Tales from the Trees (February 2023): Dealing with difficult customers

MY son recently returned from work looking peeved, which isn’t unusual after a day’s domestic arboriculture.

“It’s the customer,” he said, when I asked what was wrong. I rolled my eyes. It’s always the customer, which is why we moved 50 per cent of the business to commercial work.

“He says we cut too much off the beech branch and the tree is lopsided.”

I knew the client in question – the same one who’d asked us to use handsaws up a tree a year previously because he was having an important telephone meeting. We obliged.

Shame about the chipper, though …

READ MORE: Tales from the Trees (December 2022):Arborist exposes all

Back in the early part of the century, around 2001–2, the weather wasn’t cold and consequently we sold very little firewood, which was probably welcome. We were very busy and log deliveries can be hard work, time-consuming and tedious.

Because of this, we weren’t particularly bothered whether we brought wood back to the yard or not, and if we did, I favoured beech and ash, for obvious reasons. 

At this time, I had at least two Toms working for me – not ladies of the night, but bearded young men who had been born ‘Tom’ and were therefore condemned to working with trees. We might even have had three. I know there have been as many as seven over the years.

Usually, the interview process when recruiting goes along the lines of:

“What’s your name?”

“Tom.”

“That’s fine, you can start on Monday.”

Anyway, with a small posse of the aforementioned in tow, we set off one gloomy February morning to a small village less than a couple of miles away to meet with a customer I didn’t like much. He was pretty typical, one of those sorts who tries to take control, assert themselves and show who’s boss (not me, apparently).

Having told us a few facts about tree work and generally knowing stuff, the fellow went off to work in something expensive and German, leaving his wife, who was much more pleasant and easy to deal with.

The job was to fell a large and cankered red horse chestnut, to chip the brash and leave all the cordwood stacked on site next to the tree. I’d insisted we weren’t moving it to his shed for two reasons.

Firstly, the shed was about 100 yards from the tree and secondly, the shed was an 8 x 6 and already half full of rubbish, so 20 cubic metres of horse chestnut wasn’t going to fit.

Also, the garden sloped away steeply, it was wet and enough of a challenge to drag the brash to the chipper, let alone the huge rings I knew would result from the work. 

Mr Ambitious had told me he would split the wood himself – with an axe. He knew all about it and I agreed it was a good idea, mostly because I didn’t want 20 tonnes of soggy un-splittable and worthless chestnut in my yard, but also because I didn’t like him much.

Over the years we have agreed to leave hundreds of cubic metres of wood in people’s gardens for enthusiastic commuters to enjoy splitting over the weekends that followed a major tree event. At a guess I’d say roughly none of it ever made it to the fireplace, give or take. Usually we’d return for another job a few years later and smile at the pile of rotting, moss-covered rings in some far-flung corner of the garden in question.

“Do you want to keep the cordwood again?” I would ask, before quoting.

“Oh yes, I’ll split it over the weekend …”

With the husband gone and the team refreshed by tea, I clambered up and through the gnarled and rotting horse chestnut and it wasn’t even noon before we’d accounted for all the brash and were ready for the dismantle.

It was cold, damp, gloomy and typical, but also easy. The wood was soft to cut, if a bit unpredictable, and Team Tom was stacking the semi-processed 12-inch rings on the lawn nearby.

The main stem was doable, with the three-foot bar on an old 066, which was a relief.

I’ve used an 088 with a four-foot bar in the past, which is probably why I have one new hip and need a second. 

I think we overran. It was towards dark when I made it home, grateful that Mr Ambitious seemed to be having an equally long day, but the job was done exactly as described.

At about 7 pm, the phone rang and I had that ominous feeling it was going to be bad news. I was well attuned to that and so answered with a heavy heart and little optimism.

“Hello, Mr Oliver?” It was Ambitious’s wife, sounding suitably nervous. I reluctantly confirmed who I was and waited for the bad news. “My husband thinks you may have err, well, accidentally taken away some of our cordwood.”

I might have told this story before, in another context or another similar case. I really can’t remember, but I know it has happened before, most recently about five years ago.

It’s a bizarre occurrence and an annoying one and to be honest the use of the word ‘accidentally’ is simply a synonym for the accusation, which is ‘stolen’. Why would a team of hard-pressed men stagger uphill across 100 yards of soggy ground to purloin some rotting, non-inflammable un-splittable wood?

Mr Ambitious had made it worse by asking his wife to point the finger and I was tired and angry.

“Tell your husband I’ll be at your house in 10 minutes.”

“But he’s having tea …”

I didn’t wait to hear the rest, pulled on some soggy boots and stomped out to the Land Rover.

These days, with the gift of experience and wisdom, I tell my son to wait a while before he tackles a difficult customer, most recently a fellow who was upset that a Leylandii branch had fallen into his garden (he called Dougal something quite nasty). Back in 2002, however, I was less forgiving.

Mr Ambitious appeared at the door of his house and I was more than delighted to see he was indeed part way through an evening meal, but luckily I had cooled off – not much, but enough.

“You think we stole your wood?” I asked, getting to the point.

“Err, no, maybe there was a misunderstanding, but it doesn’t look like a whole tree’s worth.” He pointed vaguely into the darkness. To me, as always, it looked like about 10 trees’ worth. They always seem to take up a lot of space on the ground.

“Okay, so we didn’t steal it and what we need to do now is hop into my truck, drive to my yard and you can point out the bits of wood that belong to you.”

I apparently hadn’t cooled off quite enough. I’m not a bully, or at least I hope not, and I certainly have tried to maintain good manners and professionalism over the last 32 years, but on occasion I have been irritated to the point of anger.

It’s the three per cent (I’ve added it up over the years). Out of 100 domestic customers, 97 are usually fine, but the errant minority can make life incredibly frustrating, especially when they owe you money.

Mr Ambitious didn’t want to join me. I ended up apologising (though I’m not sure why), but the matter was resolved and I went on to explain the commercial non-viability of carting cordwood off, processing and selling it two years later.

Things are a bit different now. With the cost of heating going up, wood is suddenly very popular and we aren’t bringing much back to the yard at the moment.

It was actually only a couple of years ago that we received a phone call about a giant cedar trunk. It probably weighed a couple of tonnes, being four feet in diameter and several yards long. We removed it with the tractor, it was agreed that the husband had no use for it and they wanted everything disposed of.

A week went by and then, predictably, the wife called and spoke to mine. “Our gardener says cedar is very valuable and you took ours away,” she said.

I could imagine her husband, listening in from nearby as I listened to my wife dealing with the call (perhaps I’m a coward too). 

“Tell him he can have it back, but he’ll need to collect it himself.” I had an image of the man and his gardener trying to lift the gigantic log into a Saab convertible.

Oddly though, the trunk is still here. I’ll wait another year or so, but if they don’t show up I might sell it. If the gardener is right, I might become very wealthy on the proceeds, but somehow I doubt it.

Around about the time of the horse chestnut saga, we did still supply a few logs, delivering locally and unenthusiastically. On one peculiar occasion the sale was to a neighbour who (jokingly) suggested the pile of logs I’d tipped into his drive was slowly being reduced by me, stealing a few back each day for my own needs.

We looked at the pile and it was obvious there was a dent in it, which was puzzling as the customer/neighbour hadn’t moved any.

I didn’t stake out the site, but living so close it wasn’t long before the culprit revealed himself. An elderly fellow trundled into view one evening, parked his three-wheeled mobility scooter next to the wood stack, leaned down and filled his front basket with split logs.

I knew the man. He was a decent sort, so I went over and, in a friendly way, asked what was going on.

“Someone’s dumped a load of rubbishy logs next to the road,” he explained. “I’m just taking a few for the Rayburn.”

Rubbishy! It wasn’t the crime of the century, but I was a bit taken aback at the description of my product. Nobody minded much and the old chap was kept warm, so it didn’t really matter and I replaced the missing wood FOC.

I’ve moved out of the village now. It’s better being where we are, away from community life and the people I worked for, despite most of them being perfectly decent. My son has the business and I try very hard not to listen in when the phone rings and I can see the frustration on his face.

In fact, I haven’t even enquired as to the outcome of the most recent episode, the customer who decided we’d cut too much off a beech branch. It was a tree growing over a neighbour’s house, branches were knocking tiles off the man’s house and I’m pretty certain what needed to be done was done. Why do more?

Anyway, there’s a clause in the conditions that cover us for that sort of thing, something about them needing to be on site as ‘we cannot rectify tree work after the event’ – not without sticking bits back on. Perhaps, in these days of expensive heating and valuable timber, the man thought we’d decided to add to our stockpile by an increment of nine logs. It’s happened before!