An Uncontrolled Descent: The Free Fall of the Rope Access Industry

That was interesting. I had not dealt with anyone just coming out of arb school at work. I have met a few newbs who just graduated, and none have seemed to have an inflated sense of their position in the industry, but school may be different than a very specified course.
 
Real world shock is a nice way to put it. There is always a disconnect between the learning environment and the workplace. At school your given exposure to the full gamut of the job making it seem like pretty exciting engaging stuff. Once in the real world, especially entry level, it's not so glamorous. Nursing saw this problem with many leaving the profession after 2 yrs. Plenty of computer geeks have a wake up call going into it after graduating. Schools are in the education business and it's there job to entice prospective students into the courses not to expose them to the full array of the workplace.
 
I've worked with people who had forestry degrees and thought they were the cat's meow. I could see how it would be very disheartning to go to school fir 4 years and get a job in your field, a highschool drop out hands you a rake and says get to work. Oh yeah and starting pay around here is $15 an hour if you're lucky.
 
It would be wise to get on with a tree crew a few days a week and gain some experience while you're in school rather than getting the rake when you're 22 or 23 and you've been eating pizza and playing video games for 4 years. Ouch.
 
Going to school for arb in the northeast is a bit different then a 40 hour course. Here in the northeast most schools are 2 years so you receive an associates, throughout that time you're introduced and included in all aspects of tree care. During labs you get to go through the motions of everyday work so you know what to expect from raking to rigging, before you can graduate you have to complete a 400+ hour internship in the field so you get an understanding of the field. There's a big difference in someone who's going to school for engineering or another field that comes to work in tree care vs. someone who's going to school for arb.
 
Never mind I deleted it. I had hundreds of words complaining about how nothing will ever change as long as the world is full of lazy, self entitled people.

But since that is not anyone on here that I know let me just say cheers and keep at it. I appreciate everyone here.:birra:
 
We get guys from forestry courses all the time. 14 in fact this year, 1 guy worked out and is still with us after 6 months. The rest were a week at best from guys quitting half way through the day because they had to carry wet elm rounds to the truck to guys saying they took the job to climb not rake. Most of them also expected to be making $20 an hour . It shocked them when they learnt they would start at $13 until they can keep up.
 
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Our parents said the same of us. Like any profession we need to be more proactive in finding the right people to develop. My career really started because of a new graduate who, while his knowledge was astounding, couldn't climb more than a couple trees a day.

Like all other aspects of business this is another part of the planning and management.
 
I think that being an arborist or working in the tree industry is a passion before a job. So it's not quite often that a young worker will be so in love with tree that he will be willing to work 45-60 hours a week, not having over time paid , have to pay for is saddle , climbing rope etc....put some beating on is body , be so tired at the end of the day that will fall into sleep at the dinner table...I came into tree climbing at 25 years old with a construction industry back up and full licence for truck and machinery ,so right at the beginning I was able to get paid well . I would'n have stick to this job if I could'n be able to afford for my living. I'm 29 now and a important part of a small compagny , really specialise . We have realised that the only way to have a good young worker , climber, is to pay him more that what he worth for the first 2 years and have a really nice friendly atmosphere with no pressure. This way they will become passionate faster , and when you're passionnate , nothing stop you. my 2 cents
 
I think that no matter what skilled profession you are in you will see that the best of the best always have that passion and are also blessed with the skills to learn, think 3 steps ahead and learn from every job they do or see being preformed. However I also think that not everyone can be anything they want to be. I think that one of the worst services we have done to young people in or out of school is to tell them that need to go to college and that they can be anything they want to be in life. To borrow a saying if I might for a moment, "Born for this", "This" can be anything but is certainly not everything. I was not born to be on Broadway, I can't dance or sing. Not matter how many participation trophies or glowing physco babble I could have been given as a youth (none this is all make believe) I would still fail on Broadway. I think we are all born with a set of skills and the sooner we recognize them and nourish them the sooner we will be happier in life and the longer we will be happier in our chosen profession. My skill set has always been mechanical aptitude and the ability to surround myself with others who knew more than me, and learn from them. None of this would have mattered if I had listened to my school and prepped for college. Instead I choose tech school for 3 years and then 4 more as an apprentice. What I got for all that was a profession that I was born for (Arborist is not it). I'm a rec guy and trying to learn tree work for my own pleasure. At some point I might be okay maybe even good but I will never be one of the best. Why??? I don't like heights, I can work around some of that but I also KNOW that the fear of height and tree work don't work well together, lol.

The point of all this rambling is just showing my frustration with the current systems out there and theneed for us as a ssociety to tell everyone that they can be anything they want. Everyone is not created equal and the sooner we stop telling people they are the happier our work forces will be and the more proficient or work areas will become. I of course do not mean anything about sex, race, religion or any of that other crap.

Frank
 
In saying you can be anything you want is to say your not limited by some sort of external contrived notion based on your culture or family, etc... It's up to the individual to find within themselves their talents and aptitudes and then build on them.

However, I do agree that it gets lost in translation.....
 
Personally I think it is crazy to constantly tell the youth that they can be the President or an astronaut, without telling them the odds. I think this kind of stuff has instilled self-entitlement into my generation and we were very rarely, if ever, given a realistic view of the world. Maybe we should say, "you'd be lucky to be a garbage man" which is true, and go from there.
 
I was in the field of education as both a teacher and an administrator before getting fed up with the politics and coming back to the green industry.

One big problem - we've nearly eliminated all trades and hands-on learning environments from early education 9-12 grade. Europe, Asia, and other modern countries start youth, who don't want to be technocrats or 4 year university bound, in apprenticeships as soon as possible - grade 9. This leads to amazing training and employment pipeline opportunities for employers and employees. Also helps youth know if they love it or hate it.

2nd big problem - learning is very abstract and divorced from the real world. So many of us go through a 4 year program only to find it is nothing like we had romanticized and fantasized about.

Delusional thinking - we are in a culture of instant gratification and automaticity. Many think they're the next Steve Jobs, are entitled to be in the top 1%, and life doesn't require blood, sweat, tears, and a lot of failed efforts.

Happy Labor Day!


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