pennsywoodburnr
supreme scrounger
Now I know I can't be the only one experiencing this. I work at a shipping company and within our building we have maybe a little over 60 employees. With myself included, there are probably 5 people that burn with wood full time during the winter. Most of them scrounge their wood like me as you can see pickup trucks occasionally in the parking lot loaded up with ash and oak. So the other day, I was talking with another coworker who doesn't heat with wood period, and he had himself convinced that every piece of wood I attained had absolutely NO WORK ATTACHED TO IT. The conversation went like this:
Him: hey, did you see all the wood in the back of so-n-so's truck the other day? What was that?
Me: White ash it looked like. He got a nice haul too, the bumper of his truck is almost dragging!
Him: Must be nice to have free heat. Every time my oil company fills up my tank it's close to a thousand dollars.
Me: Hold on a second here, there's no way in hell the wood I gathered was "free". There was time, energy, and money spent getting it.
Him: What do you mean?
Me: Well, I mean it in the sense that, even though it was laying there, it still wasn't "free".
Him: Yes it was! Did you pay a dime for it?
Me: For the wood? No. For everything leading up to the point where it's drying out back behind the house? Yes.
Him: But it was free! So you don't have to pay for oil, propane or anything else! So it was free, right? RIGHT???
(by this time I was starting to fume a little so I say)
Me: Listen, it's not "free" because I had to buy the chainsaws at one point in time to cut it up, the van to haul everything back, and the gas for both the saws and the van to keep everything running. On top of that, I spend my weekends finding wood nobody wants which takes time on my part. After I find it, I spend the rest of the weekend dealing with it. After it's cut, I have to lift it into the van, drive it back, sometimes multiple trips if it's a big pile and then unload it. After that I have to split it, which takes a good while as well since I only have my one splitting axe. After that, I have to load it up into my wheelbarrow to push around to the backside of the house. After that, I have to take it out and RESTACK it so it dries. On top of all that, I'm sweating, I stink like two stroke exhaust, I have bugs biting and flying all around me, and I'm getting tired. So while you're at home watching badly dubbed kung-fu movies, I'm out here doing that. So no, trust me when I say it's not "FREE"!
Anyone else got people at work like this? Or is it just me?
Him: hey, did you see all the wood in the back of so-n-so's truck the other day? What was that?
Me: White ash it looked like. He got a nice haul too, the bumper of his truck is almost dragging!
Him: Must be nice to have free heat. Every time my oil company fills up my tank it's close to a thousand dollars.
Me: Hold on a second here, there's no way in hell the wood I gathered was "free". There was time, energy, and money spent getting it.
Him: What do you mean?
Me: Well, I mean it in the sense that, even though it was laying there, it still wasn't "free".
Him: Yes it was! Did you pay a dime for it?
Me: For the wood? No. For everything leading up to the point where it's drying out back behind the house? Yes.
Him: But it was free! So you don't have to pay for oil, propane or anything else! So it was free, right? RIGHT???
(by this time I was starting to fume a little so I say)
Me: Listen, it's not "free" because I had to buy the chainsaws at one point in time to cut it up, the van to haul everything back, and the gas for both the saws and the van to keep everything running. On top of that, I spend my weekends finding wood nobody wants which takes time on my part. After I find it, I spend the rest of the weekend dealing with it. After it's cut, I have to lift it into the van, drive it back, sometimes multiple trips if it's a big pile and then unload it. After that I have to split it, which takes a good while as well since I only have my one splitting axe. After that, I have to load it up into my wheelbarrow to push around to the backside of the house. After that, I have to take it out and RESTACK it so it dries. On top of all that, I'm sweating, I stink like two stroke exhaust, I have bugs biting and flying all around me, and I'm getting tired. So while you're at home watching badly dubbed kung-fu movies, I'm out here doing that. So no, trust me when I say it's not "FREE"!
Anyone else got people at work like this? Or is it just me?