What NOT to say first day on the job!

[ckliff]

New groundie started yesterday. I climbed three trees. First, 60' cottonwood removing large branch over house. Last two pruning ice damaged honeylocusts. I'm tired & glad to be leaving the job site...

My new guy asks, "So, was this a slow day, or about normal?" :jawdrop:

 

[Nailsbeats]

That's it, time to teach him to climb!

 

[ropensaddle]

Awwwwww man just get him on a easy removal and pile it up!
You already know how to cover him up and at the end of the day,
ask him; are you always that slow or just today.

 

[gremlin]

lmao i agree with ropensaddle. sounds like a plan

 

[kruege84]

I don't do a significant amount of real tree work, as I'm in the landscraping business. Not sure what you guys usually do per week, especially during the winter months, but I condsider anything under 60 hours a slow week....

 

[Bigus Termitius]

LOL!! Green groundies are a hoot!

I've got two of them, a quiet work horse, and a not so quiet not so workhorse. Both early twenty something.

NotSo can't wait till summer to get into shape on this job. (If he makes it till then) I pulled up atop an interstate bypass to a medium hedge removal that was at the bottom of the interstate bypass and said "Why wait?" Two brush drags up the hill and he's feeling it.

Later that afternoon, I find a nice patch of hedge working its way into the lines at an old uninhabited farmstead. I clean her up floor to ceiling far enough back that I'll never be there again while I piled it up good and fast, chipper friendly of course.

It is somewhat gratifying to watch his facial expressions. I’m not trying to break him yet, I aim to make him. Fine line I know.

I vote for the pile on...it does a body good.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I've had that, I tell them that their job is to wait for a branch to fall. Sometimes they will be swamped, sometimes it will be a lot of standing around with a few minutes of hard work in between.

Awwwwww man just get him on a easy removal and pile it up!

One where you can cut it to dragable size in the tree so you do not have to wait for him to cut it down. "Mush, Mush Huskey!", "Yah! Mule!" "hurry up, I don't want to do anything but help rake when I get down!"

 

[ropensaddle]

I've had that, I tell them that their job is to wait for a branch to fall. Sometimes they will be swamped, sometimes it will be a lot of standing around with a few minutes of hard work in between.



One where you can cut it to dragable size in the tree so you do not have to wait for him to cut it down. "Mush, Mush Huskey!", "Yah! Mule!" "hurry up, I don't want to do anything but help rake when I get down!"

Rake as slow as he thought I was, I expect it clean enough to eat off
when my feets hit the ground :hmm3grin2orange: of course I am always
setting my expectations too high lol.

 

[teamtree]

It is a tough call. I think I have run off some of my best help becuase I made it to hard for them to meet my expectations. I don't want to lower my expectations but it is a tough call. In my area, about 20% of our time is windshield time and I pay both ways. So when we hit a job site, it is balls to the wall. If they take it easy in the truck they should make up for it on the ground.

 

[gremlin]

i agree. guess im a workaholic. i know when its time to work its time to work. maybe working with my grandaddy payed off. iv just never known it any other way

 

[teamtree]

My biggest problem is that when, as a manager, you need to be a little bit of a prick to get things done on time and right, guys take exception to you being in charge and not their friend.

 

[ropensaddle]

My biggest problem is that when, as a manager, you need to be a little bit of a prick to get things done on time and right, guys take exception to you being in charge and not their friend.

I had a friend that thought he could not call,show up when he
wanted etc. I fired him told him we are still friends but business is business.
Three months later he calls and asks if he knows anyone needing some
help,I ask who he has in mind to help! I gave him a second chance and
wolla, presto a good worker that calls if he is not available, it is not
being a prick it is business.