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Dealing with awkward jobs


Jack.P
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2 hours ago, jfc said:

I tend to avoid jobs now where I find out the neighbours are at war, can't be doing with the hassle. If the job is on the boundary and may involve crossing it I ask how the situation is with next door.

Agreed entirely. 

 

Going off at a slight tangent - if the job involves working for A, but pruning tree belonging to B, I always insist on meeting B if they have not given clear and specific written permission to the neighbour. On more than on occasion we have turned up at B's place to prune his/her tree for A next door, only to be told they have not agreed to so much coming off. On one occasion I was pretty convinced B had agreed to more to A's face, for an easy time, but then when A was at work for the day told us we could take less off. Grrrr. So I learnt the hard way.

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Sometimes a more delicate touch is required, however.

I’m pretty sure it was Spike Hunter who was Arbogrunt on here who was working in a Conservation Area with full permission.

Mrs. Lady of the Manor pulls up and plays merry hell and asks what they think they’re doing?

Spike was cool and professional as ever.

She’s Head of the Roundtable this, Chair of the Parish Council that, yada yada yada etc.

’Well I haven’t been informed’.

She then asked Spike the fatal question - ‘Do you know who I am?’.

 

Spike being ex-para couldn’t resist answering -

‘Yes I do.

Someone who obviously isn’t as important as they think they are’.

 

Politely, of course.

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1 hour ago, Gary Prentice said:

I can better that:aetsch:

When employed on a LA tree gang we had TM with single lane working - dismantling a dead elm. 

 

Fellow stopped his car in the middle of the lights, wound his window down to ask who had given us 'permission' to fell that healthy tree. He was told we didn't need it, we were the council.

 

Still not satisfied he wanted to know why it was coming down, such a healthy looking tree and he had to inform us that, as a tax payer he contributed to our wages.

 

"Cos it's got Dutch Elm Disease and it's dead"

Bearing in mind this was June or July

"But, but, how do you know that it's dead?" he spluttered.

 

One of the lads just lost the plot then and answered,

"Cos it's got no F**k**g leaves on you daft ****. Here's ten p, your contribution to my wages, now F off and let this traffic you're holding up get on with their lives"

 

We all got dragged in the managers officer that afternoon and swore blind that it was just a malicious complaint. :D

 

 

Can't beat you for trees, but I've got one from when I worked on the water. Called out one night, full manhole/loss of services, we get there, no one home, lift the covers everything's empty, off we go. Next day the call centre were wanting us to go back out to unblock it!, when we turned up it was a few minutes past 12, silly bollox here made the mistake of saying "good morning" he set right about me, "morning, it's fecking afternoon, why didn't you come last night, blah, blah, blah.

 

I told him to go feck himself, (not my proudest moment), but he had to have it).

 

It's a good job my manager was my ex mate off the tools.

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Just a few years ago, we were treeing in what was a fairly modern development of nice houses, but where the householders parked off road at right angles in a nice line, rather than by their front doors.

My climber casually stuffs his old truck in one of these unallocated slots, as open space was at a premium, and a short while later mr BMW X5 comes chugging in and blocks the truck in, sits in his X5 for a few minutes, obviously fuming, then goes to a house and slams the door nearly off its hinges.

All on the ground saw it, and surmised what would happen. This climber was, and still is, always of a very volatile disposition, of the bare knuckle variety, so much so that my lads are always a bit wary of him, they don’t make jokes that could be taken the wrong way in his hearing, or ask him personal questions of any nature, however amusing they think the topic is.

So the job got finished, he puts his stuff in his truck, and goes and knocks on the door , which is ignored for a good few minutes despite knocking at intervals.

The general consensus is that x5 will be dragged out from his door by his hair, or at the very least sustain severe internal injuries before, during or after BMW’s shifted.

But he kept his cool by simply asking if he could move it please, which he did.

I took the opportunity to go over to his truck and said how well he handled the situation by showing, what to him, must have been enormous restraint .

 

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Not tree related but...

A few years ago someone was offering local stone from a torn down steading /barn for the uplift.
Went around with a trailer and soon realised that to get anywhere I’d need a digger to shift some of the larger pieces.
As I was finishing the man of the house turns up and asks if I could do him a favour by digging a pond.
For free. I agreed, as it was light late being the summer, and as I didn’t want to have to come back decided to crack on and do it there and then. Got him to mark it out and reassure me there were no services in the immediate area, especially as there was a Water board mound adjoining his property next to where he wanted this pond ....
Got stuck in and did the shallow end before getting a little more adventurous at the deep end. Long story short the bucket found his water supply at around 10.30 pm. I did the decent thing and unsuccessfully tried to find the shutoff. The pond was about a quarter full by the time his wife went mental at me and I did a sharp exit[emoji23]

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