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Work or fun???

Started by Noble_Ma, October 08, 2002, 07:07:41 AM

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Noble_Ma

I just read a reply that Arkansawyer wrote on another forum.  I'm addressing it here because this forum has a place for this question.  He talked about how much he loved being a sawyer.  How he would drive 50 miles to say up two logs and be home by lunch to cut until dark. I have always had a love affair with wood, trees, the outdoors ........ you get the picture.   I too, love my new toy and can wait until I get my next log to mill up.  I love the physical work and smell of the saw dust.  I'm at it part time.  There are a bunch of you guys out there on the forum that do it for a living.  Here's the big question:  Do you love your job or is it just a job?  Did you love it in the beginning and fall out of love?  

Bro. Noble

Noble,

When the weather is pretty, the logs are big and sound and clear, and all the machinery is purring; there's nothing better.

When it's cold and rainy, the logs are shakey or punky, there is a flat on the loader, and your WM is broke------it's a job.
Makes it easier when you have some buddies on the forum to talk or just listen to.

Noble
milking and logging and sawing and milking

Bibbyman

I think for us it's the independence of running our own business vs. the 8-5 at the office or the 7:30-3:30 at the factory.  There is a lot of satisfaction in ending the day with a nice stack of lumber - be it 200 or 2000 or 20,000 bf.  You can see what you've done.

The people you meet and serve are interesting too.  Sometimes I have to be patient when they tell about their grandpa who had he big ol' sawmill with the big blade that went around and around as if I've never heard on one before.  You can't help but get involved in their porject.
Wood-Mizer LT40HDE25 Super 25hp 3ph with Command Control and Accuset.
Sawing since '94

Jeff

I love to saw wood. I love the look of Red oak or Cherry when you first open up that face. As a sawyer you get to see the wood as it truly looks before the air begins to make it look how everybody else sees it.  

As a commercial sawyer I hate my job. The hours in my small booth seem endless and the isolation at times is unbearable. I have very little human contact while I am at work other then my radio. Tammy drops in two times a day to let me know what my email is or what ever. If she is unable to show up it ruins my day because it is the only thing that breaks up the monotony. If I was in the right position to become a custom sawyer and could leave my 3 foot square world I would do it in a heart beat.

I figured up on the forum a while back that I have sawn over 1,000,000 logs in 23 years of sawing. I love being a sawyer, I hate being a sawyer in a cage.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Tom

I love sawing.  I love the freedom of punching my own clock.  I love the size of my office. (no more living my life in a 10x10.}  I love the people for whom I saw.(some better than others)  I love being able to charge what I want regardless of what my fee schedule says. (I just gave away a $20 setup fee today, just because I was made a part of the family....again)

I like to travel to the job and see all the new flowers on the side of the road and Imagine cutting all the big trees in people's yards and mosey along at my own pace and let the "hurried" of the world pass me by.  I like the kids that want me to blow my horn and when they all run to the back of the school bus to look at me and wave because one of them knows me.

I like to associate with the "salt of the earth", those women who aren't too prissy to get their hands dirty and will ask a man to move if he gets in the way, the grandparents that hug the kids and the kids that will try to help even it they are too small.

I like to see the light come on in a young persons eyes when he, all of a sudden, realizes that his income is directly proportional to amount of work he accomplishes.

It makes me feel good to be called Mr. Tom by my peers and the authority provided me by recognition of my age by their children.  It makes me recognize my peers with respect as well and I am quick to add Mr. to their name as well.

I like to shake a five year old's hand.

I love to go to the Farms and the little towns where conversation is littered with Mr., Mrs., Sir and Ma'am,  where a wife or child will run over and give me a big hug just because they haven't seen me in 3 months.

I love to have the driver of a beat-up old pickup on a back country road, honk and wave because  he recognizes me, whether I recognize him or not.

I love to make more lumber than the customer was expecting from the log.

I love the colors of a freshly opened log and the smells and the wet sawdust that sticks to the mill and trees and grass and my shirt.

I love to get someone to recognize the worth of a species of tree that they had always considered trash.

I love to cut for figure and expose the things in a tree that get lost in the hussle and bustle of production mills.

I love days when the logs are ready and the right size; when help is good and the weather cool and the mill is running smoothly.

I especially like it when everybody is smiling.

I don't enjoy sawing in Yuppie neigborhoods where the log owner stands in his living room, looking out the picture window with a cold drink in his hand and treats me like a ignorant laborer because I work with my hands and he has a "desk job".(Most of these people give no regard to what another person's education, worth or intelligence may be because they are so enamoured with their self.)

I especially hate it when my mill is broken; when some dinky little part fails and I'm 20 miles from a store; when hydraulic tanks leak and welds break and bearings fail; when the mill won't stay level and alternaters fail and solonoids stick or remain open.

I love it when I call my mill manufacturer and am asked, "hey Tom how are you doing"?

I hate it when I call my mill manufacturer and am asked, "Is that all you want, give me your card number"?

I love the Forestry Forum and the friends I've found here.  

Sawing is only work when it's not appreciated.

Bro. Noble

Tom,

You are just in love with life.  You would like whatever you did and would make those working around you like their jobs better too.

As a parent and as a teacher, I have often advised a young person seeking a job to look past what it pays or even what you would be doing.  Look at the people you would be working around because that is what will determine whether or not you will enjoy the job.
I've had several different jobs but the hardest physically was in the foundry at Caterpillar.  What I did was heavy work as well as hot and smelly.  I was always eager to go to work because of all the characters that I worked with.  They made life fun.
Now if you can work around fun people, doing something you enjoy and can take pride in, and make a living too then you are indeed fortunate.

Noble
milking and logging and sawing and milking

woodman

Jim Cripanuk

FeltzE

Tom, Toooooo many of the "L" words for me out there.

But its rainy and cold today, no cover over the mill. When I get off work today I think I'll wander in the barn and cook up a fire plane some lumber and tinker on a wood working project. Which I Love to do...


 ;)

Eric

Frank_Pender

Thirty three years in the same community, thirty of which was teaching 12 year olds, sets the roots very deep in working with people.  Sawing is just another part of the rooting system, growing.
Every log is a venture.   Most days it is wonderous just to see what every long has to offer.  Making squar pegs out of round pegs is marvelous, like teaching all over again.  
I love being a part of someones special furniture project of a home.  Last year I had one of the best in a home.  I cut 16,000 bdft of lumber for one of my students I had my third year of teaching so he could build a home.  (My last year I had his doughter in school)  The logs were trees his
grandfather planted 50 years ago.
Like Tom, I too love the smell of the sawdust fresly cut.  It is the best thing I have found to keep my sinuses clear.  
I treasure it when someone brings me a long that was growing intheir yard or on their farm and they want to have lumber made to build a special project for members of the family.  
I "beam" with glee when a group of home schooler parents call and want to bring their children to the farm and learn about the mill and the Tree Farm  operation.  (really special  when one of the parents is from your first year of teaching and I get to teach one of his children, after 30 years.  the horor abounds.  At the end of the month I will do the same for a private school that wants to bring a group of Munchkin through the mill and Tree Farm.  Can you imagin 21 first graders and trying to keep their attention.
I love giving.  This is where one can have some of the most powerful experiences in this business, as far as I am concerned.  When a youth that is in a juvenile detention center has tears running down his face because you gave him something once and said you would be back one day with more and he tells you, you are the only one thast ever followed through with that kind of statement.  
I like the faces of adults when I tell them they can have all the lumber they which for a special 4H project at the retreat center,; for the Chapel, bath house, horse barn, kitchen and cafeteria, overnight cabins.  
It is fun to give to the elderly of indigent that cannot afford to buy the wood for the winter to keep warm.  
I guess we could all go on and on about the warm fuzzies this occupation brings  forth for all of us.  Those of us that share on this forum, I feel, owe Jeff and mnay others a great deal of gratitude and thanks for providing us all with an outlet to share.  If we were to all gather at one place at one time, I do not know if I could bare the power generated, could actually handle it all.  We are quite a family.  Thank You Jeff.   :)
Frank Pender

Tom

That's what makes the world turn, Frank.  Ones legacy is in his mind and pursuit of it is never wasted on Children.  Sounds like your legacy is healthy and on track.  

I heard once that you are only famous for as long as you are remembered.  Teachers, philanthropist and Presidents are at the top of the list. :)

"It's a good thing"

Frank_Pender

You are so correct, Tom.  That chicken came home to roost again, for me today.  One of my students showed up about 9:00 this morning, out of the blue.  He is a licenced fishiing guide for Oregon and Washington, as well as Alaska.  He has been trying to get me to go on some of his driftboat, salmon  fishing trips down several of Oregon's coastal streams.  He has folks come out here from as far away as South Africa., Carolina's and Florida for his services.  When he was 12 I was able to get him into the Salem Steelheaders groups.  the youngest they had ever had.  Yes my students are a legacy for me as well as themselves and their families.  They are still worth my time, in visiting as well as sawing lumber for their homes as well as the other needs. 8)
Frank Pender

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