A slightly odd scrounging story

[DiscoInferno]

I was returning home from getting a load of wood elsewhere, and saw a tree crew working a couple blocks from my house. Stopped by, and tracked down the one guy that spoke passable english. He said sure, come back in a little bit and they'd be done taking down the main trunk. When I get back they're having trouble with the chipper, and the yard is full of 4-8' long, 10-16" diameter main limbs. Here's the odd part - the guy points over to the yard and says something on the order of "there's the chainsaw, go ahead and cut it up". Mind you, I'm a perfect stranger to him. I can't imagine what his insurance company (assuming he has insurance) would think of that. But I had accidently left my Husky at the first pickup, so I grabbed one of their Stihl's and got to work. (Had my earplugs, glasses, gloves, and steeltoes with me.) I didn't catch the model number, but it was a light little unit, 16" bar. Seemed almost as powerful as my 359 but lighter.

In the end, got 2 1/2 truckloads of red maple. Not my favorite, but it's like half the wood around here and I wind up with some every year. I noticed a nice big ash tree in the same yard, and this younger guy that showed up later said it might be coming down also. Made sure to leave my number for that one...

 

[keyman512us]

Disco:

When I get back they’re having trouble with the chipper, and the yard is full of 4-8’ long, 10-16” diameter main limbs. Here’s the odd part - the guy points over to the yard and says something on the order of “there’s the chainsaw, go ahead and cut it up”. Mind you, I’m a perfect stranger to him. I can’t imagine what his insurance company (assuming he has insurance) would think of that.

I hear ya! Some guys are a 'little out there' no doubt about it. But one thing is for sure regardless of the Caliber of the company...be thankfull you weren't "Swatted off" with a "Git the ^*%# outta here...". What the guy did tells me "He is one cool customer" even if he didn't speak much english...if I had to bet on the nationality...I would bet it was a portugese crew.

When the 'chipper is down' on a tree job...things can get nasty. Count your blessings.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I'm 50/50 with tree crews. The first one said take it, the 2nd said no. It never hurts to ask. The worst I've heard them say (so far) is no.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Stihl does have some pretty light saws. One thing you will find is that the Pro line is lighter than the "regular" line. We cut with the Farm Boss (295) but because of injury may be getting one of the pro lines or perhaps even a smaller saw. One thing I like is their "Easy Start" saws but I do have to drop down a size or two to get that option.

 

[DiscoInferno]

Disco:

When I get back they’re having trouble with the chipper, and the yard is full of 4-8’ long, 10-16” diameter main limbs. Here’s the odd part - the guy points over to the yard and says something on the order of “there’s the chainsaw, go ahead and cut it up”. Mind you, I’m a perfect stranger to him. I can’t imagine what his insurance company (assuming he has insurance) would think of that.

I hear ya! Some guys are a 'little out there' no doubt about it. But one thing is for sure regardless of the Caliber of the company...be thankfull you weren't "Swatted off" with a "Git the ^*%# outta here...". What the guy did tells me "He is one cool customer" even if he didn't speak much english...if I had to bet on the nationality...I would bet it was a portugese crew.

They spoke spanish, around here that generally means central america (a lot from El Salvador) or mexico. The first guy I approached told me "I speak spanish" in perfect-sounding english. Sadly, my three years of spanish in high school don't seem to have stuck with me.

When the 'chipper is down' on a tree job...things can get nasty. Count your blessings.

The one time I hired a tree crew (for a day) they seemed like they spent more time unjamming their chipper than cutting trees. Eventually the wife and I were the ones who got nasty.

 

[Highbeam]

I've been an inspector and had plenty of spanish speaking crews suddenly lose their ability to speak english until I tell them "stop the job". Very frustrating when the boss leaves.

 

[Corie]

Glad I'm fluent. I look forward to bumping in to spanish speaking friends. Its always nice to surprise people when you speak their language.

 

[MrGriz]

This may or may not go over too well.... I just strongly believe that if you are going to live and work in this country, you should learn to speak English. If you're visiting or a new, legal immigrant and working on it, you get a pass.

BTW, I would not extempt myself from that rule. If I were going to move to Mexico, I would do it legally and learn to speak Spanish.

Ash Can in 3...2...1...

 

[DiscoInferno]

Well, if we're headed there anyway...

My guess is that the non-speakers were relatively new to the country, or had better english skills than they would admit. Legal or not, I don't know. The US doesn't give out a lot of green cards to laborers without political connections, so it's not surprising that most don't bother to ask. I find it hard to summon much moral outrage; the issue in this area is not that they're taking jobs (unemployment is extremely low). When people here complain, it's largely because they don't want "mexicans" (the catch-all for spanish-speaking immigrants) in their neighborhood. They can't tell (and couldn't care less) who's legal, it's just convenient to hide behind.

According to the local paper, the adult English courses here are immensly popular and always understaffed. So a lot of people are trying to learn the language. But when there is a large community of (insert other language here) speakers in an area, it becomes perhaps too easy to get by without learning english. We've even got over-the-air spanish language TV.

In a lot of countries there is more than one national (or at least commonly taught) language; canada (english and french), finland (finnish, swedish, english), the rest of scandinavia (native and english), israel (hebrew and arabic), india (hindi and english). Perhaps if we recall who we stole a good chunk of the southwest from, we might decide to add spanish to our list. (The US does not have an "official" language, AFAIK.)

 

[begreen]

Good points DI. Newt would probably disagree with you, but he'd do better to crawl back into the swamp.

(broken link removed to http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/31/gingrich.bilingual.ap/index.html)

 

[DiscoInferno]

Well, I suppose Newt might not have meant that quite the way it came out, which was pretty bad. But I also seem to recall that back in the day he wanted to take kids away from poor parents and put them in orphanages, or something like that.

We're actually trying to get our daughter into a spanish-language immersion program (starting in kindergarten). It, and others in french and chinese, are so popular that there is a lottery to get in. I'm hoping to relearn spanish in the process. I think it's good to know more than one language, and it's a big mistake the way we wait to teach a second until high school. It's too late by then. We should probably teach english and spanish (or french,chinese, whatever) side by side, the way many other countries teach english next to their native tongue. It would be good for us and help us relate better with our neighbors. Then maybe these immigrants wouldn't seem so scary. Too bad fear is what a lot of politicians get elected on.

I feel like I should go take a picture of the wood to at least pretend to keep my own thread on topic. :coolgrin: Kind of dark though.

 

[MrGriz]

Like I said, I cut slack to those who are new here or visiting. I certainly don't have any problem with learning another language and wish I had take Spanish when I was younger; I agree it's way late now. My daughter is almost 5 and her pre-K class has Spanish twice a week (she only goes three days a week), next year it will be more often.

I do get very frustrated when someone from another country who can speak English pretends not to understand and hides behind the language barrier.

 

[Gooserider]

Language barriers can be useful in some cases - I knew a fellow that worked as an engineer at a technical company a few years back - he liked to work late hours so that he could get stuff done with fewer interruptions from the boss, customers, etc. not to mention tapping into the "after hours fridge" with the beer in it. If the phone rang after 5:00 he would answer "Hallo?" - and wait for the other end to identify themselves - if it was someone he knew, he'd chat, but if it was a customer or other annoyance "Yo soy janitorio, no hablo engles" repeated as many times as needed to get the other end to hang up.... :coolgrin:

On a more serious note, it is often the case that ESL folks understand english better than they speak it. English is NOT an easy language, especially compared to spanish, it has lots of complex tense forms, multiple pronounciations of things that are spelled the same (like words that end in "ough") etc. Couple that with a strong accent and it isn't easy to speak understandably - far easier to play that you don't understand.

As to Newt, the whole question of bilingual education is controversial, and there are many people including those in the non-english speaking community that DO consider it education that keeps them in the ghetto - when CA had the ballot inititative to ban bilingual education a few years back, it is worth noting that the biggest margin of support for it came from the hispanic communities. There is significant evidence that immersion or immersion coupled with specific ESL classes, cause people to learn english faster and better than any other method. I didn't see anything in Newt's speech as summarized in the CNN article pointed at that was "hateful" as such - just an opinion about what the best way to cause spanish speakers to integrate quickly into english speaking american society. The only bad part is that he wants to make his opinion into law, instead of saying the gov't should get out of that business, and let the free market prove which approach works better...

IMNSHO, there are two types of "rights advocates", the Jesse Jackson "Poverty Pimp" types that insist "society owes us", that a black / hispanic child can't learn unless he's sitting next to a white child, that whites who never owned slaves are somehow guilty and owing of reparations, etc; and the "Stand on your Own" types like Roy Innis of CORE, that say everyone is equal and will be treated that way when they start acting that way... The Poverty Pimps have to play guilt games, and only get power and profit for their own interests as long as those they claim to represent stay poor and underpriviledged in actuality. The "Stand on your Own" types urge their members to get off the gov't welfare teat, and start on the bottom of the job ladder (if needed) and work up on ones' own merits, not the color of one's skin... Essentially the same approach that every other immigrant group coming to this country has followed. (I'm mostly speaking of the black community here because they are the ones that I can provide the best examples for, but similar entities exist in the Hispanic community) I feel that many of the bilinual education types fall in the "poverty-pimp" class...

Gooserider