Started a two-three day job getting hired to do crane aided Pine removals around a residence, up in the hills on a narrow road. Got recommended by a gardner friend of mine to someone he knows that does tree work. The 26 ton crane took up all of the road, but we didn't bother to get a road closure permit because there is minimal traffic up that way and an alternative road close by that ia quickly accessed. I would say that maybe two cars came partly up the road and saw our barricade and turned around. So during lunch the other guys have gone off to do some stuff and I'm sitting up by the crane eating. I see a car drive past the barricade and right up to the crane by me, I'm on the edge of the road, sitting on a log with my lunch on a crate. This guy drives right up close and starts looking to see if there is a way around the crane, even though the outriggers are all the way up to the curbs on each side of the road. Anyone with reasonable vision could see from fifty yards away at the barricade that the road is completely blocked. Instead of backing up to the barricade where he can easily do a U turn unencumbered, he decides to back into this real narrow carport directly across from where I'm sitting, the one that looks like it might fall down any minute, and the one that has our cables in it. I'm starting to think, wtf, but maybe he lives there, but it looks like a seldom used vacation home. It takes him a bunch of back and forths to get reasonably lined up in the carport, has a hard time of it and seems to be getting frustrated, and when he pulls forward the last time he runs into the crate holding my lunch, and instead of stopping, he pushes it forward a foot or so until his grill is like four inches away from me. I don't move, probably chewing, kind of in a stupor of disbelief. He finally manages to get turned around and stops his car and gets out. I'm still wondering if he lives there? I stand up because I see ugly coming. He comes up to me and starts yelling about it being illegal to block the road and asks if I'm working there. I would think that obviously I am. He goes on a bit before I cut him off by telling him that I'm not the person that he wants to talk to, the guy running the job and making arrangements about the road and stuff isn't there now, though I have to tell him three times before he goes back to his car grumbling and drives off. Kind of an old guy, and when he got out of his car he was shaking in anger or stress or something, his voice shaking as well. I figure to myself that he is either going to the cops or the city office to speak his frail mind. Sure enough, about an hour later a guy from the city office drives up and says that they received a complaint. Apparently they are obligated to check out complaints, but he really doesn't have much to say, and can see for himself that we really don't have any alternative to be doing other than what we are doing with the crane out there. He doesn't seem to care if there is a permit or not, spends the obligatory ten minutes investigating and then roles off. He doesn't want to hassle anybody. I keep my mouth shut about what happened, he probably doesn't want to know that either.
I'm wondering if the old guy is going to be coming around tomorrow to see if his complaint has made any changes, which it won't have. I really kept my cool, the thought passed through my mind after he pushed my lunch table with his car, I'm sure on purpose, to yank him out of the car and do something, but I don't think it would have been a good solution other than some momentary enjoyment. I can't believe some people, it boggles the mind. Everyone knows that the Pines are a growing problem in the area and need to be taken care of for everyone's good, about the entire one million of them. Most people here give a degree of respect for doing the demanding work and helping out a home owner, often just like themselves, and not being bothered for having been minutely inconvenienced for our behalf without complaining, but then you get some total jerk a**hole like this coming by. Not much you can do, but it surely is unkind, people being so extreme and wanting to gripe about it. Kind of too bad that you just have to suck it up and can't speak your mind too, or more.
Other than that, the day went well, a lot was accomplished.
