rookie day rate?

[Rich2484]

Yeah I would look towards that. I started on 50 but I didn't have any tickets and just dragged timber and brush about. I started from the very bottom with nothing. Now I've got felling and the like no climbing tickets but never needed them.

 

It's not about what you have it's about what you can do productively and what makes you valuable to a team?

 

I can make mechanical things work and spend a lot of time doing the maintenance on the machines, saws, chippers and vehicles. That makes me valuable to the business so I'm good without the need to climb.

[BarneyH]

Geoff, what happened then? Have you had your days? How did they go?

[likeitorlumpit]

There are different degrees of rookie though. There are rookies from the point of view of having no experience of tree work but have loads of experience of practical manual work and can turn their hands to tree work, and pick things up straight away. These are worth money. Then there are rookies who have no experience of anything at all, but the keen ones of these are also worth good money.

 

The people not worth money are those who talk on their phones, who don't respond when you talk to them, who whine if something is hard work, who don't bother getting to the job on time, who turn up in trainers - but while a lot of these are rookies with no experience of the real world, a lot are also highly experienced lazy beggars. I had a highly experienced bloke on a job a while back who was more interested in talking on his phone arranging other jobs, and spending an hour sharpening a chain, and it took him till lunchtime just to get up the tree. Whereas another bloke I hired got to the job before me, had all his stuff sorted out, we discussed the job and he was up the tree in the blink of an eye.

 

 

you've described exactly some guys I have come across.

They leave everyone around them feeling frustrated and don't get asked back

[arbogrunt]

These sort of blokes get the 'DCM' here....'don't come monday'....

[Swampster]

It's all relative IMO. As an owner you work hard and as fast as is safe, looking after your gear and making your money. If the guys working with you pull their weight (and some brash), don't knacker your tools, don't upset your clients, turn up on time and keep coming back, then your on the money. As said earlier, they're not the ones working on, typing up quotes, changing the carbs, MOT'ing the vans etc but as long as they are respected and appreciated and satisfied it's cool.

[BarneyH]

Swampster, I couldn't agree more. The attitude that you've described is the one I've worked hard to maintain over my first year subbying, and it's worked out well. Maybe the lesson for us rookies is that if you concentrate on keeping the right attitude the money will follow of its own accord.

 

You're not based in west central Scotland by any chance...?

[damian]

i offer rookies 1,000 euro per month take home on the books plus accomadation and flight but guess what theyve got to work for it , and ive had some good ones and some bad ones the best r always the HONEST ones who say they cant do much but they r willing to give it a go ,we normally give a one month trail basis if they good they can stay, if they can hack it, witch is the most important because as we all know its a bloody hard job regardless of climber r groundie .dont forget its a team effort u can have the best climber in the world if the stuff dont get shifted then ur stuffed TEAM WORK is the most important thing in our industry so to u rookies out there dont work for nothing its not worth it work for a few quid get some experience and see if u can go further, my opinion is that it takes a least two to three years to get of the rookie ladder then u can start asking for a bit of decent penny . as i say this is just my opinion of 15 years on the tools and still counting cheers damian