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I was terminated today because I refused to spike a tree to remove some broken limbs from another tree that struck it. My boss and I got into a pissing contest and I flat out told him "they are my spikes and ill do what I want with them." The broken limbs were about twenty feet up and I told him I would set a line and prune the limbs. He got pissed off and started telling me that I would do what he told me to do. Well some other word got thrown back and forth and when he told me fukc you I told him he can go home and talk to his kids like that but not me. He actually wrote on my separation papers insubordination for refusing to spike a tree.
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ratherbclimbing in his ethical sense, tried to protect a tree. Then he got stuck in the hierarchical authority of who gets whom to push around. He lost, got pink-slipped rather instantly as the problem, and we're asked to comment on justice.
I found an old post here at treebuzz (9/22/08) that I'm reprinting for two reasons; the first, that it speaks directly to our ethical responsibilities as claimed professionals. The second, is that I'm deciding how to present my own ethical anger to this group and trying to sort things out. This is not a tease; I need time to assemble facts and allow people a chance to respond.
The excerpt below is from me at the ISA forums
bob
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from the ISA Forum
Why Prune? 2
bobw@enteract.com
Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:22:17 -0500
I attended the first student conference this Spring at Steven's Point where Alex Shigo talked about the New Arboriculture--the things yet to come. Alex spoke of it with a fervor and sincerity that was powerful indeed. This same sense of the new era is what I hope to talk about and champion in the things I write.
It would seem I also need to make some things clear. My views on pruning don't involve any loss of work because pruning will be reduced. In fact, there will soon be expanded work and greater revenue potentials beyond the present preoccupation with pruning and chipping as we have known them. We will still have pruning, and chain saws will still be sold; but there also will be a new additional series of techniques and tree care concepts that are more responsive to the tree's strengths and vulnerabilities.
Certainly we should be concerned about feeding our families and paying the mortgage, but it doesn't have to be done under the rationalizations of the mythologies and misunderstandings we now have about trees. When we claim to be professionals, there is an expectation that we will make a meaningful difference by our interventions--and that difference is supposed to be made on behalf of trees, not just our wallets!
Speaking to the student's concerns about ethics at the conference, I'm saddened by the wide range of problems facing them:
At one end, is the guy who orders his crew to prune and fertilize a dead tree. He plans on just stealing a little extra now from a naive customer before he comes back next year to sigh that it was too late and take the tree down. Does the fact that the actions are centered around a tree, and were done by arborists, somehow make it more tolerable than straight-out sneaking into the woman's house and stealing from her purse? Does saying that this scam goes to pay the crew in a lean week make it ok? Well, if you plan on feeding your kids this way, either by doing it or by not speaking up, then we have nothing to say to each other.
Is that too harsh? They're just little thefts and little lies, and everybody does it; and anyway, after all it's only a dead tree.
At their student conference, the students talked intensely about ethics and those sorts of issues. I was really impressed by their fire and honesty, but how long before we burn it out of them? How long before they too just watch and keep their mouths shut while the big schmooze goes on, and they take their paychecks with hardly a gulp, or they learn themselves to artfully pad the intervention?
That's one end of the problems.
At the other end, if I go to do a job and my ideas of tree ills and remedies are magical and poorly grounded in science, or I don't bother to learn because I really do know most everything, should I get a hefty fee for my work?
Maybe my ignorance is honest, in the sense that I don't periodically look into myself and assess my efforts as a professional, or keep up with the latest information, but does that justify my cash expectation between myself and my customers and make it a fair one where they received good services for what they pay? Were their trees really any better off for my being there?
Is that too unkind? They're just little over-payments and I meant well, and everybody does it; and anyway, after all they're only trees.
(If the guys at either end of these practices found their pediatrician did something wrong, they would be screaming malpractice--and running for a lawyer. But their hypocrisy should be deferred for another discussion.)
Greed is easy to condemn. Honest ignorance is a much more difficult problem.
I started off talking about pruning and ended up talking about ethics. For me they are linked and I've said before that trees are my clients, not just the guy with a checkbook.
If the only tool I have is a saw, then all problems will be logs.
The new arboriculure Shigo predicts will have different answers and methods that broaden our capabilities for effective and valuable intervention.
Bob Wulkowicz
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