Pretty happy today, while ive not been working cutting many trees for the last 2 weeks, i have been splitting a lot of wood getting ready for winter while work was slow. Couple easy leave lays last week but nothing really this week. So been working on my buddies subaru my cummins and a little on the ol bucket truck that im not sure were gonna keep. Miss a call monday because im elbow deep in grease, check v mail its a the customer from a week or two ago, the one that called me back to let me know another tree company underbid me. Well they dropped the ball, and it was a pretty big ball to drop. While i only bid three trees, they added another tree to the job and were going to split as much wood as they could fit along his very long fence row for a grand total of $900 less then my bid... Well he asked me to come out and take a look at what was going on and talk about maybe taking over the job and some other trees. So i get there middle of the week,(they started sometime last week btw) its hot as balls in the afternoon its not early morning at this point but late enough i would think normal people would be working. No tree company but trees and limbs laying everywhere. They layed down the two easy trees on my bid and another tree that wasnt really a problem and i didnt even know he wanted taken care of but whatever, wrecked yard and a big set of tracks where they thought they were going to bring in a sky lift ( around back and over his septic line!) which he caught them before they made it and stopped them. So now the large multi headed oak that is leaning over his house that was very close to half the bid lay down and clean up,(super glad i gave him an itemized bid of the trees and clean up) is the only one left. They told him with out a lift or bucket it couldnt be done. ha. anyways he had me look at a hand full of more trees, (and even some pruning on the water front we will be coming back to do late this fall) these all further from the house and easier work with, no real rigging just bomb them out because they are in the brush line but big enough if they fell the way that they are leaning they would smash the house. And my favorite part no stump removal on those. So in total he said he learned his lesson and was sorry. He knew after i explained to him my game plan for the job he should have went with us but all the extra work they were offering and the lower price he had to give them a chance. Which i under stand. And is why when he told me they got the job i was polite and told him if he ever needed anything in the future to give me a ring. He thanked me for the way i handled it and thats why i got the call back. Made me glad i wasnt an a hole about it, and that i had an itemized bid for the job. So now we start the new job monday, mainly because the other company is still "working" on the site. I gave them the rest of the week to clear out what they were doing before we start (home owner wanted me to start tomorrow!) because im not taking any responsibility for any damages they have done to the yard. If its not cleaned up by monday we will re asses the job at hand and charge him for the clean up and removal of what they left i may have to grind a few more stumps but i can bid those now and not throw them in on top of the bid, like i did before. and they cut a nice swath through the brush line to bring the sky lift in but couldnt use it so now i have a clear path thats dry ish and large enough for people and small light equipment ( like my 3 wheeled dump bed cushman truckster) and closer to the parking area where we will be staging the trailers and trucks. Really honestly these guys did me a big favor, now we get to come in and be heros and my bid for the new job is still 3/4 the old bid way less work and easier to do, and on top of that if they dont show back up to finish the job, i will end up making more then the old bid because ill be cleaning up their mess as well! lol. I have pics of the job before anyone touched it, and thought long and hard about getting pics of it the way it was, but would be pretty upset myself if someone came to one of my job sites and took pics of one of my jobs half done and started talking trash. So ill wait until they are done and get heaps of pics mainly to cover my own butt but also so i can do a comparison of us and "the other guy" on my FB page and Web pages. "The other guy" will not be named directly by me, i am sure the home owner will have plenty to say about them to the people in his area. and that makes me even happier because its a very nice new construction lake house, in a very very nice area. now all thats left is to do the job the way i know it needs done. ill be game planning the new situation while im wrench turning the rest of this week. I also have to thank alot of the awesome members on this site as well, a lot of my game plan to do the job has come from pictures of job sites from other members on the site of low impact ways to move logs and equipment through yards. You guys are awesome and hopefully are watching a brush ape grow opposable thumbs and trying very hard to stand up right.
