Least Stressful Work

[slowp]

I get horrified when I find a tick on me--had a rough time in Wisconsin dealing with those critters, and I do not like working in poisonous shrubbery. That's why the perfect place to work is in the woods of Warshington, where the ticks exist, but have never really liked me and poison oak is rare. I have worked in old growth poison oak and was OK but that immunity is not likely to last. After the last trip to the Bothe work weekend, an eye swelled up on the way home so maybe the immunity is over? We never know.

I don't think you get the smells of nature working in a ditch, or in town. There are seasonal smells--mildewish wet in the winter and then the scary smell in the late summer of dry forest. A pine forest has a different smell from a Doug-fir forest.

There's usually something interesting to ponder. Interesting fungus, rock formations, the view of a volcano, scat showing what animals are eating, etc. are all in "the office". It's different every day and that's a good thing for those of us who hate routine.

The article wasn't just about the work, it was also about being in the natural outdoors with wildlife, plants and good air.

 

[cookies]

Seed ticks are the best of the best of experiences, you don't get one on you. You end up with 6 or 60 of the little sob's requiring a alcohol bath. They are tiny, think half the size of black pepper from a shaker so you think your eyes are playing tricks on you that a freckle changed places...good luck trying to grab it to pull it off you being too small.
<politcal comment has been deleted>

 

[Syflan]

I learned a long time ago that all jobs come with one or both of two kinds of job-related stress:

1. The stress of trying to do the job right.
2. The stress of having to work with and for (hmm... how to put it politely...) people who you would not invite over to your house for a barbecue.

Everybody who is worth their salt has the first kind of stress because they care about what they do.
But it is the second one that will raise your blood pressure and make you lose sleep. Sometimes the only way to deal with that is to quit.

 

[northmanlogging]

Seed ticks are the best of the best of experiences, you don't get one on you. You end up with 6 or 60 of the little sob's requiring a alcohol bath. They are tiny, think half the size of black pepper from a shaker so you think your eyes are playing tricks on you that a freckle changed places...good luck trying to grab it to pull it off you being too small.

nope, nopity nope nope, oh hellz Nope...

 

[lone wolf]

I get horrified when I find a tick on me--had a rough time in Wisconsin dealing with those critters, and I do not like working in poisonous shrubbery. That's why the perfect place to work is in the woods of Warshington, where the ticks exist, but have never really liked me and poison oak is rare. I have worked in old growth poison oak and was OK but that immunity is not likely to last. After the last trip to the Bothe work weekend, an eye swelled up on the way home so maybe the immunity is over? We never know.

I don't think you get the smells of nature working in a ditch, or in town. There are seasonal smells--mildewish wet in the winter and then the scary smell in the late summer of dry forest. A pine forest has a different smell from a Doug-fir forest.

There's usually something interesting to ponder. Interesting fungus, rock formations, the view of a volcano, scat showing what animals are eating, etc. are all in "the office". It's different every day and that's a good thing for those of us who hate routine.

The article wasn't just about the work, it was also about being in the natural outdoors with wildlife, plants and good air.

Well why dont you spray your clothing with Permethrin? Tick bites are much more harmful than a little Permethrin.. I do, many times and will say it certainly helps a lot.

 

[slowp]

Well why dont you spray your clothing with Permethrin? Tick bites are much more harmful than a little Permethrin.. I do, many times and will say it certainly helps a lot.

Don't have to if I stay in the PNW.

 

[lone wolf]

Don't have to if I stay in the PNW.

Well that's good.

 

[JRM]

"Least stressful"

Depends on what side of the payroll you're on.

 

[alanbaker]

According to this Seattle Times article, farming and forestry are the happiest and least stressful careers to be in. It's all about being outdoors in nature. There may be a paywall blocking this.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/the-happiest-least-stressful-most-meaningful-jobs-in-america/

It appears the reporter has not worked on dairy farm nor interviewed a dairy farmer. Twice a day, no matter rain, sleet, hail, wind, snow or heat and cold, cows need to milked, calves fed, **** shoveled. If have tree job to do, cold doesn't bother me, but wind, ice and rain I'll stay by the woodstove.
When I was working on dairy farms you don't get snow days off. Did the good days out way the bad, for me as an employee yes, although I would have like slip less into manure, with clean clothes ( never when they were already dirty)
It is not for the faint of heart. You literally have life and death in your hands. The last place I worked, we shot every bull calf, because the farm would get a bill from the sale barn rather than a check. It was in the '90s and Jersey bulls had no value.
But I would see awesome sunsets, moon rises and stars through the seasons. Deer hunting and fishing were just a stone's throw from the back door.
For the dairy farm owners, I don't know. When I was finished with evening milking, I was done. I did not have the weight management and economics to take home. Also dairy farming one of the few businesses that buy retail, sell wholesale, pay freight both ways and some one else sets your pay price. And banks lend money on that business plan.

 

[Sierra_rider]

The happiest times in my life were tipping trees and farming. Tipping trees was dangerous, but that was part of the fun. It also paid my bills while I was having a bit of a sabbatical from the stress of a five year (supposedly could be done in four, having a job prevented that…) engineering program and then an ass kicking in a pressure cooker heavy civil job. I loved it, and still do. I love running a saw, heavy rigging for a big tower or swing yarder, getting out ahead a building a road in based solely on what you think is right (with a few limitations) and working around a fun crew. It was taxing, outdoors and I went home tired every night. Except for fires, then we went back to fire camp with our asses really dragging, often physically beat up. I also learned about White’s, Wesco and Nicks boots there, which is invaluable knowledge. Still a lot of fun.

Farming was fun maybe because I was younger and I never had to work with cows or sheep. But it was the same thing, outdoors, tiring, and fun. Lots of chucking hay/straw bales, building fences, some tractor work, repairing barns, the like. I got a good understanding of working on heavy(er) mechanical systems there tearing tractors apart. It was a lot of fun, and I was happy.

The other common thread there, that is not shared with outdoor creers (see: heavy civil construction, hard rock mining) is that there’s nothing really nasty in what’s handled every day. Concrete is nasty stuff, curing compound is worse and a lot of vat leaching chemicals are really bad. Ever hooked up 18” live sewer? It’s nasty. Or digging through a brownfield site… Man that’s bad. In farming probably the worst stuff I used was glyphosate, in solution as weed killer. Otherwise, maybe diesel? Or saw gas? Grease?

I've been doing the fire thing for 15 years now. I still enjoy it, but I'm getting to a point now that I'm absolutely exhausted at the end of a busy season. I could get a job driving a desk and do more overhead stuff, but I'd lose my mind doing that. So for the time being, I'll keep beating myself up lol.

I echo what a lot of others say about just being out in the woods and running saw. I've always made it a point to do side work for friends with tree businesses, contractors etc. I have a blast doing it and to get paid for it just feels like icing on the cake. I am doing it a bit less, as I usually end up climbing and I just don't want to climb that much anymore.

 

[RandyMac]

What is this stress you speak of?

 

[northmanlogging]

What is this stress you speak of?

thats the thing the therapist, if you believed in such a thing, would tell you causes folks to beat a man with a broken choker cable...

 

[056kid]

Had a foreman who would periodically take the crew on a "field trip" when we were "ahead". We would basically nerd out on various rocks/minerals along the road while imbibing. After enough alcohol we'd switch to pitch wood hunting. He was pretty secretive about mushroom patches.
Looking into the water under bridges for Salmon. Creeping up on clearcuts in search of game. If no game, looking for stumps that bears had been tearing up. If only ginseng was native to the Cascades.
Pitch wood hunting could get everyone acting like a bunch of kids on Christmas, lots of fun.
The stressful part of that gig was, or rather were the mormon employees..
I cut a tract in VA that had cows. Every day I came home with at least 5 latched on ticks of varying size. Somehow I didn't contract any diseases.

 

[slowp]

We could not imbibe but had activities like rolling a big rock down the hill. One took our whole crew to push it down. Then there is pinecone baseball, guess the diameter, look at this rattlesnake den place, etc. These took place when we'd finish a unit with not enough time to travel and start another, or when we finished a sale.

I just cannot figure out how people can stand going into the same indoor office day after day.

 

[056kid]

I kind of got a little lost here. Did I get smarted off by somebody? I have no idea. I don't know whoever it was and will probably never meet them.So it don't matter. Just sayin farming is tough, but it beats the heck out of an office job

My dad's dad has been a cattle rancher for some extended period, 40 plus years is a good general estimate I guess. I never looked at grandpa's disposition as "stressed", although grandpa is one of the most difficult people to appease that I have ever met. Especially if you're a full blooded family member.
He was running 3000 pair on the Circle Bar ranch, we then moved north to the AN ranch with the same headcount. Water ditches, fence, polyethylene tanks, all kinds of grass business, BLM nonsense, drought, none of the qualms associated with said topics caused the grief that I expected. The cows especially.
The angriest I've ever seen him get in relation to business was during our walk back to the main road after a 1st gen bronco stranded us 3 or 4 miles up in a place called Scenery Gulch in CO. A heifer spooked & decided to parallel us with a calf that wasn't Her's. A single calf. The heifer would have been shot, but no rifle that day. He bought a place to winter the cattle that had a gravel pit worth a supposed one million dollars. Turned out his realtor lied about the right of way to the gravels, completely foiling the plans.I never saw him get upset over that like one would figure. Maybe he did flip out, I didnt see any of it..
I was taking care of 8 orphans, several really in poor health from lack of colostrum. They all gained strength & appetite. Had them eating grain, growing like crazy, & then they all died in the span of a few days. Someone didn't vaccinate them & didn't bother telling anyone. So some sort of fly did some sort of bad thing. Meh, he could not've cared less. Which I was thankful for, figuring it was going to be my fault. The cattle were a whole lot of stress for my dad & I during our time on the AN, but not my grandfather.
Looking back, I think his habit of buying, improving, & selling ranches every several years is what kept him from being a lot more angry, I guess?
I killed a buck once, one that he didn't want me to kill; I saw blood coming from his gums when the news was shared Upon arriving home. I was invisible for weeks.
Him & my dad finally had a big blowout over an unknown power draw at a bunkhouse on the property. One morning we went to investigate the vampire just as instructed, only to have grandpa show up and just berate my dad into oblivion as he lay there in the crawlspace. That was it.... He said "let's go" & we left, for good.. Maybe the cattle hadn't stressed grandpa out but instead made him profoundly crazy?
I was beyond proud to be there, to learn, to be an intrinsic part of the team, to have the privilege of forging a family legacy That I would've never abandond.
Things will never revert back to the way they were though & when I sit & think about it, it hurts. Well, at least I got to cut down some big trees out there.......

God dam you're right! Cattle are stressful as ****!!!

 

[northmanlogging]

We could not imbibe but had activities like rolling a big rock down the hill. One took our whole crew to push it down. Then there is pinecone baseball, guess the diameter, look at this rattlesnake den place, etc. These took place when we'd finish a unit with not enough time to travel and start another, or when we finished a sale.

I just cannot figure out how people can stand going into the same indoor office day after day.

Speaking of cattle...

most folks are really not as clever or original as they like to claim, so they do whats easy, even if its boring, Then make up for the boring by "creating" drama, or worse blowing minor aggravations into full blown drama. Like cattle, they follow the herd, and bleat when they see a shadow.

I liked machining and being a machinist, I didn't like the folks that called themselves one but couldn't spell "Machinists"...

 

[056kid]

Speaking of cattle...

most folks are really not as clever or original as they like to claim, so they do whats easy, even if its boring, Then make up for the boring by "creating" drama, or worse blowing minor aggravations into full blown drama. Like cattle, they follow the herd, and bleat when they see a shadow.

I liked machining and being a machinist, I didn't like the folks that called themselves one but couldn't spell "Machinists"...

Maybe there's something in the water.. Cattle are experts at finding it.

 

[northmanlogging]

Maybe there's something in the water.. Cattle are experts at finding it.

you probably already know this, but cattle also follow a single path across a prairie, which all fine and good, until you are in the back seat of a conversion van while the step drunk is chasing rabbits... 30-50mph in a van... (probably drunk, or well on the way too) then you find one of these beat down paths which launches your scrawny ass into the cupboard by the sink... splitting your forehead open...
I was 7? we were 20 miles from any sort of road, and another 40 to town, where the clinic was closed cause it was a Sunday... I still have a rather large scar on my forehead from that one, never did get a rabbit
Did I mention I get hit in the head... like... a lot...

 

[056kid]

you probably already know this, but cattle also follow a single path across a prairie, which all fine and good, until you are in the back seat of a conversion van while the step drunk is chasing rabbits... 30-50mph in a van... (probably drunk, or well on the way too) then you find one of these beat down paths which launches your scrawny ass into the cupboard by the sink... splitting your forehead open...
I was 7? we were 20 miles from any sort of road, and another 40 to town, where the clinic was closed cause it was a Sunday... I still have a rather large scar on my forehead from that one, never did get a rabbit
Did I mention I get hit in the head... like... a lot...

I did not, although the paths might've prompted momentary critical analysis to take place, one day. Sorry about the rabbit ride of futility..
I too have a scar on my forehead, it's small. Something about a 2 year old with a hammer, & a window payne, I dunno. Kind of like my premier act of stupidity in the fall & buck, someone else told me all about it.
I've heard that it's not recommended..
but those cells regrow I'm pretty sure. I mean, my hair grows.
I'm assuming that you might have learned about the recent loss of mine. Dunno what Grandma was, but she wasn't interested in chewing cud or taking the path of least resistance to the reservoir. If she didn't teach me a lot about a lot, then I'm a ****ing MORON for not listening.

She'd be pissed right now if she saw me showing emotion while filling out these estate papers. "GET A GRIP, GET TWO GRIPS!" Followed by some obscenities that I still can't say correctly.