Why do Amateurs think they know best???

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I find I make the worst falling mistakes when I get cocky.. Not taking the extra minute to look at where the tree really wants to go, and not realizing that there aren't enough wedges in that could make it go the way I want it too.
Seems the slower I go, the faster trees get on the ground, and into the truck..
 
I call it, Checking Stuff. And sometimes they are late because they've beat the crew up to the unit but then have to move the pickup because the Faller Gods:bowdown: need to park in that exact spot just because they can. They are late because the Donettos shipment hadn't arrived at the minimart on time. :D

Then the forester has to go find another parking place and by that time, there are none left. So, she's either got to park 5 miles down the road, or get out the saw and cut out a spot and that makes her tired and in need of that nap.

There!

No, no, no...the Forester (please note that I capitalized that word) doesn't always park where the fallers park....or five miles down the road either. They've been to college and they're smarter than that. Well, they're supposed to be anyway.

They usually make a point of parking in the turn around for the trucks and then glaring at people who tell them, politely, to move. Or they park on the downhill side of a cold deck that's banked above the road and slick with rain. Or they park directly behind a Cat that's being fueled.

If there's no Cat at the fuel wagon they'll park next to the fuel wagon where they can completely block access. There's some minor genius in that particular maneuver...it's hard to block a fuel wagon with a pickup...but they always do a fine job of it.

They'll also park right in the middle of the road, usually at a bridge approach, while they peer over the bank to make sure those bad old loggers aren't crushing culverts or putting mud in the water. They'll sit there, probably daydreaming about retirement and the day when they don't have to put up with loggers anymore, until whatever vehicle, usually a logging truck and usually in a hurry, comes to a dirt churning, jake roaring halt six inches from their bumper. Then they'll move. Slowly, reluctantly, but they will move.

Please note that most of the above applies to new Foresters. The ones who have been around a while tend not to do things like that. Well, some of them anyway.

A new Forester asked our siderod, after being run out of three or four potential parking spots, just where exactly he could park and be out of the way. The siderod suggested Cleveland.
 
Getting off topic, but Bob reminded me of an interesting new trend. The foresters now park in the middle of the road (blocking all access out, LOCK the truck, put keys in pocket, and take off to do what ever. WTF is this about? New FS policy?

It's all fine and good untill somebody gets dinged. And the green truck is going over the bank one way or another. Just curious if this vehicle locking is actually a new policy. I was kind of beside myself when the crews mentioned this was going on.
 
Getting off topic, but Bob reminded me of an interesting new trend. The foresters now park in the middle of the road (blocking all access out, LOCK the truck, put keys in pocket, and take off to do what ever. WTF is this about? New FS policy?

It's all fine and good untill somebody gets dinged. And the green truck is going over the bank one way or another. Just curious if this vehicle locking is actually a new policy. I was kind of beside myself when the crews mentioned this was going on.

Dunno...I haven't seen that particular trick yet. Don't want to, either. I think the person with the locked pickup blocking the road and I would have to have a talk.

We always leave the keys in everything during the day. It just makes sense to do that. Nobody that I know of locks their rig. And they sure don't block a road. Nobody up there is going to steal anything.

If a pickup was parked blocking the road, locked, and one of the guys got hurt and had to go to town in a hurry...well, I'd just move that pickup by whatever means was the quickest. I'll deal with the whys and wherefores afterward.

Jeez...I get mad just thinking about that. Thanks Sam. :laugh:
 
In a little different industry but similar idea, some genius working the nightshift for the construction company parked his suv and locked it in front of the cold patch pile in the yard and went out to the jobsite in the company truck. we were getting a delivery of cold patch and needed to move it, so we hooked a chain to the tow hitch and lifted it up with a backhoe and dragged it outta the way with a handful of laborers and the bullbuck beside it push steering it. Nothing got damaged and we got the load of cold patch dumped fairly quickly. :rock:
 
You need to realize that there are people that have NO idea nor do they want to know, what goes on around the evil process of logging. Foresters often work for those people. Unless the forester doesn't want to get promoted (I liked my job in the woods and a promotion would have meant office time) they must obey. I was told several times by the Fleet Manager for the Forest :bowdown: that I should be locking my pickup up and taking the keys with me. I told him that was unsafe for everybody working in the area, pickups often needed to be moved, or heaven forbid, if it was the only rig unharmed that would start and was needed, I wanted the guys to be able to use it in an emergency. Then never call the fleet manager:bowdown: back. Or refer him to your supervisor, which in my case knew what went on in the woods. The last one anyway.

He didn't understand, but I didn't care, so I left keys inside and pickup unlocked, just in case. Now, that would be different and I'd have had to figure out a good unoffensive parking place, if I didn't have a heavy duty locked inside the locked truckbox super secure paint storage. Leaving the secret paint unlocked is a bad thing. Most foresters have the locked boxes that are locked seperately. That key went with me.

Yup, perhaps your foresters need a nice talk with you because they have no idea, or perhaps you could make sure there is a parking spot out of the way of everything. A cheery sign made to designate it? OK, that's going too far. Just be aware that those people may come into that job brand new and have a supervisor who has never been around logging. So, it is up to you to educate them. I got a few, "Come over here and pull up a log." talks from siderods and loggers. No yelling, just politely telling me that what I was doing was not safe and how to do things better.

Back on topic, there is a highly skilled faller who I had on several sales and I packed some stuff for him while he dumped hazard trees along a road. He was a little bit miffed because he had wanted to cut the trees as a volunteer, and was told he couldn't because he was not certified. He got paid to do it instead.
So, he started in, "Hey, tell me how to cut this tree. Afterall, you're the one who is certified." To which my reply was, "Well, I'll have to lie down on my side and look up, cuz I'm only certified as a bucker."
 
Yup, perhaps your foresters need a nice talk with you because they have no idea, or perhaps you could make sure there is a parking spot out of the way of everything. A cheery sign made to designate it? OK, that's going too far. Just be aware that those people may come into that job brand new and have a supervisor who has never been around logging. So, it is up to you to educate them. I got a few, "Come over here and pull up a log." talks from siderods and loggers. No yelling, just politely telling me that what I was doing was not safe and how to do things better.

You're right about not yelling. Yelling at people doesn't make them any smarter. Teaching them makes them smarter...but not everyone is teachable.

New people screw up, that's a given, and new Foresters aren't any different. It's a lot more productive to explain to them what they've done wrong and how to correct it than it is to yell at them, intimidate, and eventually alienate them.

But what do you do when the SA is very green, is very defensive about being green, has some personal issues having to do with being thrust into a job they're not prepared for and don't really want, and adopts an attitude of "my way or else" simply because they lack the experience to do it any other way?

Case in point...a new Forester, young, female, just transferred in from some other district, and immediately put in charge of a bug salvage sale that was a miserable money losing monster to begin with before she even got there.
Okay, it wasn't fair to her to put her into that kind of a mess. But she showed up the first day, drove right onto an active landing, parked right in the way, got out of her pickup, and asked to see whoever was in charge. Now. Like right now. She had a copy of the THP in one hand and a clip board in the other. Her boots were new and unscuffed and she had nail polish on. That should have been a clue.

In the meantime the skid Cats were coming in with turns, the delimber deck was plugged because the shovel couldn't swing to deck his logs because the Forester's pickup was in the way, trucks were coming back and starting to bunch up because they couldn't back in because of the Forester's pickup and what had been a fairly routine non eventful day in the woods was rapidly becoming a gigantic non productive time burning, money wasting mess. I looked around and all I saw was idle machinery, wages going out and not a log moving anywhere.

I asked her politely to move her pickup off of the landing and she replied that she wouldn't be there all that long and we "could just take a break or something". That did it. I yelled...I did and I admit it. I really shouldn't have but I did. I told her that if her agency had let us build landings bigger than the average suburban back yard there might be room enough for her to park any place she pleased and not be in the way. But since we were given the minimum amount of room possible to process, deck, and load logs the space her pickup was taking was preventing us from working at all. That being the case she could either give me permission right now to increase the landing size or she could move her pickup out of the way and allow us that small space to continue our work. She got into her pickup and left.

She came back the next day, a copy of the THP in hand as usual, but she parked off the landing a ways. She had an older guy with her, a supervisor of some kind I guess. You could see him pointing at things, machinery, people, skid trails...and as he'd point and talk she'd nod her head. He was telling her a bunch of stuff that he should have told her before he sent her to the woods.

She never did turn into much of a SA but we helped her when we could. She in turn did what she could for us...as long as it was spelled out in the rules or the THP. No variations allowed. We finished the sale and moved on. I heard later that she transferred again and wasn't doing SA work anymore.
 
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hey mr. bob. speaking of not learn able i sent you a face book vid. thought about posting it here but did not want to muddy up the place .:msp_wink:
 
hey mr. bob. speaking of not learn able i sent you a face book vid. thought about posting it here but did not want to muddy up the place .:msp_wink:

I don't do Facebook anymore but I saw it in WTF. Good place for it. I liked the way he had his pants stagged off high enough to funnel chips directly into the top of his boots.

Did he use enough wedges? :msp_rolleyes:
 
Hah! I could tell some stories about loggers who were new to Forest Service sales and the things done, but I won't. Everybody has to start sometime.

Like running the shovel up the creek and making a corduroy road in the creek so the shovel could run up the creek on a partial hootowl day so they could keep on logging... Nah, I won't mention things like that. :hmm3grin2orange:
 
Hah! I could tell some stories about loggers who were new to Forest Service sales and the things done, but I won't. Everybody has to start sometime.

Like running the shovel up the creek and making a corduroy road in the creek so the shovel could run up the creek on a partial hootowl day so they could keep on logging... Nah, I won't mention things like that. :hmm3grin2orange:

SSShhhhhhhh. :laugh:
 
The worst kind of amateurs are the ones who don't even recognize they're being amateurs.

Plenty of them here, where logging used to be a main industry employing roughly 1/3 of the population, before the machines replaced them.

They never pay my bills. They'll be there just for the show. They can smell 2stroke smoke from 10 kilometers range.

The geezer walks in upwind, belly first, jerks up his pants and throws in his opening line: "You know, I used to do logging back in days meself..." At that point you can hear the sound of your nice day flushing down the drain.

Of course they never bother to mention that they debarked pulp sticks 50 ago and got sacked after two weeks for having two left hands.

"You got a wrong brand chainsaw, son." They have an acute radar for details. Nothing can them happy. Equipment, truck, cutting method, timber grading.... "Your hair looks like crap!" Duly noted! "Loggers don't speak like that!" Oh well, how do they speak, then?

That's just a warm up. Wait until you get the saw fired up. There's nothing like a maniac bouncing around, yelling orders, trying to attract your attention, waving hands in terror and finally, when the tree starts to go over, screaming: "STOP! STOP!" That's spirit over matter, I daresay.

Once a very keen gentleman, after jumping around me for an hour, got stung by a wasp. Right in the eyeball! The geezer's heart wasn't like it used to be anymore. For worrying, I suppose, so I had to drag him to his house and call for help. A heavy son of a gun!

Nice people, got to love them. Salt of the earth. Welcome to Karelia!
 
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