Okay. Now I know you people have nothing better to do than watch us work all day. That's fine, but when you have a concern or something you wish to discuss there are a few things I need you to consider.
If I'm looking up and walking it means I'm trying not to get hit by something big falling out of the air. Now is probably not a good time to distract me.
We spend about 1/4 of the time on a pruning job running the chipper, and it's normally in short bursts. Please wait till I'm done to talk to me.
If you insist upon talking to me while I'm chipping please reflect on these points. Those bright colored things in my ear aren't piercings, they're earplugs. As you've probably noticed the chipper is incredibly loud, and I won't operate it without these in. My boss is partially deaf because he never used hearing protection. When I do finally notice you staring at me and wander over to talk to you, please give me a chance to take said earplugs out otherwise you will have to repeat everything you just said because there's no chance I'll hear you with them in. Once I have them out, speak clearly in a loud voice. The closer we are to the chipper and the faster it's running, the louder you need to speak. If you do not wish to get out of your vehicle to talk to me, you will need to talk louder yet. Failure to do these will annoy me and babble non-commital things untill you leave.
There are 3 guys on the job site. 2 of them are working up in a tree, and I'm cleaning up their crap. This probably means I'm the least experienced man on the crew, and will not be able to answer your question. Since we are a high end company, I will not bullshit you to make you leave, I will ask you to keep standing there like a goon till an Arborist comes down out of the tree.
Company policy also states that we are not allowed to give you a price quote for any job. We have salesmen that make a lot of money to drive around and sell you the work you need done. We are on the clock and have a limited amount of time to finish it.
That being said. If you are a private owner and want us to look at something very small for you, please list a dollar amount when you ask us to do it. This will greatly increase your chances of getting said work done. Yes I know that's a mighty big and very effective chipper we haul around with us, however your brush pile is not on our work order, and chances are it's also not stacked neatly in a way that would make it easy for us to chip. If you ask very nicely, I will chip up the branch that fell during the last storm for free provided you can get it reasonably close to the chipper. My foreman won't drive around the block looking for it in your back yard.
For people that live in communities with associations, if it's not on the work order, we aren't touching it. There has been too much trouble in the past with trees not actually belonging to people, for us to be willing to risk our butts for you; even if you offer us money.
If you want to try to bring our price down by quoting a lower nuber from a competitor, or from your imagination, please be fully prepared to accept that offer. Our services start at somewhere around $70 an hour and go up. We are a high end company. Most of our work is at houses that cost over $800k. If you aren't around when we do our job, the only thing you will notice when you get back is that your tree looks much better. We go to great lengths cleaning up after ourselves to make sure your yard looks at least as good as when we got there.
And finally here's a list of trees you aren't allowed to plant (to my friends):
Pin Oak, any kind of ornamental fruit tree, Hawthorne, any other kind of tree or shrub that grows thorns, Austrian Pines
Otherwise you should be fine, just try to avoid trees that aren't native to this hemisphere.
Finally, if any of you plants a Bradford Pear, I will tie you to it, and set the both of you on fire. These are very fast growing, very weak trees. The get big fast, then die or fall.