People/clients endangering themselves on the job

Szajer

Szajer

alive with pleasure
Joined
Feb 22, 2014
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456
Location
St. Pete Beach
Pruning a giant Pin Oak in Youngstown Ohio that hung over a sidewalk in an up-class neighborhood. We had the walks blocked off with traffic cones and literally 4' of brush and debris that I was dropping.

Then I notice two people- man and wife, in their late 60's who are approaching. Now you'd think they'd cross the street and continue with their walk. Nope.

Next thing I notice is them wading, no- climbing, thru the mountain of brush. They were actually stopped -and removing the limbs from the sidewalk so they could continue their route. I don't do stupid very well, so luckily my boss diverted them around the back of the tree, through the clients yard ---and back again onto their way.

I so wanted to drop a stub on their stupid heads.


I know you guys got a million of these, so give em up!
 
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  • #3
Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

Frank Zappa
Click to expand...
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Ok, one elderly couple for whom we were trimming a walnut we giving us the whole "we want to keep as much wood as possible for our wood burner" any way after I finished and we were chipping the brash I see them diving into the chipper and pulling out any piece they figure they can burn, while it was running!
Some people seem to think they're saving the planet for 20 pennies worth of firewood.
 
We had a parking lot closed off on a Sunday at a business office while pruning an incense cedar, black locust and removing an Ailanthus altissima over an adjacent parking lot. I watch this guy get out of his car, move our tape and cones, drive in... park next to the tree (basically under it) I am up in and shouts up to me.... "hey... is it ok to park here?" Chipper throwing dust all over his nicely polished car...
The guy explained to me after the chipper shut down that he decided he had to work on Sunday and that he needs his car near. Then came out every so often to walk under the cedar I was dropping trimmings out of to have a ciggy after we got him to move his car elsewhere. It took all I had to not come unglued.
 
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  • #7
This one comes to me from a guy that was hired from dial a drunk, to help with a big job. I'm asking what did he do for a living and he said that he was a painter.

He preceded to tell me the story about an incident of his last job in the business. He was up on scaffolding- painting the canopy at one of those giant chain filling stations, the kind that has 20 pumps. The scaffold is blocking one of the lanes for a pump so he could finish that part of the canopy's ceiling. When he feels the platform getting bumped, he looks over its edge to see a woman trying to back her car beneath it to get gas. He starts yelling down at her, but she insists on having it her way and taps the scaffold with her bumper again. So what does he do, he threw the gallon bucket of paint -down on top of her car.

After the smoke cleared and he's using the excuse to his boss that by her hitting the scaffold, caused the paint to fall, other people denied his story and said he deliberately threw it at her car. He was immediately fired.

Too bad really. I feel that since she was endangering his life -and probably the safety of others, she got what she deserved. But since there were witnesses saying otherwise, he was screwed.
 
I heard a story, first hand, in Florida...a guy was up on a tuna tower on a big fishing boat doing some fibreglassing, a big cigarette boat went by throwing a huge wake in the no wake zone, guy almost got thrown out of the tuna tower...he grabbed the pot of hot gelcoat, got in his car, drove to the closest brige and waited for the offending cigarette boat...when it went under the brige he dropped the pot of setting gelcoat onto the front deck...it went EVERYWHERE.
Said cigarette boat, was heading to the Miami Boat Show, funnily enough, never made it there :)
 
F&^% yeah. Maybe it would turn into an eye-for-eye, or a preemptive eye-strike, but, at least to a point, the more that deserving people got what they deserved, the less they would do to deserve it, and the more that the average joe would feel less powerless.

Sorta like where there is more concealed-carrying going on, I"ll bet less people acting out of place.


Thugs put into stocks in the town square being humiliated would be a lot better than 3 hot and a cot.

I don't know much about Bernhardt Geotz, but I like him.
 
Szajer said:
This one comes to me from a guy that was hired from dial a drunk, to help with a big job. I'm asking what did he do for a living and he said that he was a painter.



Too bad really. I feel that since she was endangering his life -and probably the safety of others, she got what she deserved. But since there were witnesses saying otherwise, he was screwed.
Click to expand...

Man this thread burns me up! Lol I couldn't agree more with last quote. Sounds like the company covering their ass on that one!
 
We were roofing a 3 story building (7 layer, trap door access job from hell) in a busy part of downtown. Closed off the sidewalk with caution tape and signs.

No more than got everyone working on the roof and looked down to see store owner lady removing tape. I go all the way back down and talk w/her. She: "MY customers come in the Front door". I mention her assumption of liability for removing safety devices. Tape goes back up and customers use back door for the day.

I climb back up to roof, check crews work and go to edge to check sidewalk area....Teen on bike coming down sidewalk raises arms like he won the race and runs through caution tape.

Sent a person back down to guard the area for the rest of the 3 days it took us.

I joked that he was from the city and could maybe communicate better with the city folk. Signs were "Danger Falling Debris." I was thinking maybe he could write a few gang signs on them and change wording to "YO Shit Fallin' " or some such city type language.:evil:
 
I was felling a big poplar. I had already pieced down the crown and it remained the 40 ' trunk. There was a substantial back lean toward the neighbor. I felt that my come-along was a little small for the job, but the back lean was a little too much for the wedges. So I decided to use both at the same time, at least to begin. The come-along was anchored to the onliest big stump available, just 40 ' away from the poplar. Uncomfortable area to stand on.
I explained to the homeowner what I wanted to do and what would the trunk do, the smack zone and all.
I cut my notch, with a high stump to hope saving my come-along. I tensioned the come-along pretty hard and made the backcut, putting wedges as I cut. I began to pound my wedges, tensioned again the come-along, and then keep pounding the wedges. Some time later, as the trunk uprighted, I saw the homeowner coming in the LZ to take out the slack of the pull line !
There was no way to make him live the scene. He wanted to help and I had a big trunk ready to go. What can I do?
When I saw the trunk began to move on its own, I yelled to get out.
At this moment, he found the advice was probably pertinent and he run out there, at the full speed of an old man.
The trunk's head landed just where he stood a very few seconds ago.
It scared me big time.
 
That sounded really close! I am always glad to hear these stories. They help me remember how important it is to expect the unexpected.
 
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  • #18
Not tree related, but years ago as I was driving the chip truck to the next job, the road we needed to take was blocked by a deputy flagging vehicles to use another route. I'll never forget the look on his face. He was sickly white and frantic, you could see it was not his natural look or demeanor.

Come to find out later that a county garbage truck had killed an elderly man. What happened is, he tried tossing in a bag of trash that he was late bringing to the curb- as the truck was backing up in its normal spot so as to turn around, starting the other side of the street.

The old man was smashed between the dually wheels of the truck. He was still alive, though only his upper body was protruding from the 2" gap of the wheels. He died before they could remove the wheel to free him. And it wouldn't have mattered, he was late 70's and nearly completely liquified.
 
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