Tell us about things that annoy you on the job site

[WmTreeCo.]

I'm actually going to add "people with no reading comprehension" to my original list. Every one of your posts in this thread is you responding to something that nobody said. I never said anyone was telling me what to do. I never said you were useless. I said what I said and it's there for everyone to read. I stand behind that. I have been training people for nearly 30 years. We have never had an insurance claim on property or work comp, we've never had a lost time injury, we've never had someone get cut with a saw. We have an almost flawless safety history for almost 3 decades. I am the reason for that. I am almost obsessed with safety. I'm not tired of saying that and I hope you are saying exactly the same thing.

If you're going to post the same kind of posts, I'm probably just not going to respond to you anymore. But be safe and good luck.

That's a good safety record, you should be proud.

"I am almost obsessed with safety."

Usually safety obsessed people are open to new ways of trying to keep people safe. You don't see how starting with brake on could prevent a greenhorn from getting hurt?

 

[tree MDS]

This is my new favorite thread. Just the title alone makes me wanna pounce. Lol

 

[tree MDS]

Getting those all too familiar letters from the Department of Labor and trying to guess which Loser it’s gonna be this time. Haha

 

[mike515]

That's a good safety record, you should be proud.

"I am almost obsessed with safety."

Usually safety obsessed people are open to new ways of trying to keep people safe. You don't see how starting with brake on could prevent a greenhorn from getting hurt?

As I previously stated....everybody who works here uses chain brakes every single time.....except for me. So it really isn't even an issue to debate. I and a few others in this thread have said that not using them is just how we've always done it so we are used to it. Do I require it? No. Because I am already a step safer by making sure that nobody is starting saws in an unsafe manner...which was my original point to start with. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use a brake. My point was and is that you should be starting and running saws in a way that would still be safe if you didn't have a brake. We didn't have brakes on some saws back in the day so we learned differently.

 

[Bango Skank]

How about people like us who ask if we can have some of the wood?

Philbert

I like asking them if they think firewood just grows on trees.
If it’s mine to haul away I usually let them take it if they’re talking right now. If I sold a cleanup, I can’t wait around for them to borrow someone’s trailer and come back tomorrow or something.

 

[Philbert]

If it’s mine to haul away I usually let them take it if they’re talking right now.

As I noted, I am usually just looking for some practice logs. And I try to be polite about it. Some guys are happy to not haul stuff, especially if they do not have to handle it twice.

Before my garage was full, a neighbor had a very large silver maple removed; the tree company was thrilled to put a lot of that wood over my fence! But I understand liability concerns, and interruptions can be an issue. I try to polite, respectful, and leave any scrounge pile 'neater than when I found it'!

Philbert

 

[lone wolf]

Stupid help that takes 2 hours to split a half cord with a machine and not even stack it.

 

[mike515]

When customers come out after you've spent a couple of hours climbing their backyard tree and ask if it would be too much of a bother to go back to the top and get the tiny branch they think will be a problem.

Years ago, we had an old lady ask me to go back up her locust tree three times. I spent all morning climbing and dead-wooding that thing....before she asked me the first time. That was the day that we started doing all dead-wooding by the hour unless I think you are the kind of customer to just let me do it how I think it should be done.

 

[lone wolf]

When customers come out after you've spent a couple of hours climbing their backyard tree and ask if it would be too much of a bother to go back to the top and get the tiny branch they think will be a problem.

Years ago, we had an old lady ask me to go back up her locust tree three times. I spent all morning climbing and dead-wooding that thing....before she asked me the first time. That was the day that we started doing all dead-wooding by the hour unless I think you are the kind of customer to just let me do it how I think it should be done.

More money shuts them up.

 

[Mr. K]

What gets me is when I fail to properly close or forget to close the bar oil cap. I don't know how many times I have done this, hopefully less than once a year, but with my Stihl it is easier to do if I fill it up right to the top. Anyone else ever do this or is it just me?

 

[Stonesforbrains]

I’m curious if you guys that do tree work have this happen to you?
You are busy at your task, requires a lot of attention and concentration. Random person comes over, sees your busy as heck and decides to talk to you. Proceeds to tell you how they used to do your job(whatever that may be) for however long (pick a number it’s bs). Then they proceed to tell you about their life against your will and violate your ears and brain with their drivel. You are concentrating on your job and cannot get away from them! You cannot tell them to Eff off because it would be (any number of employment reasons) unprofessional. I think it might depend on your profession but I’m curious if it happens to others.

 

[Harmon]

Not if the chipper is going full tilt. Then it is okay to escort whomever by the elbow to some distance away for their own safety and you will never hear any thing they said!

 

[Stonesforbrains]

Not if the chipper is going full tilt. Then it is okay to escort whomever by the elbow to some distance away for their own safety and you will never hear any thing they said!

No such luck in my line of work. Didn’t think about you guys having the chipper rocking to avoid the unwanted conversations!

 

[mike515]

Two things I just thought of......

Maybe I already posted this one but.......The guy who calls you for an estimate and tries to minimize what you're doing because he wants a cheap price. He will say something like "I want you to 'just' put it on the ground....probably won't take a guy like you more than 5 minutes to just drop it over! I can handle it after that." Probably won't take me long but if you think it's that easy...why don't you just do it yourself? Because you know you don't have the chops to do it and you know that I do. So now we're just thinking about how much it's worth. The difference is.....I don't care which one of us does it and you do.

The second one is the guy who thinks he knows almost as much as you. You're game-planning and this neighbor is standing next to you saying "I think if you just cut this part off and put a rope in it...you can probably pull the whole tree over this direction". He will tell you that he doesn't know quite as much as you know but he did cut firewood with his grandpa for 6 years when he was a kid so he isn't new to this job. Seriously....get the f*ck off my job site.

Edit to say....I'm not that bitter. I just think that kind of thing once in a while. I don't actually say it.

 

[tree MDS]

Two things I just thought of......

Maybe I already posted this one but.......The guy who calls you for an estimate and tries to minimize what you're doing because he wants a cheap price. He will say something like "I want you to 'just' put it on the ground....probably won't take a guy like you more than 5 minutes to just drop it over! I can handle it after that." Probably won't take me long but if you think it's that easy...why don't you just do it yourself? Because you know you don't have the chops to do it and you know that I do. So now we're just thinking about how much it's worth. The difference is.....I don't care which one of us does it and you do.

The second one is the guy who thinks he knows almost as much as you. You're game-planning and this neighbor is standing next to you saying "I think if you just cut this part off and put a rope in it...you can probably pull the whole tree over this direction". He will tell you that he doesn't know quite as much as you know but he did cut firewood with his grandpa for 6 years when he was a kid so he isn't new to this job. Seriously....get the **** off my job site.

Edit to say....I'm not that bitter. I just think that kind of thing once in a while. I don't actually say it.

Lol. “I’m not that bitter. I just think that kind of thing once in a while.” Yeah, me too. I’m not bitter either. I just need to get a lot of **** done and am running on a very tight schedule and can’t afford any aggravations. Lol.

 

[tree MDS]

Firewood, burl hunters, all that ****. These people need help way beyond their trees.

 

[lone wolf]

Two things I just thought of......

Maybe I already posted this one but.......The guy who calls you for an estimate and tries to minimize what you're doing because he wants a cheap price. He will say something like "I want you to 'just' put it on the ground....probably won't take a guy like you more than 5 minutes to just drop it over! I can handle it after that." Probably won't take me long but if you think it's that easy...why don't you just do it yourself? Because you know you don't have the chops to do it and you know that I do. So now we're just thinking about how much it's worth. The difference is.....I don't care which one of us does it and you do.

The second one is the guy who thinks he knows almost as much as you. You're game-planning and this neighbor is standing next to you saying "I think if you just cut this part off and put a rope in it...you can probably pull the whole tree over this direction". He will tell you that he doesn't know quite as much as you know but he did cut firewood with his grandpa for 6 years when he was a kid so he isn't new to this job. Seriously....get the **** off my job site.

Edit to say....I'm not that bitter. I just think that kind of thing once in a while. I don't actually say it.

I dont even bother with the ones that ask is it cheaper if! You know whats going to happen.

 

[lone wolf]

What gets me is when I fail to properly close or forget to close the bar oil cap. I don't know how many times I have done this, hopefully less than once a year, but with my Stihl it is easier to do if I fill it up right to the top. Anyone else ever do this or is it just me?

Wait till the gas cap opens and dumps on your nuts!

 

[TBS]

I hate it when it's your day off and you get texts waking you up then periodically throughout the morning because your coworkers are to lazy to send an individual a text and use the one with sent to ten different people on Tuesday.

I also hate it when my boss sends the guy who doesn't have a clue how to cut a twig let alone rotten elms, 4 ft diameter blue oaks, 50 ft tall pines tangled up in other trees, and 80 ft tall eucs instead of me who is cutting the damn trees and actually worked with the tree survey guy. Then get told you weren't supposed to cut those trees they aren't on the list...my response was they all had cracks in the trunks because they are ROTTEN!! You wanted me to leave those ugly mistletoe infested elms and take down perfectly good oak...yeah that makes sense.

 

[derwoodii]

leaving the job empty handed!

when ground crew or climber wander out of back yard to truck yet carrying nothing