1 September 2018

My First Day At Asplundh Tree Experts

On my way to Walnut Ridge, I was minutes away from a rewarding job interview.
I pull in the driveway of the tobacco shop to find my future boss sitting there in his new
truck waiting for me to arrive. He looks up as i approach with a grim look on his face, it
was five in the morning after all. I park the car and get out with a stomach full of
butterflies and a nervous voice in my head telling me that he wasn’t going to hire me
and that this was just a waste of time and effort. I invite myself in his truck, shake his
hand, and he begins to explain the job to me. “You aren't afraid of heights are you?” he
said. I replied “ Be kinda pointless to get on with a tree company with a fear of heights
wouldn’t it?” He looks at me with a dead eye and said “yep, sure would. It wouldn't be a
good idea to come here with a fear of power lines either”. I was kinda puzzled and
asked “ Do you work around power lines a lot?” “ Ya, we cut trees away from
powerlines for entergy, and we rid of all the debris. We are on the road alot and you will
be working from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M. You won’t be in the bucket trimming or anything, you
will be just a groundman for now. Im hoping you will progress enough that you can
replace one of the few people i have on this crew. You’re on Brandon's’ truck.” He
hands me a few papers to sign and I start heading to the direction he told me to find
Brandon. Finally, after passing truck after truck, I found Brandon's truck and got in. I
look in the drivers seat to see a man that made me look like a toothpick. He was around
seven foot and looked like he was around 250 to 300 pounds, there was enough to him
to be considered a small giant. He looks at me and holds his hand out for my papers so
he could review them. He signs them and we take off. Now at this point in the silence i
was feeling just a tad of tension in the truck so, I asked “how are you?” He replied “I,m
ready to get off already and go home”. “Is it that bad?” “You’ll see, when we get to
Hardy.” He introduces himself and I do the same. We get to the destination and i see a
crazy sight. A huge dead tree has fell on top of three phase (that’s three power lines on
one pole) and took down several power poles. It was our job to make the tree disappear
completely so the line men from entergy can start working on getting the poles replaced
and the power back on. As Brandon parks the semi, he shows me a red tag on one of
the power poles and explains to me that it was a indicator to show that the power was
off and we could get out and begin to work. We get out and he opens a two inch thick
book that read L.C.Q.S which stood for line clearance qualification standards I later
found out. He told me to read a article about chainsaw safety and when i got done to get
him so he could sign another paper stating that i passed the chainsaw safety test. I get
done, he signs, and we both grab a chainsaw. After cutting the tree we began chipping
and finished around four in the afternoon. We headed to another site were i was shown
how to operate the bucket on the truck. He allowed me to go as high as the boom would
go, which was 70 feet. I could see all of hardy and couldn't believe how high i was. I
couldn’t hear anything at the height i was, it was so peaceful being up there. The view,
the silence, and the breeze was all worth it. I didn’t want to go back down but i knew I
had to so i lowered the bucket and got off the truck. We head back after another work
area and began getting close to the area where we first started and saw a large flash of
blue light and began getting closer. We approach the place and see ambulances, fire
trucks, and a large amount of police vehicles. I couldn’t see what was happening but it
looked to be that something went horribly wrong with one of the lineman. After a hour of
driving we finally make it back to the truck yard. Our boss walks up to us and starts
talking to Brandon. I over hear him say that one of the lineman died. He was burnt to
death by electrical shock and there was hardly any of him left. Someone didn’t call the
base and tell them to turn the power off. I walk to the tobacco store to buy a pack of
cigarettes. My nerves were on end from the day. All the crewmen gather around the
boss waiting for him to call it a day so we could all just go home. He let us go after
preaching about the incident and telling everybody to watch their actions and learn from
their mistakes. I head home in disbelief, and now i understand why everybody had such
a bad look on there face. Everyday is something different and most of it was bad or
hard, and they had to go through it everyday for 12 dollars a hour. I can say i’ve been
on one of the hardest and dangerous jobs I’ve ever seen, but only lasted nine months.
On my last day I came back to the spot were the i first started to see a small memorial
on the side of the road. I stopped and stared remembering all the times I came so close
to death and considered myself lucky for being fired. I guess some jobs take special
people, and I just wasn’t one of them.