The Worst Job in the World?

[forestryworks]

I worked with a falling contractor for years who has a forestry degree and was a professional forester first for the Forest Service before
he quit to become a log cutter. He didn't want to get "trapped" in a forester position. He liked the freedom of being a contractor and
cutting logs. I've also known log cutters who got their degrees while cutting logs and then became professional foresters for the
Forest Service. I went to school while I was cutting logs and got two-year general education degree so I could enter a natural resources
program. So it works both ways. D. Doug Dent got a master's degree while cutting for Zellerbach.

Jameson- there's several outfits north of me looking for rigging hands. Have you been calling outfits out here lately? There was a company
in Sweethome that was needing choker pullers and was starting guys out at $14-15/hour, which is pretty good for Sweethome. There's a
ton of cheap housing around there.

J- Thanks for the heads up!

 

[hammerlogging]

I worked with a falling contractor for years who has a forestry degree and was a professional forester first for the Forest Service before
he quit to become a log cutter. He didn't want to get "trapped" in a forester position. He liked the freedom of being a contractor and
cutting logs. I've also known log cutters who got their degrees while cutting logs and then became professional foresters for the
Forest Service. I went to school while I was cutting logs and got two-year general education degree so I could enter a natural resources
program. So it works both ways. D. Doug Dent got a master's degree while cutting for Zellerbach.

Jameson- there's several outfits north of me looking for rigging hands. Have you been calling outfits out here lately? There was a company
in Sweethome that was needing choker pullers and was starting guys out at $14-15/hour, which is pretty good for Sweethome. There's a
ton of cheap housing around there.

While having been accused of using five and ten dollar college words, I will in reply congratulate some co-workers for multil syllable words, its a healthy back and forth. My old bud red and I were bucking a #### ton o helicopter logs one day, he put a dip in, I said "goddam red, you put a ####in dip in and your conjugation goes to ####!" it was true.

For me its not about education so much as intelligence- working with someone who gets the big picture, can problem solve, and anticipate is wonderful

 

[slowp]

Following--I was always following! a hooktender who went on to lecture about "embracing the weather" during a nasty, windy storm. Remember...to work in the woods, every day, in all weather, you must Embrace the Weather.

Of course, you may cuss while doing so.

 

[tramp bushler]

I used to teach the guys in the crummy a fancy word a week . Riggin rats said I sounded more like a lawyer than a logger . :msp_confused:
But the fact is most people need liesure time to have creative thoughts .
Reason most other people think loggers are stupid . Their just too tired to think .

On of the very best and fastest and strongest fallers I' ve ever met would cut 80 bushel a day and read a 250 page novel at night . When he check scaled he would take a fallers hat . Glance at the scalae . Hand it back and in a day or 3 would check it . And he would check 25 or more numbers .
He would bushel for 2 or 3 days then do his scale in the crummy on the way home , while driving . The first guy to make a wise crack about thumbing he would make check scale him the next day . @
He had taught himself to have an idetic memory . He had LOTS of hundred bushel days ..

 

[tramp bushler]

That guy was at least twice the man that I am maybe 3 times .
I have had the honor of working for 3 different men who would consistantly cut 2 strips to other above average cutters 1 .
Funny thing about all of them . They didn't do any drugs . And they did the job completely . Not air scalein or tree lengthin . Every buck that was supposed to be done was done .
All 3 had thier own cuttin companies employing up to 20 bushlers .

 

[Humptulips]

I used to teach the guys in the crummy a fancy word a week . Riggin rats said I sounded more like a lawyer than a logger . :msp_confused:
But the fact is most people need liesure time to have creative thoughts .
Reason most other people think loggers are stupid . Their just too tired to think .

When I was staying in camp I used to write poetry. So damn boring I had the time to kill and nothing else to do. Never been able to do it since. Too many distractions. We used to do trivia quizes to kill time. I would read a book a night 'till I got things read out in camp.
Stayed in camp once for 6 1/2 months without going to town and mostly working 7 days a week.
I think I was pretty hard to deal with. Got pretty grumpy.

 

[tramp bushler]

Thays why I'm a Tramp . Tho I knew lots of guys who only knew loggers , I knew lots of non loggers .
When I had stood all I could stand and I just couldn't stand anymore . I'de be down the road .
Dealing with people was not my strong suit . Esspecially riggin men . I guess thats why I didn't get on the iron . Kind of a cut off my nose to spite my face thing . It wasn't until I got on cutting that I would make it a whole season for one outfit . The outer factor with tramping was units getting shut down because they had an injunction filed against them . One time in Coffman that really stands out . 5 or 6 of us . 1 crummy full had finished up and moved . We packed in to our new strips , and were litterly just starting our saws . Some guys hadn't even gotten to the bottom of the unit when the bullbuck or the boss came running down yellin don't cut any trees . Stop stop .
Which was pretty wierd . Usually it was the other way around . So we all packed out , went to the bunkhouse.
It was a pretty sucky deal . Enviros fileing lawsuits in s.f. shut us down in Alaska . There were already more home gaurds to do the needed cutting . Pack everything , get your check and head to the float .

 

[redprospector]

Sometimes they go together. I know quite a few guys who have some college education and it doesn't seem to hurt their cutting any.

One guy I've worked with quite a bit, and who is one of the best fallers I've seen, has a masters degree in sociology. We don't hold it against him, though.

I worked with a guy that had been a VP in some big bank back east somewhere. He was a good faller, hard to keep up with. One day he just up and quit, said he was going back to banking.

Andy

 

[Humptulips]

Tramp,
That one season I put up with a lot and stuck it out longer then I wanted to because I was getting about $4/hr over what I could get anywhere else. Amazing what greed will do to you.
One thing I have a lot of good stories from the time. Didn't see to good then.
Would you believe my first day of work was on January 1st. We actually worked or tried to in shoulder deep snow. Ah, the good old days.:hmm3grin2orange:

 

[Gologit]

I worked with a guy that had been a VP in some big bank back east somewhere. He was a good faller, hard to keep up with. One day he just up and quit, said he was going back to banking.

Andy

Logging is often a refuge for people. A few years back we hired a guy to drive water truck. He had a little camp trailer and lived in the woods, only going to town when he had to. Never had any company that we saw. But, he was a good worker, quiet and dependable, and got along with everybody. Even the log truck drivers liked him.

Toward the end of the season we got a phone call from somebody looking for him...a local hospital. Turns out he was a Doctor, an actual MD. I called the hospital back and double checked. He was, or had been, the head of the Trauma Department. They don't hand those jobs out to just anybody.

I gave him the message and asked, because I darn well wanted to know, "why didn't you tell us you were a Doctor?"

He said "If I told you I was a Doctor you would have treated me like a Doctor. I needed a break from all that...I just wanted to be an ordinary person for awhile. I wanted people to relate to me for who I was, not what I was. And besides, he laughed, you wouldn't have hired me."

He made the end of the season and drew his pay. Last I heard he was working in another ER in the Sacramento area. If he ever needs to escape again I'll be glad to have him

 

[forestryworks]

I need to escape from Far West Texas :hmm3grin2orange:

 

[RandyMac]

The worst job in the world is looking for work.

 

[056kid]

That would definitely be a step in the right direction. .

 

[redprospector]

I need to escape from Far West Texas :hmm3grin2orange:

I heard that if you ever wear out a pair of shoes in West Texas that you'll never leave.

You won't be able to afford to buy another pair to walk out with.

 

[tramp bushler]

Hey Hump ; when you were on Hecata did u find any sink holes ??

Randy . You got er there . I got half my iron home today and have already started calling around . Lookin for construction work if its here near home . I'de really rather either work in the brush or go to Prudhoe . . But it would be nice to be home for a summer .

 

[Humptulips]

Hey Hump ; when you were on Hecata did u find any sink holes ??

Randy . You got er there . I got half my iron home today and have already started calling around . Lookin for construction work if its here near home . I'de really rather either work in the brush or go to Prudhoe . . But it would be nice to be home for a summer .

A couple of small holes but nothing you couldn't have climbed out of. A couple of pretty good sized creeks that disapear into the ground there.
One funny formation that tested my hangup fighting skills. We downhill logged a hill that was exactly like a vlocano in shape, crater and everything. There was a rock rim with about a 200 foot across hole in the top. Fallers fell everything into it and there was some good sized spruce on that rim. We logged all the way around that hill from three different landings but we wrestled the logs out of that hole all one way.
Have to say some of the toughest logging shows I ever worked on were in AK.

 

[bitzer]

####ing Lumberjack! I would guess the outlook for lumberjacks would be grim. They started seeing the end of their era around the time steam power started to hit big. Christ. I like how they pick a super clean major douchebag holding a homeowner Stihl for the picture. ####ing lumberjack!

Jameson, I know this is not the arena you are looking for and our hills and trees are not as long, but I see this kind of stuff all the time. Adds in newspapers and magazines looking for cutters, talking to mills and foresters that need crews, etc. We are actually running out of loggers here if you can believe it. I thought about calling them for the hell of it just to see what they are all about, but I have more local work than I can shake a stick at.


EXPERIENCED chainsaw cutters and machine operators needed

wanted: forestry and processor crews

 

[tramp bushler]

Imo . If they don't tell you up front what you will be making then it may not be much . .

A big reason no one wants to work in the brush is there isn't much money in it .

Bein a bushler is all about the money . Pay guys 500$ a day for 6 1/2 hours on the saw , provide the crummy , workers comp and gas+ oil and you can pick your crew from who is knocking on your door . .
Heck even for 250$ a day you could have a very good crew . If you had mandatory hair folical drug testing you would have a crew that didn't cost much in comp.

 

[Gologit]

Imo . If they don't tell you up front what you will be making then it may not be much . .

A big reason no one wants to work in the brush is there isn't much money in it .

Bein a bushler is all about the money . Pay guys 500$ a day for 6 1/2 hours on the saw , provide the crummy , workers comp and gas+ oil and you can pick your crew from who is knocking on your door . .
Heck even for 250$ a day you could have a very good crew . If you had mandatory hair folical drug testing you would have a crew that didn't cost much in comp.

Yup. Workman's comp is a major expense. That's one of the reasons, besides productivity, that there's so much mechanical harvesting now. If the ground is gentle enough and the wood isn't too big you usually won't see anybody working on the ground. Nobody.


A lot of the stuff I do now is on steep ground with wood too big for the feller bunchers to handle. When that's cut I'm done. It's kind of nice, in a way, not to be cutting a bunch of dog hair but it makes for a lot of moving around if a guy wants steady work.

And it makes it darn hard for a new guy to get started and make a living.