Quote:
Originally Posted by Danth
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Tree work isn't a glamorous line of work but rest assured it's very much a "real job" and can injure/maim/kill you in an instant. Things can go south quick if a chain snaps or if a bucket truck's lift cable lets go or someone falls out of a tree.
Only the ground crew guys can be thought of as "menial" since that's the entry-level job. Good climbers are highly prized and paid accordingly. Bad climbers fall out of trees and break their backs. It can make for a decent career in the southern states but up north business gets real slow during the winter months and most successful small tree services will have some sort of alternate work they do during the slow season. Snow removal is common though not universal.
The father-in-law ran his own tree service for many years. I never worked for him directly, but I appreciated his modified chipper as it proved immensely useful on several occasions cleaning up storm damage around the house here. He powered it with a Ford 300 inline 6 with an open header. At full throttle it made quite the deafening roar and you had to be careful running branches and limbs through it as they could kick with "some" force.
"Joe" talks very much like most the guys I knew who did that type of work. Lot of gung-ho and bravado and cut-the-climber-out-of-the-tree-because-it's-funny.
Danth
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My in-box stays filled with people trying to get me to come climb for them 24/7 because it's so hard to find climbers. When the Quarantine first started I actually de-activated facebook because when people found out I was unemployed they wouldn't stop blowing me up, and I even went so far as to put blankets over my windows so I can lie about being out of town because when I was about level 39 on my Cleric, I heard knocking outside and saw my old foreman at my front door.
Good Climbers may actually be one of the most rare skilled laborers on the planet.