TimBr
Official Well Known Greeter
- Location
- Northern Virginia
@Tyler Durden; I don't have near the experience that you have, but the advice about not letting a ground guy undermine safety is a good one. I had a ground guy/helper/homeowner argue about me cutting a cheap piece of my own cheap rope to be used as a tagline. I just did not want the little reel it was on to get hung up on anything. He argued and argued with me about not cutting it (it was brand new stuff, but cheap, and I did not give a hoot about it). I finally relented, ok, ok, ok, I won't cut the rope! What happened? The reel hung up in a sapling that was maybe 20 feet tall, and the weight of the log I was trying to lower pulled the sapling over really quickly, and almost tagged my argumentative groundy.
I made the mistake of relenting under pressure, when I knew what the right thing to do was. The problem with giving in sometimes, is that people start to forget who it is that is in charge here. In this instance, the homeowner was gradually trying to exert more and more influence over the way I was operating, building up to this event.
We were nearly done with the job at this point, so I never had a chance after that to change the power arrangement.
I resolved that after the incident, if he started to argue with me again, I was going to ask him a question. The question was going to be "Between the two of us, which one of us is in charge, here?" If he answered that he was the one in charge, I was going to come down from the tree and start packing my stuff up. Wrong answer, I am done. The tail should not wag the dog.
Sorry if this sentiment offends any ground men, but only one person can have the final say as to how an operation proceeds, and everyone needs to be clear on who that person is.
End of rant.
Tim
I made the mistake of relenting under pressure, when I knew what the right thing to do was. The problem with giving in sometimes, is that people start to forget who it is that is in charge here. In this instance, the homeowner was gradually trying to exert more and more influence over the way I was operating, building up to this event.
We were nearly done with the job at this point, so I never had a chance after that to change the power arrangement.
I resolved that after the incident, if he started to argue with me again, I was going to ask him a question. The question was going to be "Between the two of us, which one of us is in charge, here?" If he answered that he was the one in charge, I was going to come down from the tree and start packing my stuff up. Wrong answer, I am done. The tail should not wag the dog.
Sorry if this sentiment offends any ground men, but only one person can have the final say as to how an operation proceeds, and everyone needs to be clear on who that person is.
End of rant.
Tim
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