Funny stories from tree workers.

[CoreyYLTG]

What have you got?

No shit, there I was, up to my knees in saw dust and mix fuel oil caps...

I had just walked from the job tree in the backyard and up to the trucks to grab a throw line and a big shot. As I walked back with the big shot the neighbor lady(sweet old lady) asked what the big slingshot was for.

I told her I was a professional tree climber and as such sometimes people call me to rescue cats from trees. That being said we manually climb the trees to get the cats down. Sometimes if the home owner won't pay for services rendered we have to come out and replace the cats in the tree, which is what the sling shot is for.

She called the cops.

 

[CoreyYLTG]

Look, I'll be the first to say old ladies having heart attacks in the correct context is hilarious, but this may not exactly be the correct thread for your story.

 

[Chris E]

Ive got a groundy (looks like a tree hippy) that can go absolutely off his head if some stranger comes over and gives attitude/starts shit. I know its unprofessional but its quite funny to watch. Probably get shot in the states though

 

[Steve Mack]

That video Chris posted in another thread reminded me of a job I did in Kings Cross years ago. Very small yard and a small tree but bushy, something kept rustling the leaves and I thought it was birds or something until I saw this guy in PJ's. He was throwing apples out of a garbage bin at me and yelling something. Turned the saw off and he was telling me to p-- off. I told him if he didn't, I'd come down and shove this saw up his ****. He left. I didn't think anyone was home till the lady came out laughing her head off.

 

[Limbrat]

Sometimes if the home owner won't pay for services rendered we have to come out and replace the cats in the tree, which is what the sling shot is for.

She called the cops.

 

[squisher]

I used to get a kick out of the nervous customer. I'd tell them not to worry I guarantee the tree is falling only one direction...............down.


My uncle was a good one for getting a few chuckles. I remember one lot clearing job we were doing and the neighbour lady comes out and starts bawling my uncle out (oblivious to the fact that very similar mature fir trees would've been cut down to build her home) about how what we were doing was criminal and we should be taken to task and on and on. Well I look over just in time to watch my 60 year old unc take a knee cross himself and ask for forgiveness at the altar of the lady's steps. She fingered him and slammed her door. Lmao.

 

[squisher]

Or how when the big pull on a tree would be happening he'd delight in yelling out, "pull hard......it'll come easy".

Wouldn't matter how many old diddys might be in attendance.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I love to make the custy laugh if I can, like the ither day, dropped a good sized spar. HO comes out, "wow! I really heard and felt that in the house!." "Yeah, It was me, I broke it." I said all solemnly ......

 

[Mick!]

The Cat Returner is a good one.

I've probably told it before but.....

I get tired of people telling me they "love trees" (like I GAS)

I've lost count of the times I tell them (depending on my mood/ first impressions of the client) "I hate them, I'm independently wealthy, but I do this because I hate trees"

 

[Raj]

If a HO is hanging around for safety and they ask what they can do for me.

"Dial 9 and 1, when I start to fall hit the other 1."

 

[Altissimus]

When I'm up and in waiting for ground to finish w customer watching ... I break into my bad Jamaican accent and say " I am SO High Mon , Soooo High ..."

 

[Mick!]

I like the silly stuff.

 

[Dave Shepard]

Whenever I pull off a tricky move on an excavator, and a bystander is impressed, I tell them I'd never run one before, and I'm sure glad I downloaded that excavator simulator last night.

Love the cat reinstallation story.

 

[Limbrat]

Good one Mick!

 

[stig]

I think I've told this before.
When Christiansborg church was set afire by a drunk idiot shooting of a flare rocket during a karneval and the roof had to be rebuildt, they needed some of the largest spruce trees in the country for it.
I was selected to fall them, and on the day I started, national television and photographers and reporters from several national papers showed up to document it.

I had selected the biggest one to start with, might as well give them a show for their money.
As I was preparing to fall it, one reporter asked me where I was going to put it.
Don't know, I said, we'll just have to see where it lands.
" But I thought you could decide that"??
" No idea, I've never done this before".

That made the whole bunch stare at me, and the guy asked if I wasn't a logger.

" Nope, I'm an unemployed hairdresser, sent out by the unemployment office, they probably figured cutting one thing can't be so different from cutting another"

That moment before the skidder driver started laughing and they all realized they'd been had was worth o lot.

 

[brendonv]

The look on a custy face when they ask you if you want a coffee and you respond, ".... no we had a few beers on the way, we are all set"

 

[Chris E]

lololol

Sometimes after wrapping up a $1500 dollar job I'll strut up to the client and say that'll be $15 000 thanks they invariably look horrified for a second or 2.

A few years back we were taking out a spindly little jacaranda that overhung a neighbours yard - The tree hippy dude I mentioned previously was climbing it. The neighbour and his son came out and were buzzing around like angry wasps- demanding we get out of the tree, claiming that we were trespassing (we were in the airspace over their yard). They even reached over the fence and started tugging on our ropes. My guy Greg said " F off you dumb old C" and the guy goes "whhhhat did you say to meee?" Greg responds " frig Off You Dumb Old ****". Now the guy is blowing up yelling how "dare you blah blah blah" . As it turns out he was a school headmaster

The son stayed around hiding in clump of nearby bushes taking photos of us so we joked that we should just drop the tree into their yard seeing as they liked it so much, he heard us and responded sarcastically "very funny guys".

The whole episode is really my clients fault, I generally ask people to advise their neighbours before hand- so that day they went and put a note on their door mat, that same morning we turned up.... wtf

 

[NickfromWI]

lololol

Sometimes after wrapping up a $1500 dollar job I'll strut up to the client and say that'll be $15 000 thanks

I'm totally using that one.


love
nick

 

[cory]

The guy who taught me tree work was a good treeman and always full of piss and vinegar. We did one job, pruned up a bunch of trees for some lady, she came home, he asks her 'how do the trees look', for some reason she didn't like the way they looked and said so. He replies loudly, "Well you still gotta pay."

 

[sotc]

I'm totally using that one.


love
nick

You will probably get paid that too.

 

[timbertramp]

That's hilarious.
We were doing a large storm job (damage was a year old) and a couple neighbors came to investigate all the noise (bobcat, chipper, tons of saws) well all I could do was tell them the lake committee had sold out and low income apartments were coming in so we were clearing the lots. The people freaked out, finally had to come clean before they had a stroke. I think I found it funnier than the boss did.

 

[MasterBlaster]

"Well you still gotta pay."

Damn straight.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

 

[cory]

 

[woodworkingboy]

We were doing a removal job that entailed being swung out far and high hanging from the crane hook. The guy living next door apparently trains sumo wrestlers. On the ground he comes up to one of our crew and says, "That's really man's work you guys do". Pointing to the guy he said that to, I said, "That's why he had a sex change". He looked at the guy funny for awhile, then turned and walked away. He was making some sounds, I couldn't tell if he was laughing or muttering to himself under his breath.