
This is how most of the work on the ground is. You stand there, looking up or shouting up or being shouted at. In a few other trades, I am sure people shout at each other, but in treework, it is a daily occurence.
Funny, because older tree guys have notoriously bad hearing. SO they do that thing of assuming everyone in the world hears at their level, and shout "Nice looking girl over there, ya see that?"
I saw an old logger's presentation a couple of times, real good, practical chainsaw and felling info. He said if you live with a bunch of guys for the week, the tv gets louder and louder, because: "We are all going deaf together".
I have been a freak about ear protection. There are a few of us out there who did the math, and realized if we were going to dig music and whispers into our nineties, we'd have to wear uncomfortable things in or on our ears at work. Wah! But we did it, and we could hear the macho comments like; " I just can't stand not being able to hear-like if the tree starts to crack." We could hear them with our dorky looking, hot ear protection on, because it is made to let certain sounds in. I have not, in these last 27 years, failed to hear a crrrrrrack! when I needed to, and I have not cursed my ear phones much. I like the ones that clip onto the hardhat, like Peltor. They usually last about a year if you wear them every day. You can replace the innards cheap, or buy the set for like forty bucks. I mean, that's the cost of a couple cds.
Anyway, I really love my hearing. Sometimes I'll pull off my phones, up in the tree, and say: "What?" about fifty times in a morning. Its a hassle, sweat and sawdust get in there, the comment is often not necessary (be careful!-ok!) but sometimes it is germain.
When you are leaving a work area, and tying in somewhere else, and your ground guy says' Hey! Get that hanger!" You grab the hanging limb you didn't see, or forgot about, because it all blends in after a while, and you feel grateful. You will not have to rassle your way back in there again, between three competing oak limbs, or out there, thirty feet from the stem, because you hadn't seen the hanger under your feet.
And I hear those guys who just can't be bothered to do it. Its my opinion that we call it work for a reason, and texting our buddies on the job is just as ridiculous as being on the phone. Tree work, if done well, is another way to experience the joy of this moment, and hone in on the work, and be in one place, doing one thing, sometimes for a day or more, but usually for just an hour or however much time that one tree takes you. I got into this business because it is fun. I could not believe, for the first ten or so years, that I was actually making money outside, away from crowds, around birds and squirrels, doing physical and mental work to make trees look better and be safer. I would chortle sometimes to myself, like a guy who has found a way to beat the system.
If you need to escape in the middle of that, to text home, or to see what everyone else is doing, you might look at another line of work. One where nobody is depending on you to get him a rope, and nobody is waiting for you to drag your limbs so they can drag theirs through a small space, and nobody is starting up a chainsaw nearby that will have incredible, irrevocable effects on whatever its chain touches. One where your agility and ability to respond to the moment is not required, and you can sit at a nice comfy chair for the next forty years.
I hear you that work is a hassle: that's why we get paid for it. And while you're at it, do you think you could lift the corners of your mouth once in a while? Just as a yogic exercise, for me? For the customer's benefit? I find it gives me endurance to engage these small muscles while I work. And I know you don't like ear protection on your head... Oops. Did you get that? I want to tell you I hear you, but you aren't facing this way, so I'll have to wait until you turn around so you can read my lips.
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