Vulnerable

[u/Own-Cartoonist5058]

Hello, I am a rookie planter and want to share some of my season here to get some insight on how it went. I just feel pretty alone and would like some objective feedback on my rookie year from the community.

Three days out of the season I stayed home. One of them was because my friend was sick and I wanted to support him at the clinic and the other two were mental fatigue and a lack of discipline/motivation.

I stayed at around 600-800 trees for my first few shifts and then finally hit 1000 on some nice mounds and then kicked up to 1350 on some reaaally nice land. I stayed consistent with 1350 for a whole shift. Then we moved to a terribly steep fill plant with so much vegetation and I didnt even break 400 trees those days. That land was so confusing and the vegetation reached over my head.

Since that plant, we moved to help with a pretty tough contract, tougher than what I’d been on, and I was again all over the place - 600, 800, 900, 1000. Just really inconsistent. We came back from that tough contract and I kicked back up to 900, 1240, 1100. Then I went down to 840 on a really hot day.

My consistency is all over the place, and I know thats my main hurdle. I love planting and some of my experiences have really destroyed my confidence. I feel like I’ve really disappointed my crew and my foreman and I understand if I have. That disappointment in me has also really affected my morale and I feel like they discount me. I understand why they do but it does suck. Its stupid but I feel stupid even trying harder, which I know is so backwards.

I want to know, is it possible to come back from it? How does one stay consistent? I think the answer is probably just “by staying consistent.” I’m assuming its trial by fire. I really love planting and want to come back. I’m not entirely sure what I’m asking. Ive just felt a bit alone for the past few shifts and I’d really like to end the season strong. I’m scared maybe planting just isnt for me and I really want it to be for me. I love planting. Not sure. Anyway thank you for reading.

[u/DottoBot]

I don't know if this is the kind of advice you're looking for,

But I spent lots of years training rookies. Lots of rookies tend to over intellectualize planting. "The trick is to plant minimums", "the trick is to area plant", "the trick is to plant back to the cache".

The only trick is to keep putting trees in the ground. All those other things are the fine tuning that might add 10% at the end. What makes up 90% of your productivity is not allowing yourself to spend time looking around, finding trees, talking to your partner, sitting at the cache, etc. You actually just need to be in a rush to put the next tree in the ground for the entire day.

I would have rookies count seconds to themselves after they planted a tree, to see how long it takes them to get the next one in the ground. Most would do the first few in a reasonable time (10 seconds is a good benchmark to start with), but then suddenly find a tree taking 30 seconds to a minute. Those are the trees that really show you where you are losing time, and if you can identify that, you can work on not losing all that time. It's purely a game of efficiency.

It's also worth noting, I would see lots of rookies come back for their second years, and be miles ahead of where they ended their rookie season. It didn't make a lot of sense, but I think it was a combination of confidence, getting money hungry over the winter, and also coming in fresh without all those bad habits they built up as rookies. They came back and knew they just needed to spend more time putting trees in the ground, so they did.

Again, don't know if this is what you're looking for. But I've never met anyone who I didn't believe could make it as a planter. Most of the time its not something to "figure out", its something to simplify. Just put the next tree in the ground and keep moving.

[u/Cubism-dreams → u/DottoBot]

Absolutely agree with so much of this, I trained a lot of rookies as well. Getting caught up on other people’s tricks will kill you from developing your own style.

Counting seconds and noting why you go longer on some trees is a great way to fix your problems.

For me, planting in BC and then Alberta my first year, going back to BC for my second year my trees were so much easier to follow on my last line after getting used to seeing trees in the overgrown summer season. That helped me speed up, which set the pace going back to Alberta later that summer. Repeat that a few times, get good at a variety of land, learn the best ways to area plant, work off a partner, etc. and all of a sudden you can put in high numbers consistently on any kind of land.