As others have said in the past, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Married men know this well. Did you go there bearing presents? Such as coffee and donuts
I don't recall if I offered a tip but since I really wanted it, I probably did. The guy must've called somebody because his tune changed and he started acting nervous, lol. I think he wanted me to have it, actually. Guessing his boss said no.
All you have to do is find that *one* guy........and that could be the start of a beautiful relationship. Odds are, he cuts down more trees than you can handle......You don't need 24 tree service contacts......As it is now I probably have 7 or so in my phone and I have a hard time saying no to them......so I take whenever they offer....to keep them happy but also to help build the relationship. My experience has been the smaller guys are more responsive and more eager to get rid of wood because they don't have the space and every $1 saved adds to their bottom line.
I've given my main tree guy a 30" Logrite hookaroon, a homemade measuring stick (maybe that's more for me than it is for him hahaha), introduced him to my masseuse, worked for him for a day for free, delivered 1/2 cord of wood for one of his customers for free, and even offered to sharpen his chains and/or help fix his saws if he needed the help. With 6-10 chainsaws I just can't imagine how much time he has to spend sharpening....and he does it by hand as well. We've both saved each other a *lot* of money.
I got a load of chips on chipdrop about two years ago. I just wanted mulch at the time. On the site, I put in a $20 tip,.which my understanding goes to the tree service and not chipdrop. Anyway, I live on a tiny city lot (1/8 acre) and they had to drop on the street, about 13yds of mulch. I had it 18"deep in places. For the next drop I was ready for some logs included, but when the guy showed up he wasn't comfortable dropping it on the city street. Couldn't convince him otherwise.
