had a contract for a tree job, and have NEVER had an issue except when working for other companies, so next time I work for another company I guess i'm gonna whip out the 10 page contract + damage waiver & payment plan
