.

[jfbro]

.

[Scooter]

I don't think this is a common situation in BC. I've had a number of situations where planters have come up to me confidentially with concerns about certain situations, which led to our staff investigating and dealing with the problem as a high priority.

Perhaps the crew leader in this situation knows and doesn't think it will affect him/her, or the rest of the crew. I've been in four camps at various companies where entire crews were fired for a stashing problem specific to people on the crew, although thankfully, in my own experience, I've only ever had to fire individuals.

Unfortunately, it does happen sometimes, but a smart company/supervisor will deal with it effectively and in a timely manner. Otherwise, the company's reputation is at stake.

My suggestion would be to consider letting the company owner know about the situation. He/she may be concerned about the reputation and eventual financial impact on the company.

[jfbro]

.

[RPF]

In my experience it's quite common for stashers to carry on...
Only one of four stashers I've known personally were fired.
I've never heard of anyone being charged for their criminal conduct.

If you, or anyone else is really concerned about stashers getting away with this practice, perhaps you should inform not only your employer, but also the forester in charge of the planting project.
In my experience I've caught red handed three stashers, and in one instance I've had another planter inform me of a stasher. In each case I recorded/memorized their names, and then passed those names onto my colleagues. In this way, the word is out to beware of those people. It doesn't take long for word to spread.
I recall a few years ago giving a colleague of mine the name of a known stasher. When that stasher showed up on a planting job, the forester in charge made it very clear to the contractor that the stasher was not welcome to work on his project. The contractor agreed and the stasher was subsequently let go.
I'm not a legal expert, but the only recourse that a forester has in this regard is to fine the contractor for wasted trees (which can be quite costly). The contractor's recourse is to fire the individual. I'm not sure whether or not the contractor can sue the individual or not. I've never heard of this.
Regarding stashing in general. I think it was quite common practice years ago, but in more recent times not so much. I think the planting culture has changed, and as is suggested by this thread stashers are no longer tolerated within planting crews, much like rapists are not tolerated in prisons...

[ChinRoll]

I think it's about time this subject was addressed on this site. I personally think it's a much bigger problem than most people think it is, which I think is why it's so rarely talked about. Let's face it, every company has a notorious highballer who is also a notorious stasher, but who is never outed because of the fact that many of his accusers are stashers also. I've been around for well over a decade now, and I've definitely noticed that highly competitive camps – the ones that breed a certain hostility toward "getting highballed" – are the ones with the most *ahem* allocation issues. Think of stashing as a fungus, and think of competitive camps as the moist environment that promote the growth of said fungus. I think the best way to quell the growth of the "fungus" is to take away the competitive environment that breeds it. This can even be as simple as having tally cards for every planter, where they can keep track of every bag-up, and then at the end of the day, give it to their foremen in confidence. While this simple solution definitely won't put an end to stashing completely, it will certainly help in cleaning up the environment that promotes the "winning at whatever cost" attitude that breeds cheaters.

In a related story, I once planted with a company (now defunct) where one of the foremen is rumoured to have spent ten minutes teaching his rookies how to plant a tree legitimately, and about half an hour showing them the best way to "really make money", which apparently consisted of him showing his bright-eyed young rookies that the hollow duff around stumps was the perfect hiding place for a good handful of seedlings, and then proceeded to show them how an upturned stump often leaves holes underneath where the roots once were, that are deep enough to hide a few unwrapped bundies. Anyways, later that season, after said foremen's entire crew was fired for consistently not being able to finish their blocks with the trees allocated them, I talked to one of his planters who shamelessly told me a story of how he went into a residual patch that bordered his and another planter's piece to "stash some trees" but found that "every good spot was already filled by the other guy". Whoa!

[Gingerplanter]

If you are accusing someone of stashing, you are probably in denial because you are slow as f@ck. only bitter low ballers accuse highballers of stashing. Quit your bitching and plant more trees, or you could move to a company were that kind of slutty attitude is unacceptable.

[jdtesluk]

I also take issue with Chinroll's idea of every company having a highballer that is a stasher. In my fifteen years of planting, the few people caught for stashing (or overclaiming) were almost always marginal or lowballer workers, trying to keep up with people that were on average stronger than them. Maybe Chinroll encountered some sleazy highballers, but the fastest planters I ever worked with were simply the ones that worked harder and smarter than everyone else. This may simply be a matter of experience, and maybe Chinroll has worked at different companies than myself and Gingerplanter- I think the reference to rookies indicates that may be the case.

One thing I do agree with Chinroll on is the issue of tallies. These should absolutely be kept confidential. In fact, the law implicitly requires that workers do not have any of their personal earning information (including tallies) shared with other workers. Any company or camp that allows individual tallies to be known by others is in clear violation of the Personal Information Protection Act. If you are a worker that does not want others to know your tally, or prefer to simply not contribute to the process of driving production through competition, tell your supervisor you want your tallies kept confidential; they are nobody's business but your own.

Further to that, I don't think planters need competition to drive them forward; that takes a crude view of the worker and indicates that other more humanistic approaches to nurturing success in your crew have failed. Competition CAN help, but it ultimately breeds all sorts of other dysfunction. Workers are better than this, and should be treated as such.

[ChinRoll]

If you are accusing someone of stashing, you are probably in denial because you are slow as f@ck. only bitter low ballers accuse highballers of stashing. Quit your bitching and plant more trees, or you could move to a company were that kind of slutty attitude is unacceptable.

I'm hardly slow as f*@k there Gingerbread! Nice try. And I wasn't accusing anyone in particular of stashing, I was simply stating that there are many ballers out there who have actually been caught in the act, which would also likely mean that there are many out there who haven't been caught. And the company I was referencing, I worked for more than a decade ago, in my early years as a planter, and since then I have only worked for small companies, primarily on the coast, where that "slutty attitude" is absolutely unacceptable, and a competitive environment is frowned upon. So thanks for your advice, but I've already taken it, dickchops.

On an end note: this is clearly just proof of how touchy the subject of stashing is in this industry, and why it will never be dealt with properly. Jordan, really?

[jdtesluk]

Lets keep it civil here folks. None of us like stashers, and none of us can claim 100% authority on the matter due to our different windows to the industry. I stand by my lowballer assertion as the source of most problems, because that was my observations. Again, my views may be different than where Chinroll saw the problem. That's not an insult, just acknowledgement.

From a logistic perspective and one of considered risk, a fast planter would likely be better off devoting their time to their planting, rather than taking the risk of being caught for marginal gains on stashing. By this, I mean you would have to stash A LOT in order to compensate for the potential risk you face if caught if you are already earning $40-$60 per hour. That is you have to stash a lot to earn more than you would plant. That leaves a clear trail of shrinking land, and you also then have to physically do the stash without being detected. That alone means humping box upon box to an appropriate spot. I think most highballers rationalize their efforts are better spent planting. From a simply logistic perspective, lowballers have more to gain and less to risk by stashing. Their time spent stashing is comparatively more valuable to their slow planting rate (unlike highballers, who make more per hour). Second, their low earning potential means they have less at risk by losing their job. I offer that as pure logic, with no reference to personal observations.

I don't know about stashing being a taboo subject and I hardly think this conversation proves it as such. The vast majority of (the few) stashers I have encountered were indeed caught, and were dealt with harshly. I remember a 40 mile walk for a pair of nitwits up near Mackenzie one year.....from the block, not even the camp. Ouch. Both foresters and contractors have an interest in preventing stashing. If it were a more widespread problem, it would perpetually show up in the numbers (too many trees in not enough land). I would argue that the reason why it has not been dealt with (at least in some views) effectively enough in the past, is simply a matter of resources.

Forepersons and supervisors are already worked half do death, that in order to watch over some dodgy planter for half a day to catch them red-handed would mean seriously compromising all the other things they have to do. The marginal impact that a few stashers may make on the integrity of the system is balanced off by an industry that slides by with the barest and thinnest level of supervision in place over the workers actual day-to-day activities.

So in this sense, I argue it is a matter of logistics and resources, combined with it simply not being a big enough issue to matter. Hardly the biggest elephant in the room. I think compliance with employment standards is probably a greater concern. Stashing seems more like the aardvark in the corner in comparison from what I have seen. Sure, it may not be the first thing contractors want to talk about, and planters may by nature seek to avoid being accusatory to their peers, but I hardly think it is a huge problem.

....I exaggerate the 40 mile walk. It was probably 4 to 6 hours, and they probably ended up hitching...but really freaking long.

[theoderix]

I happen to agree with China albeit recently. I was approached by a "retired" planter doing something far removed from planting. He confessed to me that during his planting career he stached trees on a regular basis during his 15 year planting career, he was a "highballer". The conversation absolutely floored me. He claimed that he knew of many more.

The most interesting thing I got from him was this : Whenever you hear of a planter that plants lots of trees but doesn't seem to be going fast we as planters like to say " look at that guy/girl they look so efficient, so smooth it doesn't even look like they are going fast. This is definitely not saying that every "smooth" planter is a stasher by any means but hearing it from the horse's mouth was eye opening.

[Mike]

Stashing straight up doesn't make sense.

Either A) You are stashing small numbers to not get caught, and thus making a few dollars at super high risk, or

B) You are stashing large numbers, and your blocks and pieces are continually going over allocation. You're swiftly caught and fired. At Dorsey way back in the day a couple of highballers from another company kept getting 2 hectare-ish pieces at 1500 stems per hectare and somehow putting 6000-8000 trees in them. After a couple shifts they were caught and fired.

Either way, you're not going to meet your long term goal of making money.

[jdtesluk]

That's kind of what I was getting at Mike.

It makes me think that there may be different motivations for different stashers, because as the different experiences here show, it is not only lowballers or only highballers that have been implicated.

Perhaps some, including some lowballers, do it with the goal of keeping up their earnings.
Perhaps some, including some highballers, do it for additional reasons, such as resentment towards their employer or licensee, boredom, cynicism, or to see if they can get away with it.
This would make a fascinating psycho-social study of incentives and workplace relations. SHRRC please

Continued long term stashing at a high rate; that is simply unlikely to occur undetected in any half-assed outfit and will be caught. Yes, a bundle or two here or there may be impossible to detect. However, anything that makes a substantial impact on earnings would be impossible to miss in the numbers.

[Cyper]

The majority of planters I've seen get caught stashing were faster planters. Obviously money is a large motivator but lets not forget the root of all evil - the ego. I've known a couple of guys who while making excellent money planting honestly, were not satisfied. They had to appear to be top dog. One of them was turned in by other ballers, irate that someone they knew was a tad slower, always came in with just a few more bundles than they did. I suppose there will always be a group in camp who revere the prestige of being top dog. I think faster planters draw more attention from their supervision. While being appreciated, they are also more scrutinized. No doubt management's rose coloured glasses come out for faster planters. They tend to get away with more than slower people. Perhaps those mildly antisocial behaviours are more likely to get overlooked.

I don't suggest that stashing is a mildly antisocial behaviour. It's criminal activity. I've heard it said that stashing only takes money away from the big corporations but that's just rationalization to support cheating. The worst of it is when someone is stashing on a direct award contract that local planters have come to count on year after year as their bread and butter. The stasher is risking all of his "friends" income for some false egotism and/or a few paltry dollars. I've seen a contractor/client relationship ruined by a stasher.

Heaven forbid that we should have a go at profiling a stasher. All of the stashers I've been sure of were men, white men. Not gay men. I've never seen a woman caught stashing.

[jdtesluk]

I've seen women, white men, and non-white men (not that those two categories cover it all). Never asked who's face they fantasized to as they stuffed the trees in holes. They were usually fired before I could gather all pertinent personal and demographic data

So ego for the highballers. I'd buy that as a viable motive. Again, I would suggest that will vary location to location. In companies where egotism and number-boasting is encouraged, one may expect that such behaviour would be more frequent.

I stick by my personal observations, and maybe I have a jaded view of the highballers I worked with. However, Cyper's post prompts me to think of another consideration. Catching a highballer stashing would actually be harder than catching a lowballer. In this, it is easier to detect the disappearance of 400 trees over the ground of someone that actually only puts in 1000, than it is to detect it over the ground of someone that puts in 2000. One covers twice the ground of the other, and thus has not only more opportunities (more trips back and forth), but also a greater distance across which to amortize their "invisible trees".

Compelling offerings from many directions. As a criminologist, I would tend to favour profiling based on geographic and environmental factors over those of personal characteristics. In this, I would take from the work of Dr. Kim Rosmo at Simon Fraser University, who pioneered geographic profiling as a method in criminal investigations.

I will be holding auditions next month for a new primetime Crime Drama called "Stashbusters". Follow our impeccably dressed team as they travel to exotic locations, and use the power of statistics combined with poorly represented physical and social sciences to solve crimes on the clearcut. Investigations will occur primarily at night, necessitating the use of small flashlights, and we expect to find evidence poorly concealed and exactly where we look for it. Gratuitous use of glow-in-the-dark substances is obligatory, along with close ups of team members removing their sunglasses repeatedly and walking in slow motion.

[Angkorwat]

Heaven forbid that we should have a go at profiling a stasher. All of the stashers I've been sure of were men, white men. Not gay men. I've never seen a woman caught stashing.

silly statement...

In 26 years,I know of 6 peeps caught stashing(found trees) by me or someone i know.2 were white males

[RPF]

I will be holding auditions next month for a new primetime Crime Drama called "Stashbusters". Follow our impeccably dressed team as they travel to exotic locations, and use the power of statistics combined with poorly represented physical and social sciences to solve crimes on the clearcut. Investigations will occur primarily at night, necessitating the use of small flashlights, and we expect to find evidence poorly concealed and exactly where we look for it. Gratuitous use of glow-in-the-dark substances is obligatory, along with close ups of team members removing their sunglasses repeatedly and walking in slow motion.

Sounds interesting. Let me know when auditions take place...
Perhaps this could be followed up with a "60 Minutes" interview of known stashers with pixelated faces and disguised voices...

Again, as I pointed out earlier, if anyone is really concerned about stashers getting away with this practice, they should be reported immediately and directly to the forester in charge of the project. The forester, of everyone involved in a planting project, is probably the best person to consult with this problem since he/she has the most to lose as a result of people stashing tree. The forester will then do his investigation and the perpetrator will be dealt with quickly and appropriately.

Maybe we could change the name of the Crime Drama to "Forester, P.I."

[Nate]

As a foreman, if you're guesstimating piece sizes and throwing plots on your guys, it becomes pretty apparent when boxes aren't being accounted for.

Small amounts of stashing might go unnoticed over a few weeks, but it becomes pretty obvious when somebody appears to consistently be over allocation without their plot numbers showing high density.

[krahn]

Does China work for Spectrum? Not only do many there assume the ballers are stashing, according to multiple sources in different camps, but they've been caught more than once in the past few years, and still haven't lost some of these contracts, despite some major problems.

I would agree that there's a fair bit going on, however if you get on with a company where cheating.... and this includes being a creamer... is very frowned upon, then I think it can mostly be avoided. It's also tough to get away with if you're surrounded by experienced vets that can do the math, and can tell that you're not planting what you claim. So I think it's very company dependent.

[Mike]

I have no idea if any of that was true, but hilarious to read either way.

[mwainwright]

best thread on the forum

[Scooter]

And the "Drama of the Week" award goes to .... This Thread.

So to clarify, this is a thread about stashing in Scotland? Of course it happens in BC, but based on my somewhat limited experience, it happens less frequently in BC than in some other jurisdictions. And lest anyone assume that stashing is commonly tolerated quietly, I'd once again re-iterate that the majority of planters are pretty honest. Of course there are some exceptions, but those are the exceptions, rather than the norm.

And lest people think I'm being naive here, a reminder that a checker/forester/foreman/supervisor/owner can always go into a suspect piece and count the planted trees. And on a larger scale, measure the size of an area by GPS and compared the actual plots to the claimed density. Technology has made it a lot more difficult to get away with stashing than one might think. As someone commented earlier, why risk it ... you'll get caught eventually.

[dirtpenetrator]

Heaven forbid that we should have a go at profiling a stasher. All of the stashers I've been sure of were men, white men. Not gay men. I've never seen a woman caught stashing.

you're not a criminal minds profiler. You're just prejudiced and sexist lol.

And the "Drama of the Week" award goes to .... This Thread.

So to clarify, this is a thread about stashing in Scotland? Of course it happens in BC, but based on my somewhat limited experience, it happens less frequently in BC than in some other jurisdictions. And lest anyone assume that stashing is commonly tolerated quietly, I'd once again re-iterate that the majority of planters are pretty honest. Of course there are some exceptions, but those are the exceptions, rather than the norm.

And lest people think I'm being naive here, a reminder that a checker/forester/foreman/supervisor/owner can always go into a suspect piece and count the planted trees. And on a larger scale, measure the size of an area by GPS and compared the actual plots to the claimed density. Technology has made it a lot more difficult to get away with stashing than one might think. As someone commented earlier, why risk it ... you'll get caught eventually.

I agree that stashing is pretty uncommon, and definitely easy to catch. I think that any organized company should be able to weed out stashers really quickly, but I guess the situation that could arise would be if a vet or someone close with the supervisors/foremen was stashing. I could imagine people covering for their friends. In my experience, though, its only ever been rookies and it was always very obvious. In a company I worked for in Ontario, we had this one sort of creepy, chubby 20something rookie who was obviously stashing. The other rookies were all planting under 2000 at that point in the season and he was consistently claiming around 2100, but if you ever saw him on the block he'd be standing around or taking a rest, or moving very slowly. I think it is always quite obvious, and it is probably more common in companies that hire massive amounts of rookies and encourage a competitive environment (we all know what those places are like).

[Aeryk]

I have heard third person of situations where foreman either pressure or aid their planters in stashing because they are getting a percentage. This would of course be caught the same way as a planter being caught by his foreman just higher up the chain. That is of course unless the corruption goes all the way to the top!

[Nate]

I have heard third person of situations where foreman either pressure or aid their planters in stashing because they are getting a percentage. This would of course be caught the same way as a planter being caught by his foreman just higher up the chain. That is of course unless the corruption goes all the way to the top!

Most commission percentages for foreman are in the 10-15% range (assuming no base wage whatsoever). Pretty hard to imagine a foreman condoning stashing from a personal profit motive. Even the greediest, stupidest fool would have to realize that the risk of getting caught far outweighs the benefit of 10-15%.

Imagine a foreman with 10 planters who allows each planter to stash two boxes a day (which is an absurdly high number that would almost certainly get discovered). Let's say that 20 boxes at 270 trees/box at 12c per tree. Even at 15% that comes out to less than $100/day the foreman is making and he's now got 10 stashers he has to worry about being caught.

[Scooter]

Imagine a foreman with 10 planters who allows each planter to stash two boxes a day (which is an absurdly high number that would almost certainly get discovered). Let's say that 20 boxes at 270 trees/box at 12c per tree. Even at 15% that comes out to less than $100/day the foreman is making and he's now got 10 stashers he has to worry about being caught.

Not to mention the fact that 5400 trees per day being stashed would be blatantly obvious in the stats check even if the crew was planting over 150,000 trees per day. That's 3%, which shows up very quickly in the numbers. And I don't know a lot of 10-packs that can put in 150,000 in a day.

Re. some of the other comments above, I've fired female stashers. I've also been in a few camps in the past (certainly not recently, but many years ago) where collectively, a total of four complete crews (including their foremen) were fired for "trees not accounted for." The more the merrier? No, the more the stupider.

(And yes, I know that stupider is commonly replaced as a comparative adjective by "more stupid").

[jdtesluk]

The question that started this thread was "Why aren't stashers being dealt with?".

Based on the responses thus far, it seems that in most cases they are being dealt with, and harshly. However, the "dealing with" process is probably not something that companies like to talk about too much. It's not great advertising. They deal with them, and then would rather not think about them or talk about them after they're dealt with.

Stashers aren't the elephant in the room in most companies. They're the elephant that got hacked up with a machete for being a bad elephant, were left by the side of the road, and driven away from, hoping we don't have to waste any more attention on them than we already have. Nobody likes talking about the dead elephant.

[Evergreen]

Perhaps stashers aren't dealt with as quickly or as often as they should be because they don't get turned in often enough. The people most likely to figure out that someone is stashing are fellow planters. You can usually tell if someone is claiming more than they could be planting if you're around them long enough. I have had planters come to me and suggest someone is stashing. It's not always true but more often than not it is. It is not hard to figure it out once you set your mind to it. As Scooter said technology has made it easier and easier. Planters can be "set up". Caches can be counted, areas measured and planters put on the clock. To me it's time well spent to find a good vantage point on the block, get out the binoculars and the clock and spend an hour counting and timing a suspected stasher.

If you are sure that someone is stashing because their counts don't jive with the area they cover or their speed doesn't match their production, the obvious solution is to fire them. It gets much more difficult to pursue legal remedies like charging them with a crime. To do that you're going to need evidence, which can be hard to assemble. Even if you see someone doing it, it's your word against theirs. If you find buried trees in their piece, it proves nothing. Again perhaps technology and the omnipresent cell phone might allow live video of the deed. I'm not sure even that would be enough.

In my experience, there are a few bad apples out there but planters for the most part are by nature ethical and honest, more so I'd hazard than most. If people want to see stashers dealt with more effectively, come forward in private to your foreman or supervisor and outline why you are suspicious. You'll be doing us all a favour.

[krahn]

The question that started this thread was "Why aren't stashers being dealt with?".

Based on the responses thus far, it seems that in most cases they are being dealt with, and harshly. However, the "dealing with" process is probably not something that companies like to talk about too much. It's not great advertising. They deal with them, and then would rather not think about them or talk about them after they're dealt with..

I wouldn't go that far. I'd agree that it's possible to catch them, and the better companies keep it mostly at bay. But there's companies where they're not as rigid, where there's a culture of anything goes. That ranges from where it's slightly easier to cheat, to the other end of the Spectrum where it's accepted as something you do on the down low.

[Nate]

The question that started this thread was "Why aren't stashers being dealt with?".

Based on the responses thus far, it seems that in most cases they are being dealt with, and harshly. However, the "dealing with" process is probably not something that companies like to talk about too much. It's not great advertising. They deal with them, and then would rather not think about them or talk about them after they're dealt with..

I wouldn't go that far. I'd agree that it's possible to catch them, and the better companies keep it mostly at bay. But there's companies where they're not as rigid, where there's a culture of anything goes. That ranges from where it's slightly easier to cheat, to the other end of the Spectrum where it's accepted as something you do on the down low.

Post of the year.

[jdtesluk]

The question that started this thread was "Why aren't stashers being dealt with?".

Based on the responses thus far, it seems that in most cases they are being dealt with, and harshly. However, the "dealing with" process is probably not something that companies like to talk about too much. It's not great advertising. They deal with them, and then would rather not think about them or talk about them after they're dealt with..

I wouldn't go that far. I'd agree that it's possible to catch them, and the better companies keep it mostly at bay. But there's companies where they're not as rigid, where there's a culture of anything goes. That ranges from where it's slightly easier to cheat, to the other end of the Spectrum where it's accepted as something you do on the down low.

Ha ha, I see what you did there.

[Mike]

That ranges from where it's slightly easier to cheat, to the other end of the Spectrum where it's accepted as something you do on the down low.

I know Coast Range doesn't have an amazing reputation, but it isn't unfair of you Krahn to make that insinuation given that you haven't worked there?

[newforest]

I can't even imagine planting unmeasured land. The timber company paid me by the acre, I supplied seedlings and labor. As a contractor buying trees at the million unit level, I get a better price than anyone else. I in turn paid a highly experienced crew by the acre. There was zero incentive to stash, because the planters were given the money saved on seedlings when you can't plant under the slash pile, in that little pond over there, and down the old road through the middle of the block, etc. The only problem we had was very occasionally being called for a bad seedling on a plot because it should have been culled. We still regularly planted closer to prescription density than most of the low-ball competition, some of whom plant every block for the same price and with the same basic very poor density control, regardless of what spacing the forester requested.

[krahn]

That ranges from where it's slightly easier to cheat, to the other end of the Spectrum where it's accepted as something you do on the down low.

I know Coast Range doesn't have an amazing reputation, but it isn't unfair of you Krahn to make that insinuation given that you haven't worked there?

I have worked at Spectrum briefly, also Silverado my second season, and my complaints both times are mostly to do with favouritism and waiting for trees. My complaints about their cheating mentality come from direct stories from people that work there, more than one person on multiple crews, and also the fact that a person we once fired for stashing is one of their ballers.