Psycho helper stories...

[treeman82]

I was just looking through Budroe's post about what's his face and noticed JPS' post about the guy who freaked out on the job. I figured it might be amusing to hear about what kinds of things people have done when they freaked out on a job.

I remember back like 2 summers ago I had a "friend" helping me on a job upstate (only about 45 minutes north of here) I had told him who we would be working for and he really wanted to go with me to help at this guy's place. He gets to my house and we head out in my truck. About 5 minutes from my house he asks me "are we there yet?" 10 minutes later he says "i am never helping you again matt" We finally get up there and I get this little maple done. Then I go up into a spruce and ask him to throw a line up to me. Kid can't get the line up to me and starts freaking out. He started stomping his feet and by doing so broke a lot of the grandkids' toys. It was really hilarious.

So let's hear em fellas.. I KNOW I got a few others.

 

[SpikedSupra]

Do tell

Treeman82,
What a stupid kid. I would love to hear another one of your psycho helper stories. And anyone else that has one do tell because I find them very amusing.

 

[DDM]

Matt, I think you should have came down and spanked his A$$ act like a child get treated like one.

 

[Jumper]

Not a helper.........

It was Sep 89, and I was winding down a year of jumping out of planes freefall to amuse the taxpaying public. Our parent unit also sponsored the Basic Military Freefall Course, and in betwen shows we were being used as followers for the students.

Claude V, a fellow Officer who i know from the Airborne Regiment, had arrived with some fanfare as the next Mountain Warfare Ops instructor officer, he regaled us with his tales of conquest while he chain smoked in the Officers' quarters.

Well on Day 2 he went totally BANANAS, I mean lost IT in the Hercules at 10000 feet, cried, carried on, probably peed his pants - totally. REALLY impressed the Troopers and Corporals on the course, who witnissed this spectacle. Needless to say his derrière(butt) was posted out the NEXT day.

Really put the pressure on me because although I was a civy freefaller, I was not a military freefaller, and I had to complete the final ten or so jumps of the course as I was also posted to the School, and I think this was a rite of passage.

I learned a few things from 'ti Claude. I never will ever allow myself to be put in a situation where I am too frightened to function, and I will not be put in situations where I will embaress myself, not to mention my employer, which in C's case was the Army.

I passed the course, though waddling to the door with a a 70 lb parachute, a 60 lb rucksack, and a pair of snowshoes and a rifle . which weighed more than me(in those days at least) was NOT fun, especially at 1:00 am. But I knew I could do it.

So maybe your helper was stressed out by the whole situation-I had one co worker, a really nice lady, a stressed out school teacher, who just could not handle being a groundperson on a job(did not like saws, noise, ropes) which in retro, was a cinch. She left after two days back to a life in interlock(UGH).

Not all jobs are cut out for all people, for whatever reason.

 

[treeman82]

Actually Dave, what I did was I just told the customer. He took care of it This kid was freaking out with me that whole year. First when I told him that I was working for 2 brothers, he FREAKED OUT! He was like "why didn't they ask me?" and all kinds of other stuff. Later on when I took him to the father's place he freaked out with breaking the toys.
I remember sometime that year I brought my gear over to his house in order to cut a few busted trees. He wanted to climb for a bit and I reluctantly said yes. So me and his father were watching him climb (he only got about 20 feet off the ground) Well he threw my rope over a branch and climbed up. Then while hanging from this first branch, he throws the other end of my climbing rope up over the next branch. He pulled himself up on that, but didn't untie the first one. So he had my rope wrapped around several branches and couldn't go up anymore. Both his father and I asked him if he was alright, and AGAIN he freaked out by flailing his arms and yelling at us. Now the kid has his own gear, which REALLY scares me. I think all he has done is climbed a bit around his property. The father calls me if anything technical has to be done.

 

[SpikedSupra]

Great Patience

Dennis,
You must have unbelievable patience to put up with the kids fussing and constant whining. The only comparison I can make with your situation and this kid your talking about is when I played baseball in high school. I was one of the teams leaders(not an official position but just respected as one) and there were a few kids on the team that just wanted to whine about doing after practice cals...field maintanence duty...dugout duty...if it wasnt what they wanted to do then they would put up a fuss about it. Finally I had had enough and it was time to put up or shut up. Everytime they started whining I would grill them out. Two of them wisely quit and the other finally delt with it and became a pretty good ball player. But if that kid was my groundman I would surely have given him the ulitmatum and if he couldnt deal with it he a$$ would be fired permanently.

 

[treeman82]

Forrest, No offence.. but the name is MATT or MATTHEW. NOT Dennis!
Dr. H.P. Dennis Ryan is one of my professors and is a very well known and well respected member of the arboriculture community.
Please notice that I am not taking credit for that line, and that I am in fact quoting Dr. Ryan.

 

[SpikedSupra]

Matt!

Hey Matt,
You will have to pardon my mistake because I didnt know your name and many of the members put there name in their signature so I quickly browsed up to your post and caught the name and then typed it. Please forgive my mistake. Something tells me I am not going ot get your name wrong anymore.