VOTE = VETO

[Tom Dunlap]

After reading Mark's "What the Hell" thread I decided to comment on his feeling, one that I know that all of us have had at one time or another. We see something happening that makes us uncomfortable but feel too awkward to comment or stop what's going on. We're taught to be polite and mind our own business. I've poked my nose in, with entirely good intentions, and gotten some pretty bad reactions. Hard to toughen up the skin for the next time. In some way, we're obligated to stop a practice that could lead to injury or accident. Sometimes things happen so fast that we can't react though.

When I was leading winter camping trips I came up with a system for everyone in the group to be comfortable about safety. Since, most of the time, the leaders in the organization were the most experienced, there developed a feeling that the participants "couldn't" call the leaders on some action. To level the field I came up with what I call the VOTE/VETO. An anagram of the word. The way this works is that anyone can call a halt to another person's action if they feel that safety is comprimised. Then, there would be a discussion and justification of the action. I've been called on this a few times. Most of the time, I understood that what I was doing might be dangerous and accounted for that risk. At other times, the peron who stopped me wasn't as skilled and they knew that if they were doing what I was doing, they would be at risk. We talked about what I was doing, the risks and my skills. They were then comfortable letting me continue. I appreciated everytime that someone cared enough to pay attention to what I was doing, and stop me. Creating a "Safe Mode" makes an awkward situation much easier.

The VOTE/VETO would be hard to apply in a public situation. I look at it like give CPR. Once the person is unconscious they have given implied consent to allow CPR to be applied. That's what a reasonable person is expected to do. We, as professionals, are held to a higher standard than homeowner tree cutters. I fear that a case could be made in court that if we saw a situation that could lead to death or injury and we didn't stop the action, we might be held accountable. I sure don't want this to deteriorate into a discussion about frivolous lawsuits or lawyer bashing. Similar cases have been made in other situations.

What IS our obligation? I sure don't know. I decided a while ago that I would rather have someone tell me to head straight to hell and maybe have stopped them from killing themeselves than to not say anything and hear about an accident. Pretty uncomfortable either way.

Tom

 

[Mark Chisholm]

I hear ya Tom. I really wish that I felt okay to just walk over there and quote some ANSI specs, but I didn't. Truth is, I really didn't think that he was going to actually do what he did. I remember asking some of the guys on my crew "is he going to do that?" Sure enough he did. It's hard to see what type of techniques are being employed when you are a few hundred yards away. Still, hearing that tree cracking while he straight cut it (barber chaired) and seeing him stay there and duck as the tree split over on itself, and seeing the look on everyones face as if they just performed some great act of manhood, I wish that I did approach them. I guess I too learned something here.

 

[MrPez]

Absolutely Tom.

We all have a certain moral obligation to look out for fellow men if we know they are likely to suffer serious injury or death, just like an adult supervises a child because they lack wisdom born of knowledge or experience - We wouldn't watch a child play on the hard shoulder of a motorway just because she hadn't sussed out that a bad driver might run her over! We also wouldn't want to make them feel stupid, but that we cared.

As professionals, we are the adults of the tree cutting business and are morally obliged to intervene with friendly advice if an accident is likely to occur. This is especially so if a certain persons actions are likely to injure a third party. Whether the perpetrator listens or not is up to them, but if a tree looks likely to fall into the road, the cutter might not stop, but you could stop the traffic to be on the safe side (granted not always easy!). A friend of mine did just this - he saw a crane driver having difficulty with a tree trunk getting caught in his lines. He didn't know what was about to happen, but stopped the near side traffic lane just in case. As he was explaining his actions to the front driver, the 60 tonne crane went over and the jib buried itself into the road just in front of them! The driver was very obliged!

It turned out the crane driver had no licence or training, but was the bosses son and fancied having a go!

I have found the best approach is a friendly intro explaining who you are, how they find tree work, crack a joke. Then before leaving a potential future friend, offer the benefit of your experience - I've won lots of training business from offering free advice. Some people really appreciate you cared enough to introduce yourself and refer you on to others as a real pro. Their mistakes are the industry's statistics.

We all over look things from time to time, and should listen if someone knows something we hadn't thought of. I have had this happen to me at work, and learned from it and past it on. Even as an instructor, I always encourage candidates to comment openly if they think I'm doing something dangerous. Someone else likely thinks the same thing, and it can be discussed for everyones benefit. Its a good way of dispelling myths about certain techniques.

Theres more than one way to skin a cat, but a couple of ways could be dangerous - like always make sure you've killed the cat!