Should Planters Do Dishes?

[steel8909]

Personally I dont think they should, I ended up having to do dishes a couples times. I know it's only a couple times but still, as a planter our job is to plant not do the cook's dishes for them, that's their job.

And yes I have been a cook before.

What do you think?

[Scooter]

What do you mean, "do dishes?" Do you mean your own dishes, the cooks' dishes (pots and pans, etc.), or the entire camp's dishes?

The first several years that I was a supervisor, we had a rotating dish schedule. Three people from the camp each night would do the dishes for the entire camp. I really disliked this system.

Eventually, I changed it so that everyone did their own dishes. They bring their own dishes to camp, and those are personal dishes for the season.

As for the pots and pans, the cooks usually do those themselves. In our camp, if the size of the camp exceeds 50 people, we assume that the cooks are starting to get pretty overloaded with work. They then get a $25/day budget to pay a planter to do the cook dishes, IF they want to.

[steel8909]

At our camp we brought our own dishes and washed them ourselves. So I'm talking about washing the cook's pots and pans. Giving the cook a $25 budget sounds like a good system though.

[Duncan]

At our camp we brought our own dishes and washed them ourselves. So I'm talking about washing the cook's pots and pans. Giving the cook a $25 budget sounds like a good system though.

Does the cook bag you up at the cache? Rub your feet after work? Probably not, there are two words that best describe unpaid work: "volunteering" or "slavery"

[Nate]

Saying "I don't think I should ever have to do dishes as a planter" is much more reasonable than "it's their job." Every treeplanting company is highly variable in how they structure their camps, there is no "norm" that dictates that it is is always the cook's job to do the dishes. I worked for an Ontario company that paid two cooks $150/day to cook for 95 planters. Do I expect them to do their own dishes? Fuck no. I've worked for a company that paid their cooks upwards of $300/day to cook for 25 planters. Do I expect them to do their own dishes? Fuck yes. What about the $250-$300 cooks who cook for 30-50 planters? Well, it's somewhere in the middle.

The question is far too open to be able to be answered one way or another. The best I could say is that it depends on how many people they have to cook for, the quality of food they're expected to prepare, their wages, the camp setup, and the quality of their cooking/washing facilities.

The attitude of "this my job, that's your job, go fuck yourself" isn't overly productive in a planting camp anyway. The whole treeplanting setup is one big cacophony of logistical fucknuts, shitsticks, and cockballs.

[Scooter]

Every treeplanting company is highly variable in how they structure their camps, there is no "norm" that dictates that it is is always the cook's job to do the dishes.

I had a discussion about this last night, with respect to Replant. One of the advantages (in my mind) of the planting industry is its chaos, its variability, and its "shitsticks and cockballs." Just as there is not necessarily a "right" and a "wrong" way to put a tree in the ground (as long as the end result is a tree meeting acceptable quality standards), then there shouldn't be a "right" and a "wrong" way to run a company. I suspect that the Replant website/forums are probably eroding that variability slightly, as many planters and management personnel from many different companies are now engaged in public and behind-the-scenes discussions about how things are run. The amount of dialogue now between people from different companies is certainly much higher than it was ten years ago, when just about the only communication was in laundromats.

[Screefhead]

At our camp we brought our own dishes and washed them ourselves. So I'm talking about washing the cook's pots and pans. Giving the cook a $25 budget sounds like a good system though.

Does the cook bag you up at the cache? Rub your feet after work? Probably not, there are two words that best describe unpaid work: "volunteering" or "slavery"

I agree, its not my concern what the cook is paid or how much work they have to do. If planters have to wash the cooks dishes then they should be paid for it. Good companies will pay money or free camp costs to do dishes.

[krahn]

it's only "their job" if sufficient staff is hired and the pay is good. i hate doing other people's dishes, but still if it's done as a bunch of planters every evening, so you do it more often but less work, that's more of a bonding experience than actual labour.

still i'm tempted to buy my way out most time with beers. because after a day of planting i like to eat and then often go right to bed. plus i wish it could be set up in a way that everybody just went and did their own dishes after dinner. but that just doesn't seem to work.

[Scooter]

plus i wish it could be set up in a way that everybody just went and did their own dishes after dinner. but that just doesn't seem to work.

I hate to sound like a hard-ass here, but I've found that if people have to bring their own dishes, and there is ownership throughout the season, that really helps. You don't want to take dirty dishes back to your tent, because they stink and might attract animals. And you don't want to forego bringing your own dishes, because it's awkward to eat with your fingers off a piece of cardboard torn from the top of a tree box. Trust me, I've forgotten to bring dishes at the start of the season and had to do that for a few days. Not fun.

I guess one thing that helps nowadays is that there are so many unique types of dishes available from Walmart and the other socialist conglomerates. More variety makes it easier to spot your own plate if you leave it in the kitchen's drying rack. Cutlery, however, is still sometimes a problem.

I guess it helps that my cooks are particular about this, because they don't like to attract bears into the middle of camp. So if people leave their own dirty dishes in the mess tent without washing them, the cooks will usually make a point to display them in a garbage can at some point in the season. The planters usually get cranky at this and feel affronted that they can't leave their dirty dishes overnight in the mess tent, but then those same planters get worked up when there is a bear in the mess tent in the middle of the night and we're trying to figure out ways to remove it without having to shoot it.

The world is far from perfect. At least if the dish situation is the biggest problem in camp, I take solace in the fact that things are probably going reasonably well on the blocks.

[L'Amour]

We've switched over from an everybodydoestheirown system at Northern to putting fiveish planters a night on the "dish crew", though you're still supposed to do breakfast dishes and what-not.

We don't bring our own, though.

And I try to bet my dishes shifts on games of backgammon, anyway.

[jdtesluk]

My favourite part of doing our own dishes was playing birdies. Everyone picks up two rocks. Then you put one hand in the circle, one hand under the table. You have two, one, or zero rocks in your hand that is in the circle. Then everyone places a guess about the total number of rocks in the circle of hands that are not yet open (no two guesses can be the same). Everyone opens their table hand, and you count them up the rocks, and the correct answer is out. You keep repeating the process until there is only one person left, and they do the dishes for the rest of the participants. Yeah, it's better odds and probably faster just to do your own dishes and skip the game, but we had some good times playing birdies in the mess tent.

[Scooter]

Someone who is bored and has a free half an hour should explain a few of these other planting-related legendary "picking contests" to the rookies who are trolling here. Probably make a new thread out of it. Jordan's previous post can be cut-and-pasted into that new thread too. So here's what we need to explain:

- Jordan's rock game.
- Odds & Evens.
- Rock, Paper, Scissors.
- Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock.

I don't think the latter has really caught on, but it is my personal goal in life to make this an embedded part of planting culture.

[Scooter]

I'm making the thread right now.

But someone else can fill it up.

[Nate]

My favourite part of doing our own dishes was playing birdies. Everyone picks up two rocks. Then you put one hand in the circle, one hand under the table. You have two, one, or zero rocks in your hand that is in the circle. Then everyone places a guess about the total number of rocks in the circle of hands that are not yet open (no two guesses can be the same). Everyone opens their table hand, and you count them up the rocks, and the correct answer is out. You keep repeating the process until there is only one person left, and they do the dishes for the rest of the participants. Yeah, it's better odds and probably faster just to do your own dishes and skip the game, but we had some good times playing birdies in the mess tent.

So the tired, bitter, angry person holding rocks in his hands who just lost "birdies" is left standing within blunt-force trauma range of the people who don't have to do their own dishes? I can see why this is a fun game.

[korno]

at brinkman, the cook gets a $1 a head to wash the planters dishes, this can be subbed out. So if someone misses work they can make up there camp costs.

[newforest]

I just draw pine needles to make decisions. There's rarely a shortage of pine needles.

In my camp, where we aren't big enough to hire a cook and are unlikely to ever reach that level, we take turns cooking. Last year I tried to get people to act like adults and share the work on the dishes, but young people aren't adults. So I finally came up with a system of the day after it's your turn to cook, it's your turn to do the dishes. This also makes people more careful with the cooking dishes they have to clean the next day, and rubs the idiots faces in their dishes they couldn't bother to rinse the night before. This way, no one has to do extra work every single day and the dishes from cooking get done. Also this way we can have one fairly extensive set of kitchen hardware, rather than everyone dragging around a couple pots or something.

And, what Nate said, about the I-I-I-me-me-me type people. My country is the world-wide epitome of that thinking, and the irony of the Ayn Rand worldview is that it makes life more difficult for everyone, including the I-ME-#1-Screw-You folks, when they are always worrying to make sure they don't help someone else.

[aaron]

I just draw pine needles to make decisions. There's rarely a shortage of pine needles.

actually in Bc there is... Most of our pine trees are dead, pine needles are getting rare here.

[Nate]

...

And, what Nate said, about the I-I-I-me-me-me type people. My country is the world-wide epitome of that thinking, and the irony of the Ayn Rand worldview is that it makes life more difficult for everyone, including the I-ME-#1-Screw-You folks, when they are always worrying to make sure they don't help someone else.

Hey, don't knock Ayn Rand. Her philosophy is good. If every last person buys into it. Or if people are content to be thrown to the bottom rung of a capitalist meritocracy. Or if we're all Howard Roarks...

[Mike]

but young people aren't adults.

Ouch;

Also; on the subject of Ayn Rand; I'd prefer not to live in a society like that. Also, lots of mediocre systems can be made to work if everyone volunteers into them (Worker's co-ops as an indication of potential communist successes, for example).

[TheHamsterizer]

I thought I'd check in on the site and see what people are talking about, and I see this 'debate'. There is no question, planters should never do dishes. Ever. Planters should never have to bring dishes to camp. Ever.

If you have a cook making 150 a day that is completely overworked and needs your help, the best way to help your cook and yourself is by finding another job and quitting, so that maybe the company gets the message. The only reason these cooks have so much work to do is because they have cheap malfunctioning equipment, lots of other jobs that they shouldn't be doing either- like picking up groceries, and they probably aren't good cooks in the first place.

Most good planting companies, and every other industry that has bush camps(oil, logging, geology, etc.) has well paid cooks, good equipment, and they always do the dishes. And they aren't overworked. Because they have decent gear, and are experienced cooks. But the shitty planting companies don't do that, because everyone has this Outward Bound mentality that the important thing is making it through the contract, and overcoming adversity, and pulling together as a team, helping each other out, etc...
That's all well and good for a summercamp, but for a job it's ridiculous. With treeplanting, all the adversity stems from the owner of the company, ie- the person who sets your wages, creates dishwashing policies, overworks cooks. When you make decent coin despite awful prices, or help a cook do dishes until late at night, or drive a truck up from somewhere for free, you're hurting yourself and your fellow workers by letting your boss know how far they can push you. Like I said before, if you want to help yourself and your camp the most, just quit. And steal/destroy something while you're at it...

Hamsterizer OUT,

ps, nice to see that this forum comprises of the same eight people. Circle jerk city.

[steel8909]

And steal/destroy something while you're at it...

.

Hahaha I had a cooking job a couple or so years back as a summer job, only reason I took it was b\c I couldn't find any other job. I knew perfectly well that the pay was shit and I would be working long hours and 12 day shifts. Anyways at the end of the contract I stole a guitar (stuffed it into my huge hockey bag no prob lol) and a bunch of cooking supplies like knives, pans, expensive seasoning and most importantly a 4L jug of franks hot sauce lol

They also called me up the next year asking me to come back, I said hell no.

[Sebastian]

The whole black and white view of dish duty is a little ridiculous. Given the right circumstances, doing dishes makes sense.

For example: I work with a small company, with a small camp. The cook gets paid well, cooks well, and yes, does groceries too. Each individual planter does their own dishes (cup, bowl, plate, cutlery), and the cook does all the kitchen dishes from breakfast. However, we offer camp cost to any planter who chooses to do the kitchen dishes after dinner (or they split it with a second person). I've also seen similar systems put to use elsewhere (NGR, I think). Cook has a little bit more time this way, and we've never been short of (paid) volunteers.
We basically do the same thing for reefer duty too: If, for whatever reason, we need some help on reefer duty, volunteers get paid. I know, I know, with other companies it's "in the tree price", but there's all kinds of ways of structuring the pay at a given company, and this seems all seems to work out pretty well for us.

[Sebastian]

ps.. People who steal stuff because they don't have the guts to stand up and walk out on a shitty job are assholes. If it's a crap contract, recognize it and leave early; don't just steal some other poor shmoe's guitar.

[TheHamsterizer]

ps.. People who steal stuff because they don't have the guts to stand up and walk out on a shitty job are assholes. If it's a crap contract, recognize it and leave early; don't just steal some other poor shmoe's guitar.

Yeah... Steal some COMPANY property, not one of your coworkers posessions. Some people just don't get it.

[steel8909]

The guitar belonged to the company, a resort.

[bdbrown]

Hamsterizer says: When you make decent coin despite awful prices, or help a cook do dishes until late at night, or drive a truck up from somewhere for free, you're hurting yourself and your fellow workers by letting your boss know how far they can push you. Like I said before, if you want to help yourself and your camp the most, just quit.


I says: Hear Hear! Somebody willing to do something for free (drive a truck, wash dishes, any of it) is undermining the fact that there are responsibilities to each duty, and somebody needs to get paid to do a good job of it.. if you're going to do it for free, you shouldn't be doing it..

-small camps-
let people do their own dishes, just so long as you don't expect people to actualy do them.. if you want to set a standard, you're going to have to pay someone to make sure the standards are met.. Its the way it works.. (unfortunately wtevs, blah blah)

[krahn]

...

And, what Nate said, about the I-I-I-me-me-me type people. My country is the world-wide epitome of that thinking, and the irony of the Ayn Rand worldview is that it makes life more difficult for everyone, including the I-ME-#1-Screw-You folks, when they are always worrying to make sure they don't help someone else.

Hey, don't knock Ayn Rand. Her philosophy is good. If every last person buys into it. Or if people are content to be thrown to the bottom rung of a capitalist meritocracy. Or if we're all Howard Roarks...

now that i think about it, i think ayn rand is at least partially responsible for me not only going treeplanting, but doing well at it. i ready her stuff when i was 13 and i think it was shortly after when i started not hating piecework (picking peas and strawberries) and really going for it. which informed every job i did after that. i now consider ayn a delusional idealist and not a very warm human being, but i guess i do need to thank her.

[doogiski]

Simply put, if they are you own personal dishes... yes. If they are pots and pans, you should get camp covered for that day. End of story.

[newforest]

this thread title is such a great existential question.

my planters like to argue over such questions as....

Should Planters Have To Help Gather Firewood?

Should Planters Have To Help Fill The Water Coolers?


I too thank piecework for improving my work ethic. But I had already learned how to work while growing up with wood heat....but that never paid any money.

[Tupperfan]

I was too lazy/drunk to read the whole thread, but we in my camp, everyone washes their own dishes and the poor dude volunteering to wash the cook's stuff gets free camp costs...

I think it's a decent system.

I'll be back, I need to take a piss...