Trees a crowd

My driveway is a nightmare. It's steep, it's cracked, and it has bushes on one side and a hill on the other which presents a very narrow window where escaping my house is possible. Naturally, people from all over like to park in front of this window and block me in. When the neighbors throw a party it is inevitable that someone will decide to go out of their way to park right in front of my driveway. As this usually happens late at night and they are gone by morning I usually am fairly tolerant of this. Today, however, for the entire afternoon a dump truck with an industrial sized wood chipper was blocking my driveway. If they were cutting down my trees this might be understandable, but they were their for a neighbor.

I had to get out and I decided to address this in a polite way. I mean, the street is sort of steep too and that was about the best level spot they could pick and not have to carry branches too far. It's an unpleasant day and they have an unpleasant job. No need to make their day worse by screaming at them. So, I walk down to the truck and wait for one of the workers to approach and explain I need to get out to meet someone (my wife, actually) and they were blocking my driveway. Could they please move the truck for just a moment so I could get out?

The man I was talking to looked to be in his 40s or early 50s and he looked properly abashed as if it just occurred to him that this might present a problem. He assured me they'd move it in just a moment. Now, I want to point out that I had a 10 minute drive to meet someone who had to make a 30 minute drive. I should have no problem beating her to the location, right? No, I was late. By almost 10 minutes. Why? Mostly because when I backed down the driveway I sat there for a long time waiting for the one guy who apparently was allowed to drive the truck to stop ignoring me.

Look, I realize that once you've climbed a tree it is annoying and dangerous to climb down and then right back up again, but come on. I had to sit there in my own driveway waiting for someone to finish cutting up a tree just so I could drive an extra 20 feet and escape my own house. I'm sorry but if part of your setup is blocking the access to the house of one of the neighbors don't you think planning for actually moving the vehicle is so unreasonable? One guy was on the ground. Maybe give him the keys? At least make sure he CAN drive the vehicle if need be. Come to think of it, of the three guys there one was on the roof operating a pole saw, one was on the ground, and one was in a tree in a safety harness. Two guys had relatively easy access to getting the truck. One did not. Why give that guy the keys? I mean, seriously. You were there for hours blocking my driveway and evening was fast approaching. Considering the odds of having to move your truck at some point was rapidly approaching 100% didn't it occur to anyone to plan for this contingency? Apparently not, it seems because I was left sitting in my own driveway as a 20 something worked his way through several more branches since the time I gave them advanced warning I was on my way. Only when he was sure that the tree was done did he climb down and saunter his way towards the truck and nonchalantly move it while leaving his older coworker behind to hand out apologies.

Well, I guess if I have a point it would be this: I have about 50 trees on my lot and some of them are going to need work at some point or another. Considering the way this company acts when a potential future customer is attempting to be polite I'm thinking I'm probably going to shop around. I'm sure the 20 something is just as happy not to be coming back out this way so I really can't claim this is any particular victory on my part nor would I expect him to feel particularly chastised or even feel any sense of regret. My impact on his life is pretty much nil so karma isn't really going to bite him here. The most he has to fear is he managed to irritate a blogger who might go on a juvenile tirade on-line and . . . oh hey! Look! Nightmares do come true.