Arbtalk.co.uk | Discussion Forum for Arborists

Were you working for the DNO clearing power lines or was it private work? Either way what your boss was asking is bad practice. You would go up in my estimations for refusing to follow bad work instructions

don't know if it was bad work instructions just didn't feel right to me, it was that what if feeling, if i knocked the tree out in half and a freak gust of wind takes it over the line.

Yeah ok, just the way I read it...

Exactly, thats why it was bad work instruction. Im pretty sure the dno would'nt be over joyed with your boss carrying out work in this manner

Surely it would have more sense for the foreman to have the for sight to take the first 4 out in two and then take the nearer ones out in smaller bits.
sounds like he had a cunning plan 4 trees too late , time and pressure on his back making a bad call.
as mentioned before bad practice if working near lines? but not doing utility work I cant comment but don't sound clever but what do I know.

Cool

Well at the risk of being misunderstood, and as a total non-climber.
I once as a non HGV driver attempted to instruct an HGV driver to reverse in a narrow gateway, after gteeing him to approach it from the correct sensible direction, he with a lot of backing & filling finally made it in.
The next driver in an identicakl truck from the same firm, very briefly pulled up, sized it up and did exactly as i had instructed the previous driver, without requirinf any direction from myself.
Sometimes one does NOT need the actual experience to make the judgement
from
a Farmers Son
the Bushmills was better than my typing apparently is
hic

Well then, there's no need at all to feel bad about it. That's twice the number of years experience as you, and maybe he's just got more comfortable with everything, or alternative he might have a bigger ego and wanted to prove something. Either way, you made a safe judgement, and if you'd gone against that then maybe you would have been reckless.

I hear what you're saying Difflock, but I firmly believe that a non climbing person must discuss with his climbers the safest and yet most productive way forward. I would, and do, and don't climb. Be a team. So.

You dont need to be a climber to fell a tree, does the guy ordering instructions have years of experience felling to know how to read the subtlities of directional felling. A lot of reading between the lines and scenario creation always occurs on here. I'm sure few other people know the exact situation and experience of the team and the situation.

Maybe you need to man up, maybe he needs to let you get used to halving trees by taking them in thirds, maybe he needs to listen to you.

You made a call, no matter what the oucome you walking away is ALWAYS better than taking a chance and cocking it up, even if you tail is between your legs and ego bruised. Get your more experienced climber to coach you through things, read, observe, ask and learn as much as you can, learning never stops.

As a more experienced climber i'd say its his duty to help you out, talk you through things. After all i'm sure he doesn't want to recover your body after you sucummbed to pressure, cocked up and barber chaired a spar.

Hope that rant was productive.

Dont beat yourself up, you're alive.

Jamie