Tree Jobs and Job Adds

Thanks guys but I wasn't trying to blow my own horn. I was just trying to explain why $25 an hour isn't really worth of for a reliable employee. I don't feel like anybody can justify low wages. Just like anything in life you get what you pay for. Cheap labor is shorty work
 
You'll get no argument about $25 from me Steve. As most of you know my main trade is not tree work but hell that paid $24 bucks an hour back in early 80's.
 
Im noticing on cl around (portland or), jobs ads offering 30-35 are quite common. Unfortunately i know enough about some of those companies to ever take the bait, not to mention im pretty well-employed at this point. When i moved to portland in 2012, if you were making 25 you were the shit, so at least in our market, maybe a notable rise in the standard?
Fwiw portland is a very mature market with more work than can ever be done, i recently was told there are over 300 legit tree srvcs in portland metro. It is also a climber's market for sure. Easier for a climber to fimd work than for work to find a climber.
 
Steve your definitely worth more than 30 in my book! I've said it to you before ... your to good to be an employee. But I understand as the employee you don't have to deal with business, time robing responsibilities. You get your time with your son that you wouldn't have otherwise. To that I say ....
$30 /hr= eight and skate!
 
Have about 10,000$+ in my gear and saws plus a older f450('99) dumptruck. Only do tree work when I'm not slayin Gods wee creatures. My friend hooks me up $70 hr to climb $50 hr on the ground. He absolutely insists it would be wrong to pay less. Love that guy. Above fair and not a full time gig. Just here and there. If something is hairy he does it.
 
The point was not to blow my own horn. I appreciate the compliment. I guess what I'm saying is if this is a career that I choose why does the industry make it Impossible for me to follow my career because of being held back by pay. Where grown men and women trying to provide for our family. Why is top pay in our industry basically entry-level pay in most other industry
 
What Steve brings to the table is worth $30 an hour and more.

So why isn't everybody worth $30 an hour? Because they don't have all of the value added components that Steve brings.

Younger employees typically have issues with reliability and competency. That means somebody has to look over them, supervise them. They break things more often, are vulnerable to hurting themselves or others, to wasting time and not getting things done. There is good reason why junior climbers and groundsmen don't make the big bucks.

When an employee has the skills to competently help win the game, day in day out, that is worth a lot. That productivity pays for itself and it should be compensated fairly. $30-35 an hour is good production tree service foreman wages.

If you want to do production tree climbing and you don't like office bullshit, this is the sweet spot you need to be aiming for. You know you can do it, its easy for you.

Forget the image of the man doling out wages. Think of this in terms of help win the game. That's the attitude the owner wants to see because it is rooted in the production imperative everyone is under.
 
I can see how that is true in a lot of cases. There's always a story the capitalist tells to justify his exploitation, as Marx taught us.

But inequality of outcomes is fair provided that there is fair compensation throughout the pay chain. There are reasons here.

I think starting a groundsman below a living wage is unconscionable (spelling?) in our trade. On the other hand, few are those companies that can afford to pay everyone foreman's wages.

Because remember, this is not only about this or that capitalist, but capitalism. Here capitalists compete amongst themselves for market share, striving to get what the market can afford while being competitive enough to win contracts. There's a limit to what the capitalist can offer and a good baseline to understand where that is in any market is to look at the Job description for your area in the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
 
CutHighnLetFly said:
i totally get what your saying mrtree. i think to pay a climber who's solely a climber year round $35 an hr out my way is pretty tough. And i don't care if you believe me or not, you don't have to for what Im saying to be true , but i am professional. (I'm fairly confident at this point your just dying to tell me I'm not professional, and thats fine, the way you write makes me have very little concern of what you assume about me). i worked my ass of and was constantly nagging about wanting to learn more, but there wasn't a lot of opportunity provided. all i could really be was the climber. which is fine if thats the offered positioned, but i wanted more so i moved on.

now i do bet that if i had the necessary patience that my previous employer would have sooner or later had an advancement opportunity, so that part is definitely on me, not the employer, and I'm willing to bet thats the case for a few of us if we were real about it.

I'm curious how many companies are constantly working on training their top climber into their next position and the next guy into the next top climber position. I've never seen it. Its gotta be a constant thing, a culture set in the company. it would probably be an attractive trait to people who come to work there.
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Where do you find a second climber who can handle work like I can within a reasonable period of time?
You either find someone clearly over qualified (online, not locally in AR...), some arrogant kid who is going to get himself killed because he doesn't know anything(or worse, do something to make me look bad like lose his cool or bust a house unnecessarily because "i thought i had it"), or unmotivated slackers who really don't know how to take the reins and apply themselves and compete and improve and be passionate about climbing.
I'd love to train a legitimate replacement as lead climber at the small company I work for and fall more into a foreman/fire extinguisher/big guns role. Climbing everything above serious beginner level (any rigging over any obstacles whatsoever or requiring proper saw discipline) and having to be present on every single job is exhausting and doesn't allow for a lot of bettering myself as an employee or leaving to bid/collect/purchase/repair everything like the salary position I'd be sliding into would require.

You find me anybody with the right aptitude and attitude with any or no level of training, and he'll be making 20/hour in one year and have my job in two. I'm just not convinced that this unicorn exists.
 
Steve Connally said:
The point was not to blow my own horn. I appreciate the compliment. I guess what I'm saying is if this is a career that I choose why does the industry make it Impossible for me to follow my career because of being held back by pay. Where grown men and women trying to provide for our family. Why is top pay in our industry basically entry-level pay in most other industry
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So, the upper limit of the foreman pay scale is determined by the competitive marketplace and the structure of companies, which I think you understand. In a word: capitalism. You also understand, I'm quite sure, what it takes to jump up to the next pay grade, which is to go from proletariat to petit bourgeoisie.

There is a paradox that I have become aware of--the more successful you are as a business, the farther you go away from the real work. Where do you fall in that continuum? What are you willing to trade and for what?

Are you an office rat or a tree man? Are you a millionaire or a pauper?

Maybe the brief time you have on this planet is more important than either.
 
Well said. As I contemplate another frustrating day at work that idea looks better and better. Working for myself would prevent the coworker that's slurring his speech and mumbling because he's either drunk high or having a stroke. The boss who sends me to sucker a quick oak that turns out to be a monstrosity with a customer who wants dead twigs on branch tips removed in 35mph gusts as well as random suckers off limbs I need my throw hook to get to. After 30 min with a throw bag in aforementioned wind gusts I packed it in and the boss bitches cause he's climbed it 3 times with no problems. Also told me to tell the client we aren't dead wooding when it clearly says it on the bid sheet. Would have been a fun climb if it wasn't blowing a gale.
 
SomethingWitty said:
No tobacco working for royce... besides that, I have to agree.

Good companies exist, but I don't know of anybody getting rich at the ones I have experienced. Just safe, efficient sawdust manufacturing.
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You'll never get rich working for somebody else, but you can make a great wage and live a great life. Running your own business can come with greater rewards but the added obstacles and stress can be ten fold. There's also a much greater chance of failure!
 
I started my business with the motto in mind of "If you want to go fast, go alone"....."If you want to go far, go together" Most business I have ever worked at were based on greed. The top guys take and take and take as much as they can from the business. Depleting it of all value and resources that are needed to sustain the very thing that is making them money. I personally feel that their is starting to be a shift in the business owners mind-set. I have talked with other owners who are starting to realize that if they include their employees in the bigger picture they tend to stay longer, and produce better results, and become an invested individual in the success of the company.
That is what I have been trying to do. Why do employees leave? Usually because they are disconnected from the realities of what it takes to run a business. ( unhappy with the thought that they are "making the owner so much money") All they see is the work getting done and the owner getting richer. Well if you involve your employees in the process of what it takes to run a business, most will see that its not always as it looks from the outside.
Case in point. We did a few weeks of storm damage clean-up. Made the most money I have ever made to date with my business in that time. My crew thought we were rolling in the doe. Well, the very next week the crane went down. Took it to the shop....going to be close to 8K in repairs. How much money are we really rolling in. It takes a lot to keep a business floating and everyone needs to contribute and do their part. Remember....we can go further if we work together.
 
tc262 said:
You'll never get rich working for somebody else, but you can make a great wage and live a great life. Running your own business can come with greater rewards but the added obstacles and stress can be ten fold. There's also a much greater chance of failure!
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What about if you worked for someone and you both got rich? Then their is the idea of what "rich" means. I find that for me to be "rich" it involves good food, a comfortable place to live, two nice vacations a year, and a reliable vehicle to get me to and from places I like to go:)
How much money do we really need? I find a 6 months nest egg in a saving account, a retirement savings and some living expenses is all I need. The rest is just waist, mine as well share it.

This is a good example:
 
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