I screwed up

[tree md]

Actually 4 years. I bought it in Dec. 07 and replaced it a little over a month ago but the only thing I ever did was stretch a chain out and make it inoperable when I got it hung in a chunk. Other than that all I ever did to it was change the spark plug and air filter on it. It does need some carb work.

The ####ing up equipment is only the part that I am relieved about them being gone. There is another reason that I won't mention in an open forum but rest assured, it was grounds for dismissal.

 

[Philbert]

There's a difference between firing a guy who is a constant screw up and essentially coercing an employee to work off of the clock.

What if the siding repair was beyond the OP's ability? Would he be expected to pay for someone else to do it? From the homeowner's perspective, I would expect the tree company to take care of it, or to pay for it From an employment standpoint, it occurred during work by an employee, and again, I see it as the company's responsibility, not necessarily the employee's, to get it repaired.

What if the OP gets hurt while repairing it, falling off a ladder, etc. There is a WC liability mess right there.

Philbert

 

[beastmaster]

Whenever I have broke something on someone else's dime, I have felt really bad. So much so, I don't take chances. Yet still sometimes sh _ _ t happens. A company can't make you pay for damage, and I can't see a reputable one asking. That being said, those rare times I break the Occasional fence rail or rain gutter, mail box, I will gladly offer to pay for damage, or put in the work to fix it with out question.
I shelled out 120.00 dollars for a Bar B Q I crushed on a deck a few months ago, I knocked a brick out of a wall, and trimmed an other tree for the people to square it up with the HO. The Company can't make you pay, but if your a responsible climber you should at lest offer to pay or fix the damage. I have paid for screens, windows ect. and fixed those things on my own time If I was able, more so then not.

 

[sgreanbeans]

I have had only 2 incidents since getting into this. Had one guy "sleeping" on a tag, pulling a skinny hickory over, it brushed the last 3 shingles and knocked off a gutter end cap, I told HO not to pay me until it was fixed, I hired it out to one of my brothers subs. Let the guy who was "sleeping" go, after he told me it was no big deal and to "settle down". Second, A guy put the out riggers down on my old 46,000lb Bucket with out any cribbing, it cracked a driveway cake corner. I hired that fixed as well, that guy was sick about it, offered to pay for it, work weekends, wash my underwear, whatever it took to make it right, he was so upset that I was worried about him. I just told him not to do it again. I would never ask them to pay, unless it was obvious that there was intent, but then I would let the lawyer handle that. Those 2 deals happened fairly close in time, along time ago, since then, I have had no more issues like that, as I too agree, when in doubt, rope it out. This has earned me a bit of a "slow" rep, which may be true, I am not the fastest, but I don't take chances, slow and steady. Don't get me wrong, when I can bomb I go nuts, but when I have targets, I make damn sure they don't get hit. To this day, never have had a claim.

 

[sgreanbeans]

Good thread BTW

 

[adronetree]

Hmm

I think whatever agreement you and the business owner make in advance should be the rule.
If your agreement is that you pay for any mistakes you make then its good. If your agreement is that you dont' well thats good too.
And if you dont have a preset agreement then you need to make one for all future work.

 

[superjunior]

Accidents do happen and so far I haven't made any one pay for an honest accident. However if I see a pattern of carelessness developing that person is assed out quick..

I won't pay for stupidity, and I've taken stupidity right out of paychecks. Had a guy back a chipper right over a new 046. He said blame the guy who was backing him up. The guy guiding him back said it wasn't his fault he wasn't driving so that saw cost both of them. Had a crew come back at the end of the day without the ladder on the truck. Amongst the 3 of them they couldn't figure out where it was left or whos fault it was. That ladder came out of all 3 of their checks.

 

[TreeAce]

C'mon MD...5 years on one saw and all that broke was a chain break? That thing had it coming, should go for another 5 now easy.

And to the rest of you...spend more than 5 minutes training people and maybe you won't have as many #### ups.

Theres no need for training with these "types" cuz they already know everything. Not sure how you try a guy not to break stuff? The guy I mentioned earlier also put a nice size limb into a flower bed. No real damage done but the point is, he was told to rope it off and didnt. I even pointed to the crotch to use. Just stick the damn rope there with a pruner. It was that simple. next thing I know the damn branch is laying in the flowers! I was pissed. His excuse was how the hinge broke or some dumb crap. Freakn stupid.

 

[adronetree]

hmm

The best one I've seen is new boy riding over to a group of saws laying on the ground on a Bobcat and tried to pick them up with the grapple. So legally maybe you couldnt charge him for the 200 he crushed but...
Thats why I make it clear when I hire someone. No conditions. Screw something up and you have to pay for it. Whats stupid or not depends on the interperation and the opinion of whoever you ask.

If you ask some treeworkers "who did that?" while you were gone. Shockingly no one on the job did it but yet it has been done.

 

[KenJax Tree]

My only damage so far was a sprinkler head and a patio block and i fixed both on my dime voluntarily. And the customers were both really happy and even said not to worry about it but i said no i broke so i will fix it.

 

[Toddppm]

Lost a new guy to careless #### ups this week too. 2 things broke in 2 days, not waiting for a 3rd.

 

[Kottonwood]

This is not even an issue on my job. One of my guys took out two fence pickets the other week, he told me about it after he had fixed it at the end of the day off the clock and out of his own pocket. Had another guy stumpgrind a rake.... he showed up with a new one the next day. Those two are damn good employees too, I would have easily paid for those things without argument. That's called manning up.... you should try it sometime.... and #### whatever the legalities of the situation are.... that really should't effect your decision.


Another totally different situation. One of my guys is a really good pruner but still get's shaky in large removals. I had him up in a big one and we were ziplining pieces over the garage. I was talking him through it and he seemed to be doing pretty well, it was his first time speedlining. I walked off and started to set my line in the other side of the tree so I could do the backside of the removal. I was away from the zipline ten minutes and a piece smacked the roof. We both went back and fixed it on our own time out of my pocket, told him I would pay him and he refused. I figured it was part my fault for not making sure he really knew what he was doing before I left.

In your situation it sounds like it was your fault. If you are expected to have a certain level of skill and you are paid accordingly you shouldn't be making simple mistakes like hitting a gutter... however if you are a greenhorn climber getting paid twelve dollars an hour and this guy is sending you out as the foreman of a crew... then yeah he should probably cough up the change to get that fixed..... I have been in both those situations.

 

[treeclimber101]

I blew a cut, missed my topcut on a snapcut. The limb hinged instead of dropping flat, and kissed the siding. My question is, my boss wants me to fix the damage at my expense on sunday. I have been here 9 months, this is my second oops. Thoughts?

Well what I've learned it is really depends on what kind of siding you've kissed ..... if its metal and weather worn and sun bleached well sir your ROYALLY ####ed that can't be matched and you gotta side the entire joint , but if its not and fairly new you can have any local rummy with a hammer run right on over there with the siding on there handlebars and patch ER right up ...... The best thing to do and words to live by is don't hit the house cause baddddddd things happen when #### falls from high up and KISSES living space of your customers they tend to get mad .....

 

[treeclimber101]

Lost a new guy to careless #### ups this week too. 2 things broke in 2 days, not waiting for a 3rd.

There must be something in the air then cause I watched a guy do the 'cupid shuffle" on a ladies daffodils after we were asked to crush, smash, dent, light on fire, or tear up anything other then the flowers ..... So needless to say there was no tip .......

 

[richard88]

In it's most simple terms the employer takes the profit with the resposibility, that said I feel as though if i screw up then it's my responsibility to fix the mistake and i've found that having that attitude keeps me from making careless mistakes because I am holding myself accountable for my actions and the decisions that I make. This ultimately makes me better at making tough decisions and makes me a more valuable employee. It's not about knowing everything it's about knowing my limitations and knowing when i need to error on the safe side and rope it down.

I hope this helps.

-Richard

 

[pdqdl]

C'mon MD...5 years on one saw and all that broke was a chain break? That thing had it coming, should go for another 5 now easy.

And to the rest of you...spend more than 5 minutes training people and maybe you won't have as many #### ups.

Nonsense. While your statement is certainly true for those of us that might not provide enough training, the vast majority of folks that we hire are looking for a job for a very good reason. They don't care about their employer's equipment, or they are too stupid to know how to do the obvious.

Sometimes, you just have to expect some common sense and basic skills, otherwise the employee is just the wrong person for the job. An unlimited expense in training time will make them an unprofitable employee. I hired a minimum wage "person" a couple of weeks ago to do nothing more than hand out flyers door to door. This individual was asked to put one tire patch onto a tube, and was shown how. Later that day, this same individual told me they could fix any tire in 1/2 hour, although they had never broken a bead or removed a tire from the wheel in their whole life.

If I hired this person to do any real work using equipment, destruction would shortly thereafter.

 

[pdqdl]

The best one I've seen is new boy riding over to a group of saws laying on the ground on a Bobcat and tried to pick them up with the grapple....

I had paid several hundred dollars to have a damaged aluminum bench welded back together once. Two guys were told to pick it up and load it into the truck for restoring it to it's location. It weighed all of 120 lbs, maybe.

They used the bobcat with log grapple to load it, and crushed it into tiny little pieces. Oh yeah! I was pissed, and they were unemployed.

 

[newsawtooth]

Nonsense. While your statement is certainly true for those of us that might not provide enough training, the vast majority of folks that we hire are looking for a job for a very good reason. They don't care about their employer's equipment, or they are too stupid to know how to do the obvious.

Yeah, you're probably right. The relationship between training and workplace accident and injury reduction is tenuous. And when you can hire like you do, who needs training?

http://www.arboristsite.com/commercial-tree-care-climbing/197972.htm

 

[arborjockey]

I can tell in 2 minutes of running a saw whether your going to be any good with it. Climbing i can tell in about 20 minutes. how do you guys let these idiots hang around:confused2:
I worked for a guy who would fire dudes all the time. loved working with him. He schooled me in the art. You are fired with in the 1st 3 months if you...show up more then 5 min. late more then 1 time (that is if work starts at 7:00 your 5 min late at 7:00), call in sick, break anything other then grass and maybe a bird feeder, any insubordination, bad attitude, over use of profanities, and most of all dont talk to my clients about anything. If your cranking out work and taking chances my rule of thumb is every 3 months something small might get damaged. That includes fences, phone line, maybe an insignificant shrub. Every 6 months to a year you may hit something bigger, deck, a nicer plant. Never anything huge like cars or the house. The old saying " when in doubt....." What ever thats an owners ploy to basically tell you that you don't know what your doing. Guy tells me that I'll rope em' all out and take all day. Truth is speed fallows technique. Want to go faster get better and that doesn't mean take more chances. I feel bad when I break stuff but thats all you get. I'll help fix it on company time with company purchased material. I dont take rubbing your nose in the mess lightly. Fire me fine but you get loud and angry with me and I'll punch your ass. Pick your words wisely and make it quick.


Back in Ohio I had a gardener buddy doing tree work for awhile. He bid a $500 Silver maple removal. Backyard one cut no clean up. Yeah #$%^ing right. The tree was huge and at 1st glance looked to be a $2000 6-7 hr. full blown, branch by branch rope out removal. In the end I took a sawsall and cut the corner off the old shop so the trunk would clear. Then fell the tree. It took the hole yard and some. The tree touched 3 sides of the yards chain link fence....hard. But not enough to bend it. Yeah I was in doubt but didn't rope it out.:rolleyes2: We did 100's of jobs back then by the seat of HIS pants not mine. After all the storm chasing we did(8months worth) I never broke ANYTHING. Lately .....not so hot. blower fell off the roof and i backed the bucket truck into a sign. I thought I was getting better but more stuff is getting broken this last month then ever.:bang:

 

[beastmaster]

I was doing a commercial job at a veterans hospital on a big Euc. It had three big primary leaders and a small target area, surrounded by different levels of targets. It was getting late and I told the guy I was working for I could slam it down pretty quick if he wanted me to. I took big pieces out of the first two leaders, leaving 35ft or so sticks. I told him several times these had to be removed first before I did the last leader. He kept shining on my requests. I was in the last leader, I could see it wouldn't clear those other leaders, I told him it won't make it and is going to bounce back towards a garden shed. He insisted I do it like he was telling me but to put a jump cut in it, so it would clear. I said it won't, He said just do it. O.K.
I put a deep narrow face cut in it. They hooked the tipping line to a tractor, I started my back cut and they pulled. That baby flew pretty far, but just hit the top of one of my previous cuts, boomeranged back and took out the front of this shed. I'm hot, theirs a crowd of people watching. He comes running over and says,"you know what you did wrong?" I loose it. Not a nice thing.
He says my cut wasn't right so It didn't fly far enough. A co-worker took video from the sidelines, showing a very impressive leap. It did just what I told him it would though. I was fighting mad. That he tried to put it off on me in front of those people and the crew after I spelled out to him what was going to happen and argued against that tactic. I even ask him to just let me take one of the front leaders down a few feet to be sure the top would clear.
Anyway in a situation like that I don't feel its on the climber. I make the call, I accept the responsibly, I have to do someones dirty work who never climbed a tree and they don't listen to my advice, it falls on them in my book.
Sometimes bosses or owners are willing to accept more risk, or even promote it in the name of saving time and money, setting up a situation where something bad is going to happen, then they use the hack code: 1st-Lie 2ed- denie and 3rd- blame some else.