Young, Dumb & want the Bling!!

[lxt]

Well the season for me is coming to a close, down to 1 weeks worth of work, must say I had a pretty good year business wise & am very thankful!

however one of my young guns informed me that; "I think im ready to go out on my own" Dude he says...you make a killing & I want some of that Bling!!

LOL!!!!!!! Now I hear em & let em finish, I dont laugh at him (yet)! so I say back to em, you have been a groundie for 2yrs....dam straight dude, & you still dont know how to mix gas/oil, never been more than 20 ft off the ground.

his response; Duuddee! its not that hard man! Ill buy that bucket thingy, anyone can do trees from that! like a bucket is a magical machine which just by running it gives you all the knowledge you can ever need!!

anyway, I tell em today you get to run the bucket thingy, Ill give you more "bling" how much more would you like?? he sees the tree, he walks around it mocking my bidding actions, etc.. he comes over to me & says; Ill bring that B%^ch down for $350.00....so I ask him how long will it take you? here it comes........Dude, Ill be done in no time, just watch!! now guys I bid this tree at $800.00 I figure 1 day (easy going, that time of year, ya know), so I tell him ok, but you have till the end of the day!!

now I would have had the tree on the ground in 3hrs, breaks, cleanup, customer bs, etc...= 8hrs, he spent 2hrs on the first limb 20ft up, was exhausted, sweaty & plain out right scared to death! I though he would of learned his lesson.....so I do the tree, faster than normal to make up for his slowness, when all is said & done he still wanted $350.00 & told me!! Dude now I see how its done, so next time no problem!

Now im laughing at em, $350 for 1 limb...I got 2 words for ya!! he`s a good kid & will be good in time, but his mouth!! anyone else face this or similar before?


LXT..............

 

[Metals406]

350 for one limb!? Man, inflation is getting out'a control! :jawdrop:

:greenchainsaw:

Kid sounds cocky, like, hurt yourself or someone else cocky.

 

[gr8scott72]

If he's worth keeping around, then teach him all you can and pay him enuf so that he doesn't want to leave.

 

[tree MDS]

That kid sounds annoying as all hell. I'd fire him. Once they get those stupid notions in thier heads its too late - kind of like when a girlfriend starts to #####, once they start they aint never gonna stop. Maybe its me, but groundogs and girlfriends all seem to have a hidden expiration date, lol.

LXT, do you talk price with your guys too much? I do, thats one habbit I've gotta break, always seems to start the process like whats going on in your guys head.

 

[Dadatwins]

Hand him you vehicle cost sheet, insurance bill, fuel bill, chain saw purchase price, and total up all the little toys, ropes, clips, slings, blocks, ect, and see how much 'Bling' he has left from that $350 limb. :greenchainsaw:

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

A grading and landscape company that I do some contracting for has been having more and more problems with the 20 something white boys. The funny thing is that the heir apparent, with whom I deal, is one too. He is cut from a different cloth though.

One fellow sees the owner and son taking off to look at another job and demands to know why they are leaving when there is work to do

They have some large commercial plowing accounts and a few days ago a newhire started telling the younger owner (Adam) of the company that they were plowing all wrong. The owner listens for a few minutes then says to do it his way, the employees response was "you plow like a crackhead!".

Adam replies "Well your going to plow like your unemployed pretty soon". No effect whatsoever.

3 years ago he did not believe me that 3 white kids worked like one Hispanic immigrant. Now 75% of the staff is Latino and most "no habla"

 

[Wiredp]

I take offense to all this talk. I am a white male 24 yr old groundie who gets paid fairly and works as hard as I can. I am interested to learn all aspects of the job, but have no belief that I could go out and do it all. I do not want to be grouped in with him. My boss does not talk cost with me and I feel that is a good thing, but I have seen all the equipment. Having a brain on my shoulders I know that I cannot even imagine how much overhead there is for this business. I don't like the generalization.

 

[Toddppm]

I'm must be getting old , I thought the bosses were making good money too but I never would have mouthed off like that.

I would have drop kicked LXT's boy and the plow punk in the nuts before I told them to get off my jobs.

 

[mattmc2003]

One of the new guys at my work actually tried to take a saw from another worker...while he was trying to get it to crank! In mid pull! He tried to take it out of his hands. Literally. The guy holding the saw is an older fella, been around the block a few times, especially with saws and timber and such. He didn't take kindly to that. Another time, a couple weeks ago, we were cutting R.O.W. for a new road, and the two newest guys were cutting a tree. One guy wwas cutting the chip, and the other just decides he isn't fast enough, and starts his saw and walks over and starts cutting on the same dang tree!!! On the same side!!! Almost run saws together! Its like a freakin horror movie around those guys. And one is an awesome mechanic. Worked on saws at a dealer for 20 years or something like that. And he is good. But he can't run a saw, and can't file one either. Its strange how some of the operators can't fix em, and the mechanics can't run em.

 

[treeman82]

I hate people like that. In my opinion to have your own tree business you need to start at the bottom and work your way up, whether that be in a family business, or in somebody else's organization.

Grunt / groundman
Climber / spray tech

I hate these groundies who go off on their own and can't climb, or ID even the simplest of trees... they think they know more than their boss... so they will go buy a truck and chipper and become the competition.

If you don't know what it's like to be up in the tree you gave a price on, or even the species, you don't deserve to have the job.

 

[TKO-KID]

it is just the way the baby boomers raised their children (not at all) They thought buying them things helped raise them. Of course now they don't know how to do anything. But since Mommy always told them they where the best and so did school and sports by giving everyone a trophy no matter how bad they sucked.

They all now think they know everything and should be the boss because we don't do anything.

Our full time groundy does it all the time. Even though he is scared of me he still tells me how to do it all the time. You know like why I am climbing all the way up there and cutting each little limb( little to them is 30 feet long and12 inches diameter.

Of course they think we should just cut it at the ground even though it is dying and over a house. Then of course they say the want more hours and I tell them if I go slow and cut of every little branch that they get more hours.

They are all just mentally stunted from there parents and societies babying them

 

[pdqdl]

It's pretty hard to tell anything to someone who knows everything. It's probably a waste of time trying to educate the young buck seeking to do that for himself.

1. Let him know that you think he is doing a good job for you, but that he has a great deal of work to do before he is ready to go out on his own.

2. Tell him that if he chooses to go out on his own, you encourage him to give it a try, but that you are not trying to provide training for your own competitor, "...so quit wasting my time with this foolishness", or something like that. I would add some comments about firing anyone trying to steal any business from you.

3. Let him know that after he falls on his face, you will be happy to re-negotiate a new wage with him after he runs himself out of business. Tell him that you are sure that he will be a better employee after he has tried to make it on his own, and that he will probably be worth more than he is now.

After that approach doesn't work:

You might mention to him that you don't win all of your bids, and that most of the bids you do win are because you are the low bidder. If there was that much money in it, you wouldn't be the low bidder quite so often as he seems to think possible.

 

[Bigus Termitius]

I'd say: "You wanna see the bling?"

"Next time we get rained out, you can clean up my saws."

Anyone that says dude all the time wouldn't cut it on my crew, much less become the competition.


I had a guy try and steal a side job from me once, and then wanted to borrow my equipment, and a ride from the other groundie.

He was going to prune some apple trees on his day off.

So I ask him to explain to me how it's done.

He doesn't know.

So I told him he doesn't need my equipment nor take the company name down by hacking someone's apple orchard.

He didn't last anyway.

From the sound of things LXT, I wouldn't teach him anything more. He might actually think he can wing it and get in too deep.

 

[gr8scott72]

3 years ago he did not believe me that 3 white kids worked like one Hispanic immigrant. Now 75% of the staff is Latino and most "no habla"

NOT the answer!!!

 

[mattmc2003]

Oh yeah, and one of the new "know it all" guys, was telling another guy how to adjust his carb on his 51 husky. He was telling him how far out to turn the "air" screw, the "gas" screw, and the idle screw...:monkey:

 

[(WLL)]

NOT the answer!!!

ill back this^^^

 

[juststumps]

Well the season for me is coming to a close, down to 1 weeks worth of work, must say I had a pretty good year business wise & am very thankful!

however one of my young guns informed me that; "I think im ready to go out on my own" Dude he says...you make a killing & I want some of that Bling!!

LOL!!!!!!! Now I hear em & let em finish, I dont laugh at him (yet)! so I say back to em, you have been a groundie for 2yrs....dam straight dude, & you still dont know how to mix gas/oil, never been more than 20 ft off the ground.

his response; Duuddee! its not that hard man! Ill buy that bucket thingy, anyone can do trees from that! like a bucket is a magical machine which just by running it gives you all the knowledge you can ever need!!

anyway, I tell em today you get to run the bucket thingy, Ill give you more "bling" how much more would you like?? he sees the tree, he walks around it mocking my bidding actions, etc.. he comes over to me & says; Ill bring that B%^ch down for $350.00....so I ask him how long will it take you? here it comes........Dude, Ill be done in no time, just watch!! now guys I bid this tree at $800.00 I figure 1 day (easy going, that time of year, ya know), so I tell him ok, but you have till the end of the day!!

now I would have had the tree on the ground in 3hrs, breaks, cleanup, customer bs, etc...= 8hrs, he spent 2hrs on the first limb 20ft up, was exhausted, sweaty & plain out right scared to death! I though he would of learned his lesson.....so I do the tree, faster than normal to make up for his slowness, when all is said & done he still wanted $350.00 & told me!! Dude now I see how its done, so next time no problem!

Now im laughing at em, $350 for 1 limb...I got 2 words for ya!! he`s a good kid & will be good in time, but his mouth!! anyone else face this or similar before?


LXT..............

What you should have done,,,, is said, "O KAY, HERE'S YOUR PAY, NICE KNOWING YOU. GOOD LUCK ON YOUR NEW VENTURE !!!" then laugh your azz off, when the kid gets the clue,,, that he just got canned ... JMHO

 

[(WLL)]

What you should have done,,,,

LOL!:deadhorse: lxt will figure it out. he aint no dumby!

 

[Lawnmowerboy48]

I want to make the 'bling' too, I know that I am underpaid, 4 year college degree and certified arborist. But with the way the economy is right now I am grateful to have a job and at this point in the season the OT is greater than my regular pay. On a side note of the want to be 'bling' makers, we have had two new hires. One has showed up 4 times in the past two weeks, serious balls on his part and a fresh one today, looks about 14. They're on my crew tomorrow, can't wait.

 

[(WLL)]

the fact is the top doggs get the top money. certs, credits and other licenses mean very little to the men who rig down the big wood with there life on the line. most of the bling jobs are done in the back yards from the smaller private company's. lots of top climbers dont even have a drivers licenses