This bumper sticker: Tastefully comical or childishly insulting?

samsquatch

samsquatch

Participating member
Location
SE MN
I put this on the window of the work truck, but I'm debating myself removing it. I'm not particularly sensitive to how other people think of me (especially any self-righteous liberal rioters) but I don't want customers to roll their eyes when they see this, and I don't want the windows to get smashed out. What's your opinion?
58944
I'm not mocking tree lovers, because I am one myself. I guess I'm mocking the stigma that tree services might not love trees... I'm fairly certain that if this were a similar sticker on a fur trapping truck, PETA libs would have already destroyed it.
 
jed1124 said:
I would not put anything even remotely political, can be deemed offensive, or can get someones feelers hurt on a work truck, especially one to do bids. Your there to make a sale, and anything that can come in the way of that is not good.
Click to expand...
This.

Myself, I'd call it tactfully comical...and I get it. We've wrestled with loving trees, but needing to remove them sometimes. Not everyone has or can think through that logically.
 
samsquatch said:
I put this on the window of the work truck, but I'm debating myself removing it. I'm not particularly sensitive to how other people think of me (especially any self-righteous liberal rioters) but I don't want customers to roll their eyes when they see this, and I don't want the windows to get smashed out. What's your opinion?
View attachment 58944
I'm not mocking tree lovers, because I am one myself. I guess I'm mocking the stigma that tree services might not love trees... I'm fairly certain that if this were a similar sticker on a fur trapping truck, PETA libs would have already destroyed it.
Click to expand...
I was a production logger for a couple decades and have worked in clearcuts the size of some cities. I worked for a few season with an outfit on the Olympic Peninsula back during the great owl scare. I sported a bumper sticker on my pickup that read as follows- “Wood and paper products no longer available. Kindly wipe your ass with a Spotted Owl.” Not very subtle to say the least, and deservedly I would catch seriously grief when I returned to California for the winter.

Those experiences turned me into somewhat of a treehugger. Sure I still make a living removing trees, but I do it in the most conscientious way that I can. I work strictly by word of mouth and talk exponentially more folks out of removing their trees than the opposite.
99% of the trees we remove are turned into lumber by us for local consumption, thus lessening the need for outside lumber to be used. No unknown logging practices. No need for long distance transport and all the resources consumed in the process. Beautiful native lumber is produced. Larger mill-ends are turned into firewood and offered as free BTU’s to keep people in the community warm in the winter, and the smaller mill-ends are turned into chips for soil amendment, mulch, and ground over.

If your bumper sticker makes you happy I say keep it on. Most of the folks that are going to take offense never give a second thought to amount of wood and paper product they actually consume in a year, or the impact and resources that are involved in getting that shit to their front door.
As they say, “fuck em if they can’t take a joke.”

PS. Where did you get that sticker? I want one!
 
Last edited:
rico said:
As they say, “fuck em if they can’t take a joke.”

PS. Where did you get that sticker? I want one!
Click to expand...
I know right...
rico I was hoping you'd respond with your experience, and I was predicting your response too :). I found it on ebay while browsing for STIHL stickers. just search the words and you can find it.

I think I'll remove it. I think you guys are right, gotta respect my audience especially when they're the ones paying me.
 
I don't think a person has to be a crazed liberal to find this a bit offensive. Anybody who loves trees will question this and, if these people are potential future customers, it doesn't make good business sense to create a negative impression.
 
samsquatch said:
I know right...
rico I was hoping you'd respond with your experience, and I was predicting your response too :). I found it on ebay while browsing for STIHL stickers. just search the words and you can find it.

I think I'll remove it. I think you guys are right, gotta respect my audience especially when they're the ones paying me.
Click to expand...
what % of your business is removals?
 
Burrapeg said:
I don't think a person has to be a crazed liberal to find this a bit offensive.
Click to expand...
No, you're right this has nothing to do with political orientation. It's a matter of, among other things: 1) one's sensitivity 2) one's quickness to assume hostility and 3) one's lack of open-mindedness and inability to let other people be other people....
When those people are paying the invoices, it pays to not make them roll their eyes.. I guess?
 
Last edited:
samsquatch said:
I put this on the window of the work truck, but I'm debating myself removing it. I'm not particularly sensitive to how other people think of me (especially any self-righteous liberal rioters) but I don't want customers to roll their eyes when they see this, and I don't want the windows to get smashed out. What's your opinion?
View attachment 58944
I'm not mocking tree lovers, because I am one myself. I guess I'm mocking the stigma that tree services might not love trees... I'm fairly certain that if this were a similar sticker on a fur trapping truck, PETA libs would have already destroyed it.
Click to expand...

Can you send me one of those. I will gladly pay
 
Makes me think of the solicitors I get offering to top or spray my trees. They don't notice my ISA stickers or shirts.
 
Bango Skank said:
The end results of many of our jobs is also a nicely pruned tree.
Click to expand...
I understand that, but what do you think the average tree co is doing as far as pruning vs removal, % wise? I don’t know the answer, but am curious.
I also think the general public understands that tree service/arborists spend a lot of their time doing removals. I would go so far as to suggest that the average homeowner is more likely to give us a call to remove a tree that they are worried about than a call to prune their tree. Who knows?
 
Last edited:
Agree and there's no shortage of guys out there strictly for the money and don't like doing trim jobs so they push to remove everything. Definatly most guys do more removals than trims around here upstate NY.
 
I actually showed this thread to 9 people at a community water board meeting last night. The 1st reaction of 8 of these people was to laugh, and only one found it mildly offensive. All agreed that it was intended to be funny. Many of them said that it would be easier to remember his company because of the sticker, if and when they needed to call a tree service. Obviously far from scientific, but it does tell a very different narrative than some here are trying to project.

I am not really sure what" Ego" has to do with the OP's sticker. Samsquatch operates a tree service and I would imagine that much of his work involves the removal of trees. There is no need to run and hide from that fact. I believe the arborist community is much more "treehugger" prone than the general public, and I question how much work would really be lost from having that sticker on ones truck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom