Rhino Reforestation

colinp · Post by **colinp** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:47 pm

Has anyone worked for Rhino Reforestation before? I've been hired by them for spring and I'm wondering if there is anyone who can tell me what to expect. Any info would be great. Thanks!

Mr. Amazing · Post by **Mr. Amazing** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 3:44 pm

They're the former better half of Nechako Reforestation, and this is their second year in existence!!! Quebecois heavy, with a misfit Anglo edge!!! Top-notch people!!!

twitch · Post by **twitch** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:18 pm

hey,

who's crew are you planting on?

Nate · Post by **Nate** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:06 pm

Mr. Amazing wrote:They're the former better half of Nechako Reforestation, and this is their second year in existence!!! Quebecois heavy, with a misfit Anglo edge!!! Top-notch people!!!

lol I planted in this type of environment. 'Misfit Anglo edge' is perfect, and I had such a blast. I highly recommend spending some time as a misfit anglo in a French camp, it is a great experience. Here's a fun trick:

If you don't know French, which you probably don't as a douchebag fucking Imperialist anglo asshole non-smoker, you'll never have any idea what the fuck is being said at dinner, except when they point and laugh at you or they decide to make a point of bringing you into the conversation. If you want throw them off guard, once in a while, very subtly, make it seem like you understood a joke or a comment, then deny it completely.

When someone makes a joke (you kind have to anticipate it's coming, but when you get to know people you usually can), pretend not to be listening but smirk at it, then hide your smirk. Or, if you can pick the right moment, snap your head around when someone says something with a shocked expression, then again, quickly pretend to cover up comprehension and pretend to have been looking at something else. The trick is not to make it so obvious everyone sees, but you plant doubt in people's mind individually, and eventually a collective awareness of your possible ability to understand starts being discussed amongst them.

The more vehemently you deny that you understand one word of French, the more they'll start to wonder. Guaranteed fun.

Post by **Scooter** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 5:11 pm

You make me want to give all my camp meetings in Spanish this summer.

Tupperfan · Post by **Tupperfan** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 8:45 pm

Nate wrote:

If you don't know French, which you probably don't as a douchebag fucking Imperialist anglo asshole non-smoker

...non-smoker! Hilarious!

Nate wrote:The more vehemently you deny that you understand one word of French, the more they'll start to wonder. Guaranteed fun.

They? They? Well, we invaded this board and now, we know your little trick! Mouhahahaha!

The trick can backfire though, as I've seen people who pretended to understand French get into the most ridiculous situations (ie. anglo ex-girlfriend during a family dinner). Another little tip: Learn some actual french. It isn't as bad as it seems, might be useful one of those days and, well, would help balance the billingualism effort in this country. I did it, the other way around, and it's a definite advantage.

As for the Anglo-misfit situation, it seems to be enjoyed by some, but not everyone. An anglophone planter in my upcoming season's camp voiced his dismay that most of last years' francophone planters will work in a different camp. But some others might not enjoy the idea of being unvoluntarily ostracized, to not understand a word of what is said around them at dinner, or dislike the ghettoization that will sometimes result from a language barrier. Rarely, but I heard it before, you'll have someone voicing his/her concern that people should speak english in camp for everyone to understand (It is not, in my opinion, only a bigotted view, but it's also a little paranoid).

On a sidenote, and only from what I've noticed (And I'm probably wrong) there seems to be a disproportional amount of French-Canadians doing the tree-delivery job...

Post by **Scooter** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 9:27 pm

My goal is to study French all summer in my truck (I have the audio CD's). I did German two years ago (which I don't really remember at all), and Spanish last year (which was more of a refresher since I'm a Spanish major at university, although sadly I don't deserve to be due to my lack of practice). This year, something more useful close to home. Or at least, more useful in the after-hours clubs in Montreal.

Nate · Post by **Nate** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 9:36 pm

Je peux parler un peu de Francais. Pas bien, mais pas trop mal. Quand les francophonies parler tres vite je ne comprends pas, mais quand ils parlent lent, je comprends les fondations.

I speak about as well as I've written above, which isn't too much, but I'm not that bad, and I made an effort to try to understand rather than just asking for a repeat in English. I would love to learn to speak French, I just don't have the time right now. I can curse fluently in French, however.

That's a really good idea Scooter though, maybe I'll pick up some French audiobooks for my Ipod.

Post by **Scooter** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:12 pm

PM me with your address, and I'll burn a DVD with all the lessons on MP3. I might even be able to photocopy the small phrasebook.

Actually, let me think about it, and I'll see if I can zip the whole thing, and PDF the files from the coursebook, since it isn't too big.

Mr. Amazing · Post by **Mr. Amazing** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 12:10 pm

I've heard that these folks are having an amazing season in Williams Lake! Planters are being forced to go back and replant all their trees on a daily basis, and there are evening "volunteer" (ie. unpaid) replanting sessions! The mill, the checkers, the foremen, and the planters are all on different pages regarding the "specs", and the supervisor is lording over the camp like the dictator of some banana republic nation! This sounds great! Anyone from Rhino want to comment on this unfolding debacle?!

kife · Post by **kife** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:44 am

I'll preface this by saying that I have never worked for a good company that required you to bring your own dishes.

I spent three shifts at the Williams Lake/Tolko show before heading to my regular BC contract, and it was terrible. The Rhino pay plotter was failing blocks that the Tolko checkers had walked and said looked 'good', every Tolko checker had a different idea of quality, and the communication between the staff at Rhino and Tolko was poor. On the fourth day of the contract the camp supervisor Meaghan blasted the entire camp for poor effort and poor quality, and told us we were 'lucky to be planting even though the ground was frozen.' Sorry, but you can't turn the buck like that on planters, not when communication is that poor and quality requirements completely inconsistent and changing from day to day. I felt bad for the rookies who were lambasted for doing a poor job - a good supervisor should never talk down to planters like that. It doesn't happen at better companies.

When we planted fill, the first day we were told to kick holes closed, and planting black smeary stuff was okay- two days later it was forbidden. We were told screefs weren't necessary, then people replanted for not screefing. Every day with them was like this. There was no winning. Some foreman resorted to bribing the planters who drove vehicles, promising them they wouldn't make less than $300/day. The first day my crew planted rips we were told to plant just below the hinge by the Tolko checkers. The next day, the specs changed, and Tolko wanted the trees higher, so people on my crew were told to replant. Yes, some foreman have also requested volunteers to replant after work in order to avoid losing production during the day.

The Tolko contract should have been good. The prices were fair and the ground (when it thawed) was terrific, but the general attitudes of the supervisors and their inability to hammer out consistent quality with Tolko made this a gong show. In over ten years of planting I've never seen mass replants like this. Some crews spent two entire days replanting after the first two days of the contract. And the replanting was fairly ignorant of 'who had planted what land'. Everyone went out, regardless of their own trees.

It's been a month, btw, and I haven't received a paycheck from them. I know all of my blocks passed.

Avoid this company at all costs. I've heard their other contracts are good, but going through the Williams Lake gong show is not worth it.

TheHamsterizer · Post by **TheHamsterizer** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 3:36 pm

blech, sounds just like Nechako.

E.E · Post by **E.E** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:05 pm

Rhino...

Spring was absurdly bad, but it slowly got better. The rest of the season was fine, prices ranged from fair to wow. Seems to be functioning as a farm team for the better established companies who won't take Alberta work because they don't see the margins, so how much can you really hate on them? They had work after July 1 when basically no one else did, they hired like crazy, and the planting wasn't bad.

Oh, and sputnik SUCKS!!! If you're reading this (which I admit is unlikely, taking into consideration that you're retarded even by pitbull standards) put down that toddler you've been mauling and hang your furry little head in shaaame.

Screef · Post by **Screef** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 11:44 pm

Rhino is composed of former Nechako folk? I spent eight years at Nechako, and I would be curious to find out who they are. You know, for purely nostalgic satisfaction.

TheHamsterizer · Post by **TheHamsterizer** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 8:15 pm

E.E wrote:Rhino...

Spring was absurdly bad, but it slowly got better. The rest of the season was fine, prices ranged from fair to wow. Seems to be functioning as a farm team for the better established companies who won't take Alberta work because they don't see the margins, so how much can you really hate on them?

Poor excuses for a bad company... Why work on a farm team when there is no pre-requisite to play in the big leaguesÉ

E.E · Post by **E.E** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:14 am

My 'farm team' comment was vague, I simply meant that we had a lot of planters join us when their primary company finished up. Is there a term for athletes playing in a foreign league during their off-season?

Rhino had work into August. A lot of companies were done mid-June/early July. Rhino did a lot of hiring mid-season and gave those planters an additional 20-30 working days that they otherwise wouldn't have had. Would some of those planters have found other planting work? Possibly. Would some of those planters found other work period? Possibly. Is Rhino lowballing summer trees beyond a reasonable profit margin? Possibly, I don't have the information to answer that question. I do know that the Sunpine tree prices were generous and the people on my crew weren't disappointed with the money or the land. Reading this board I saw quite a few complaints about short seasons etc., Rhino planters got something like 70-85 planting days.

The spring was bad for the first few shifts there's no denying it. It's not clear whether the checkers were overly vague or misleading with their expectations or Rhino management just failed to communicate effectively. The replants alienated a lot of vets and the majority of the quitting happened in those first couple of weeks. The BS that characterized the first few shifts never repeated itself, the rest of the season was normal. It's worth noting that the summer William's Lake contract, probably the best price/land wise, under some of the same Tolko checkers, went off without a hitch. Tolko was really happy with the quality, and the planters were happy with production.

abazzaba · Post by **abazzaba** » Tue Feb 09, 2010 6:52 pm

Hey does anyone have any current information about rhino anyone know what their season was like last year

dr.greenthumb · Post by **dr.greenthumb** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:46 pm

A buddy of mine just became a crewboss, i met him cherry picking in the okanagan (also a huge french community) and he said i could bring 2 bros. Anyone know how the food was? thats number 1 for me, also whether or not its all you can eat, a necessity. I just worked for Brinkman with Ian and the food was nothing short of amazing, although it was supposed to be the cooks last year. Also, does anyone know how the tree running went?

mel_eff · Post by **mel_eff** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 3:23 pm

I got an offer from these guys just a bit ago, they've got a tasty 80+ day season... Williams Lake, Horsefly, Nordegg, some other shit towns I can't remember. Oh there's one contract for a few days in Caroline, AB. So pretty! Just one is a motel show as far as I've heard. Prices are ranging between 12 and 17 the whole time, with BCTS in Williams Lake to start for just over a month.

twitch · Post by **twitch** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 5:12 pm

The williams lake contract isn't with tolko anymore?

Commoddity · Post by **Commoddity** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 7:40 pm

I'd just like to second that comment on Sputnik. That dog bit me and several other people in camp. He shouldn't have been there.

mel_eff · Post by **mel_eff** » Wed Mar 03, 2010 8:33 am

twitch wrote:The williams lake contract isn't with tolko anymore?

Oh maybe it is actually, I was just trying to remember what was in the email I got without actually looking at it.

mel_eff · Post by **mel_eff** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:33 pm

mel_eff wrote:
twitch wrote:The williams lake contract isn't with tolko anymore?
Oh maybe it is actually, I was just trying to remember what was in the email I got without actually looking at it.

It is Tolko, if anybody cares, I just looked at the email again.

twitch · Post by **twitch** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 8:35 pm

they came out of nechako and basically swallowed them this last season.

zoorun · Post by **zoorun** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:07 pm

Did anyone work with this company last season? How was it?

mel_eff · Post by **mel_eff** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 5:11 pm

Yeah, I did...................hope someone backs me up on the following at some point...

The good:

-long season, finished on August 18th last year
-good people (personality wise)
-good parties, had free beer a couple times
-safe, very safe. I never once felt like my life was endangered
-tree prices were raised quite a few times when the planters spoke (but really this was due to the tree price being way way WAY too low to begin with)
-we got t-shirts and hats at the end of the season
-paid reefer unloads sometimes

The opposite of good:

-long season with heaps of short days, inconsistent $$$
-indescribably low morale at many points during the season due to navigational errors, huge walk-ins, organization problems on helicopter days, low priced fill plants
-massive delays on contracts, organization was a significant challenge
-at one point there were over 120 people in camp, and for a "small" company like Rhino, this proved to be a huge logistical mess
-overworked, sleep deprived crew bosses. not enough people had the proper driver's license to operate the crew vans so some crews had to find alternate rides to town on nights off if their crew boss was tired
-a LOT of down time. we had more than a few 2 day breaks, and two 4 day breaks
-by the last day of the season, there were about 20 people in camp. over half the camp had jumped ship by then, with some planters leaving in the middle of the night or in the early morning, like a bunch of sheep shagging gypsies
-the food was alright, but predictable and basic. no trail mix in the mornings (extremely important to me, and became yet another unnecessary personal expense along with last minute extra days off in hotels), and no dinners on Day 4. (I guess that's not a big huge deal but it sucked hard when it was a two hour drive to town on day 4)
-last day of the season, we came back to camp, and were told to tear down and get the fuck out. no awards, no "thanks", in fact no one was even around. I had a better time with the skeleton 8 people who stayed an extra shift to do a tiny contract in Bragg Creek than I did all season.
-waited for a trees a number of times. Not talking 5 or 10 minute waits...more like 1hr+ on heli blocks where the whole company would walk in 2km+ bagged up, finish bagup and wait for trees to drop depending on which crew was closer to staging, etc.
-wrong trees getting sent to the wrong blocks
-running out of trees on blocks on average once per shift
-blocks which could have been set up the night before were not, i know this had to do with tree temperatures sometimes but then there were other times where the main cache was a huge drive from the blocks, or there were not enough cache tarps? Seriously my foreman would have to horde cache tarps so she could have enough trees at our blocks some days
-reefers coming late/early/not showing up
-the camp ran out of flagging tape on a fill contract...more than once....good thing i brought an emergency stash in the bottom of my hockey bag
-the checkers were absolutely amazing on some contracts, on others they were the devil incarnate...again, very inconsistent, with specs sometimes changing halfway through a contract

I was just about to say I hate to talk any shit on here but this isn't bullshit. Anyone you run into who did Rhino 2010 will tell you the same thing.

This was last year...maybe they've worked out some bugs for this year and hopefully they'll have a much better season, but I won't be around to see it either way.

Have a good season!!!

MattW · Post by **MattW** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:02 pm

This is an account of my rookie planting year. I worked for Rhino Reforestation beginning in May 3rd to August 10th of 2011.

Ill start with the planters. I don't like to generalize, but just for an outline, the vast majority of the planters were either Quebecois or from Prince George. The people were by far a pleasure to work with and very friendly. However, Rhino has a 75% (roughly) turnover rate from May to August. My initial crew of 13 had 3 original planters by the end of the season.

The reason for this, as explained by both the late season newcomers and rhino vets, is that Rhino has good prices for the first half of the season, and has bad prices for the summer trees. The first contract is Tolko near PG, with the last 3 or 4 being Alberta contracts with Sunpine and others I don't remember.

The problem with having 4+ contracts in a season being hundreds of kilometers away is as follows. Between each contract we were typically given 3 or 4 days to "rest our bodies" as a supervisor put it. However, if you were travelling between contracts in a crew van, you were expected to assist foremen in gathering and transporting supplies, setting up camp, waiting in rest stops for instructions, and fetching hamburgers for foremen. All of which is unpaid. Failure to comply (fetch hamburgers) in a timely manner resulted in having my foreman make us drive across PG and back for no reason but to punish us. This is all unpaid of course. This isn't to say all foremen at rhino are exploitative of their planters. Most are very nice and reasonable.

We worked a 4 days on, 1 day off schedule with an occasional 5 if "production was low". With the breaks between contracts I found there to be too much downtime. We worked 8 hour days with an average of 3 hours driving round trip. The rides to the block were longer in BC, but they were direct to the block. In Alberta the opposite is true with long swampy walk-ins being common.

Its hard for me to guage if prices were good or not as I've only planted one year. From what I gathered from experienced planters, the BC contract is nice, Alberta is bad. The food was alright, but became repetitive after a couple weeks. Im a vegetarian so I can't vouch for meat eaters, but I heard complaints about roast chicken served every other day. Vegetarians were served vegetable casserole dishes every other night. With a lot of baked tofu. Ultimately, the food wasn't great in my opinion.

As a rookie, I didn't make minimum wage consistently for 5 weeks. It wasn't until my crew got a replacement foreman that I started making more. Within two days I doubled what I was making with the old one. The first foreman threatened to fire me if my quality ever decreased, yet complained that I spent too long closing the holes. Again, most of Rhino's foremen are positive, friendly people; this was an exception.

As far as safety is concerned, Rhino tends to only follow safety standards as outlined by each contract. The safety talks at the beginning of each shift disappeared as we moved to alberta, as did the health and safety bulletin board in the mess tent. On August 7th, myself and 10 others were involved in a highway crash on a day off. (This was the 3rd rhino vehicle to be written off that season.) The crash itself was unavoidable and our driver did everything he could to avoid it. The problem was that the driver had an expired license. The driver simply didn't notice, and Rhino didn't check to see if the driver had a valid drivers license before they employed this planter as a driver.

This was the end of my season. The crash gave me whiplash and bruised knee and I felt generally unsafe and uncomfortable with the way Rhino was conducting work. When I returned home I stumbled upon replant.ca and the wsca labour standards. I had no idea that planters were supposed to be topped up if they weren't making minimum wage. In fact, I asked out of curiosity if minimum wage applied to planting and my foreman blatantly lied to me. ( I was a naïve 18 year old at this point in time if that last point didn't already make it obvious enough.)
I immediately decided to follow the steps outlined on the labour standards page and file a complaint. Rhino called me up a week later to inquire about my complaint. After explaining my case, they proceeded to tell me I was "wasting their time" and hung up on me. A month later, the labour board contacted me to inform me that they were going to mediate a conference call between rhino and I. The conference call was short, with rhino agreeing to pay me. A few weeks later the cheque was in my hands.

I'm deciding to plant this upcoming season. Rhino gave me a lousy reference as I expected. They said I was "lazy and sat down a lot".

I wrote this to help warn rookies and planters of the way Rhino treats planters. They are one of the few companies not following the labour regulations on minimum wage. I strongly advise anyone planning to work for rhino this upcoming season to reconsider.

I'm sorry if this was hard to follow. It was written on my cell phone as I'm out of the country.

Matt

Tnalp · Post by **Tnalp** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 12:18 am

Thank you for sharing!

mwainwright · Post by **mwainwright** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:14 am

MattW wrote:

I'm deciding to plant this upcoming season. Rhino gave me a lousy reference as I expected. They said I was "lazy and sat down a lot".

a bad reference from a company like rhino should be worn like a badge of honour.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 11:39 am

You're detailed explanation of your experience does service to all planters.

treeeater · Post by **treeeater** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:16 pm

edit/retraction

Post by **Scooter** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:19 pm

I was able to make pretty good money that is on par or better than industry standards judging from what is stated on this site

I think that if you get a chance to work for a different company this summer, you'll be able to have an even better idea of how prices can vary from contract to contract, and company to company.

Best of luck to you this upcoming season ...

MattW · Post by **MattW** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 5:27 pm

The third I was refering to was the highway accident I was in. I was told the truck was written off, but I could definately be wrong. I should have said that I wasnt certain of that.

Slowsis · Post by **Slowsis** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 10:20 am

Aha, I remember running into Rhino outside of Edson (AB) a couple summers ago.....they were getting 10 for the same land we were getting 12-12.5.

lobstah · Post by **lobstah** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 9:31 am

Slowsis wrote:Aha, I remember running into Rhino outside of Edson (AB) a couple summers ago.....they were getting 10 for the same land we were getting 12-12.5.

Very helpful comment...

TheHamsterizer · Post by **TheHamsterizer** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 7:09 pm

lobstah wrote:
Slowsis wrote:Aha, I remember running into Rhino outside of Edson (AB) a couple summers ago.....they were getting 10 for the same land we were getting 12-12.5.
Very helpful comment...

It actually is. What more do you need to know?

mel_eff · Post by **mel_eff** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:37 pm

TheHamsterizer wrote:
lobstah wrote:
Slowsis wrote:Aha, I remember running into Rhino outside of Edson (AB) a couple summers ago.....they were getting 10 for the same land we were getting 12-12.5.
Very helpful comment...
It actually is. What more do you need to know?

Maybe we should be even more helpful.

While prices are already deplorable, they seem to underprice already underpriced shit until planters are cleaning shitters and washing dishes every night so they can save on camp cost because they can't.fucking.afford.it.

lobstah · Post by **lobstah** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 3:47 pm

TheHamsterizer wrote:
lobstah wrote:
Slowsis wrote:Aha, I remember running into Rhino outside of Edson (AB) a couple summers ago.....they were getting 10 for the same land we were getting 12-12.5.
Very helpful comment...
It actually is. What more do you need to know?

I'm not arguing with you guys, I just thought that the comment about "they were getting 10 and we were getting 12" was not very helpful for people who reads this thread to know what the company is like. I worked in some places were I was getting 33 cents for shit that other companies were getting 21, and vice-versa, that kind of talk is not helpful to inform people about a company.
That being said, you WILL be overworked by the end of june when working for rhino. You'll also get shit for not helping on your days off.

MattW · Post by **MattW** » Tue Feb 19, 2013 2:00 am

I just remembered a bunch of unsafe shit that happened at Rhino and needed to be told.

Rhino uses crew vans as everyone knows, and they get worn pretty ragged by the end of a season. However, part way through July in Alberta the sliding door on the crew van became stuck somehow. It may have been the locking mechanism or just tons of dirt, we never found out. The problem is that it remained stuck for the rest of the season (2+ weeks as I just verified), and planters had to enter and exit the vehicle through the passenger door, which had the level 3 OFA kit secured in place. I realize now that this is a huge hazard, especially with a 15 person crew. They actually added the final (4th?) bench seat into the passenger van because Tolko wasn't the contractor anymore. The driver/foreman didnt have her class 4, so she couldnt have the last bench seat legally. But since the contractor in Alberta didn't care about camp/work conditions, they got away with it.

On one of our contract breaks a planter on our crew was tasked with driving the van from PG to Jasper overnight, right after a long shift. He almost rolled the van on the way over. He came over from another country, so he didn't have much experience driving Canadian roads im pretty sure, and this way a fully loaded van with everyones shit on the roof as well. Also, he had to drive the van up a very busy logging road with no logging road driving experience either. I was genuinely scared for my life.

No one should be working for them, I was too kind in my review from before. I thought time would have the opposite effect. I felt as though my life was in danger at least 5 times with these guys.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Tue Feb 19, 2013 10:42 am

The first time I read this, I didn't realize you got a minimum wage top up from the Labour Board. You're totally awesome. Good job on hitting them on that.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Sat May 31, 2014 4:21 pm

Updated contact info:

Tel: 1-250-963-3255
Fax: 1-250-963-3275
Business Address: PO Box 281, Prince George, BC V2L 4S2
http://www.rhinoreforestation.com/
pmbeaudry33@yahoo.com
http://www.rhinoreforestation.com/staff/ for foreperson e-mails.

CharlesLaf · Post by **CharlesLaf** » Mon Dec 21, 2015 1:50 pm

I planted two years for them, 2012 and 2013, with different foremen, and it made a huge difference. A huge one.
I had quite a good time and, as an average planter, I made OK money (roughly 16k).
The longer I stick in the insdustry, the more I realize that as a young planter, I was very critical of administration and shit happening. But seriously, a lot of the "shit" happening is because there's too many people behaving like dumb sheep waiting to be told everything while recording every little thing that can go wrong and adding it to a mental list of "this makes it a bad company. Me good. Me deserves better".
There's a shit ton of effort and work and stress put into running these shows, and when you look at it, planters got it pretty easy.
No, I don't work for administration and I'm a regular planter.
Kinda reminds me of drunk who won't quit booze who complains to his doctor that he doesn't make him well. We all have to pitch in if we want a smooth ride. And attitude makes a huge difference.
"I won't twitch a muscle until I'm paid"

Nate · Post by **Nate** » Mon Dec 21, 2015 4:44 pm

CharlesLaf wrote:I planted two years for them, 2012 and 2013, with different foremen, and it made a huge difference. A huge one.
The longer I stick in the insdustry, the more I realize that as a young planter, I was very critical of administration and shit happening. But seriously, a lot of the "shit" happening is because there's too many people behaving like dumb sheep waiting to be told everything while recording every little thing that can go wrong and adding it to a mental list of "this makes it a bad company. Me good. Me deserves better".

*Clapping

Pandion · Post by **Pandion** » Mon Dec 21, 2015 6:56 pm

^It's funny how you don't see that at better companies.

MattW · Post by **MattW** » Fri Jan 08, 2016 11:04 am

planters got it pretty easy

We all have to pitch in if we want a smooth ride

This is the Rhino mentality. It isn't a co-op, and you aren't compensated for all the illegal, dangerous, and humiliating shit they make you do. It's been 5 years since I planted for them, and I haven't seen anything remotely comparable to what I did in 2010. I have a hard time believing they turned everything around in a couple years.

Treestreestrees · Post by **Treestreestrees** » Fri Nov 17, 2017 1:55 pm

mel_eff wrote: ↑Wed Mar 23, 2011 5:11 pm Yeah, I did...................hope someone backs me up on the following at some point...

The good:

-long season, finished on August 18th last year
-good people (personality wise)
-good parties, had free beer a couple times
-safe, very safe. I never once felt like my life was endangered
-tree prices were raised quite a few times when the planters spoke (but really this was due to the tree price being way way WAY too low to begin with)
-we got t-shirts and hats at the end of the season
-paid reefer unloads sometimes

The opposite of good:

-long season with heaps of short days, inconsistent $$$
-indescribably low morale at many points during the season due to navigational errors, huge walk-ins, organization problems on helicopter days, low priced fill plants
-massive delays on contracts, organization was a significant challenge
-at one point there were over 120 people in camp, and for a "small" company like Rhino, this proved to be a huge logistical mess
-overworked, sleep deprived crew bosses. not enough people had the proper driver's license to operate the crew vans so some crews had to find alternate rides to town on nights off if their crew boss was tired
-a LOT of down time. we had more than a few 2 day breaks, and two 4 day breaks
-by the last day of the season, there were about 20 people in camp. over half the camp had jumped ship by then, with some planters leaving in the middle of the night or in the early morning, like a bunch of sheep shagging gypsies
-the food was alright, but predictable and basic. no trail mix in the mornings (extremely important to me, and became yet another unnecessary personal expense along with last minute extra days off in hotels), and no dinners on Day 4. (I guess that's not a big huge deal but it sucked hard when it was a two hour drive to town on day 4)
-last day of the season, we came back to camp, and were told to tear down and get the fuck out. no awards, no "thanks", in fact no one was even around. I had a better time with the skeleton 8 people who stayed an extra shift to do a tiny contract in Bragg Creek than I did all season.
-waited for a trees a number of times. Not talking 5 or 10 minute waits...more like 1hr+ on heli blocks where the whole company would walk in 2km+ bagged up, finish bagup and wait for trees to drop depending on which crew was closer to staging, etc.
-wrong trees getting sent to the wrong blocks
-running out of trees on blocks on average once per shift
-blocks which could have been set up the night before were not, i know this had to do with tree temperatures sometimes but then there were other times where the main cache was a huge drive from the blocks, or there were not enough cache tarps? Seriously my foreman would have to horde cache tarps so she could have enough trees at our blocks some days
-reefers coming late/early/not showing up
-the camp ran out of flagging tape on a fill contract...more than once....good thing i brought an emergency stash in the bottom of my hockey bag
-the checkers were absolutely amazing on some contracts, on others they were the devil incarnate...again, very inconsistent, with specs sometimes changing halfway through a contract

I was just about to say I hate to talk any shit on here but this isn't bullshit. Anyone you run into who did Rhino 2010 will tell you the same thing.

This was last year...maybe they've worked out some bugs for this year and hopefully they'll have a much better season, but I won't be around to see it either way.

Have a good season!!!

Years later and I can agree with almost every single point you made. Especially the low morale.... That was something I had never experienced. What an unhappy season that was.

The one's i dont agree with are only on your good points...

Long season - the season is only long because of all the delays and poor planning that is done. I got relatively the same amount of planting hours at a different company over the season, but it took two weeks longer. I'd say AT LEAST once a shift there was a write off day. First day of the season we planted a fill block. Two days later we were told it stills needs to be brushed so we had to go back after they brushed it. We were told we would get beer to compensate but I never saw any. This type of thing continued through the entire season. As well as foreman meetings always took place 10 minutes after everyone was in the truck waiting to go to work. I dont think we left on time once the entire season. I could go on for days...

Safety... I had never felt unsafe before until working with this company. Every vehicle in the company consistently had issues. There were days where some.of our mechanic planters were fixing brakes for free instead of planting trees. Our axes for chopping fallen down trees for getting to the block had broken handles. Our spare tire didnt even fit our truck. One camp move several vehicles had flat tires and one got stuck, but the owner had left with all the tools. The police confiscated a couple of the trailers for being unsafe after pulling us over. There was car accidents caused by the drivers as well. More than one person had rolled a quad on themselves due to poor upkeep. (Ie using quads that dont have reverse). Now for the day you have an injured tree runner and no quad. - happened more than once. Or heli shows.... One day i showed the pilot the map of where we needed to go and he responds "i have never seen that in my life". We were not given radios but told we'd have cell service. The pilot drops us all at the wrong places which don't have cell service so we just sat around in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do hoping the pilot would come back in a few hours.

We didnt get t shirts either, and we never got paid for reefer unloads. Many times theyd tell us to meet at the reefer for unloading and the staff wouldnt even show up. During unpaid unloads and camp set up/take down the owner drank coffee and watched us.

The one good thing was the food, although it would have been nice to have things like trail mix. And no meals on day 4 was a pain. Usually have to drive 2-3 hrs afterwork to get a meal not getting back to camp until 9-10 pm. A couple of occasions we closed.blocks on day 4 which is fine, ( except that they didnt tell us, so more than half the crew is sitting at the van waiting for the scheduled quit time) while the rest is working passed the point where the closest hub for food was closed. So we went back to camp and shared a jar of peanut butter and 3 loaves of bread between the entire.camp.

You won't see me in that camp again. It was not uncommon to hear that people had made less.money than their rookie year. I sure know I did not to mention how much more money I had to spend through out the season. A large amount of mandatory hotel nights that came out of your wallet.

Cyper · Post by **Cyper** » Sat Nov 18, 2017 8:36 am

How can any of this be true? Rhino says the following about themselves on their web site: "Rhino Reforestation is a leader in the reforestation industry. Together, with our highly skilled staff, we have planted over 35 million trees across British Columbia and Alberta. Each year we strive to be the most efficient quality planting company in the industry. We always put safety first and are a Safe Certified Company in BC"

You couldn't fail to do better if you worked for just about any company headquartered south of the Trans Canada Highway. The stories above paint a picture of a company that doesn't give a damn about its people.

Post by **Scooter** » Thu Jan 25, 2018 11:35 am

There's an interesting discussion on KKRF, which started out as an argument about Rhino, but more importantly touches on a number of general British Columbia Employment Standards issues:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/5890968 ... 489682261/

Toad&Tree · Post by **Toad&Tree** » Fri Jan 26, 2018 9:15 am

Very unprofessional company to work for. I was with them 2017 for July. Great contract (Weyerhauser in ablerta), good prices and easy land. However it was a heli show and management had no idea what they were doing. Lots of late starts, once or twice around 11. Also waiting for trees was common, one time that stuck out was almost a two hour wait. Pieces were cut small and new pieces wern't ready when you finished, crewboss was hard to find... Also lots of favouritism. My crewboss and I watched as another crewboss and one of his planters creamed out our burns, they were the first to take the helicopter in. Bad management left a sour note and lots of money could of been made on this contract if it wasnt for them, we shouldn't be waiting for trees or land. Bottom of the barrel was thrown around a lot by some long time vets from Leader who joined us.

peroxide · Post by **peroxide** » Tue Feb 06, 2018 10:35 am

I worked with a guy who worked there for years. He told me he wished he knew how much better planting could be outside of Rhino, and that he shouldn't have wasted years of his life there. Sounds like a pretty shady company that treats labour laws as optional guidelines, and judging from the attitudes of staff and crew bosses on KKRF, it seems like there's a culture of complacency and outright hostility towards people who speak up.

Avoid working for them.