25+ Pros and Cons of Being a Faller (Explained)

Faller is a person who understands sound forestry practices and has a good working knowledge of local harvesting rules and regulations.

His job involves cutting down trees with mobile felling machines or with hand-held chainsaws.

Usually, the crew will consist of one or two fallers, a log cutter, and several equipment operators who remove the trees and load them.

Advantages of being a Faller	Disadvantages of being a Faller
Work in the natural environment	Working as a faller can be dangerous
Standard workweek	Being a faller may become boring
Good work-life balance of fallers	Fallers have a low social standing
Mechanization	Hard to switch fields
Going back to the roots	Fallers mainly work in rural areas
Service to keep society running	Hands-on work is physically exhausting
Can see the results of labor	Problematic once one gets older
Physical well being	Have to work outdoors
No compulsory education requirement	Fallers are replaceable

Advantages of being a Faller

Work in the natural environment

A faller works in the middle of nature. They spend time in beautiful forests and meadows. It is very beneficial for health. One can breathe fresh air. He gets natural lighting, beneficial for their eyes.

Standard workweek

A faller has a standardized workweek. Most fallers work 9 to 5 and many of them even only work part-time. Therefore they have plenty of opportunities to plan their leisure as they know exactly when the workday will be over and when they can meet friends.

Good work-life balance of fallers

Fallers have usual day passes smoothly. They have free weekends, free holidays and return home early. Consequently, they have plenty of time for their hobbies. They can spend precious time with their family.

Mechanization

Though earlier working as a faller had been exhausting. A century ago, fallers had to do all the manual work by hand.

However, due to modern technologies, fallers can now rely on chainsaws and additional machines that can make their work-life just much more enjoyable and easier since less physical power will be needed to get the job done.

Going back to the roots

As humans evolved in natural environments like forests for an extended period of time, working as a faller can also be regarded as going back to the roots. In fact, many fallers feel a deep connection with nature and really feel like they belong to this place.

Service to keep society running

Fallers are very useful for society. People will not be able to produce any goods from wood and also not be able to use wood for heating purposes. Fallers are responsible to assure people’s wood supply and therefore an important part of the overall production chain.

Can see the results of labor

Fallers are able to see the true results of their labor. A faller will see the results of their work every day since they will see how many trees they have cut down. This gives job satisfaction as one will directly see what their hands can be.

Physical well being

Fallers are able to stay fit in a completely natural manner. As they will carry out plenty of manual physical work, there will just be no need to go to the gym since fallers get plenty of exercise during their jobs. The risk of obesity will be rather low as they will exercise enough and burn enough calories during work.

No compulsory education requirement

One does not need high levels of education to become a faller. Often, it will be enough to finish high school and they will be able to get the work. Like other professions, no degree is compulsory, to become a faller.

Disadvantages of being a Faller

Working as a faller can be dangerous

A faller is also not a safe job. Most fallers become injured sooner or later due to accidents with machines they are operating or also just due to branches that fall on their heads. There are a significant number of fallers who lose their lives every year due to these issues.

Being a faller may become boring

Most fallers may become bored in the long run. Though, it will be exciting to operate chainsaws and other equipment at work, in the initial days. Over time, many tasks will just repeat every day and they will just no longer be that excited to go to work.

Fallers have a low social standing

Most people will not understand the decision to become a faller. Most people would rather want to send one to college since they think that one would have better job security and would also become happier in the long run.

Hard to switch fields

Fallers work in a rather narrow field. They will just log trees all day long. One will not learn any skills that might be valuable in different fields and they will therefore also have a pretty difficult time finding a different job in case they get annoyed with woodwork sometime in the future.

Fallers mainly work in rural areas

Most lumberjacks are needed in rural areas while fallers are barely needed in metropolitan areas at all. The fallers need forest for the supply of inventory. The trees are not available in cities. Fallers have to live in rural areas, they struggle to get amenities in life.

Hands-on work is physically exhausting

A faller has to do plenty of physical work. Though, machines can help one to make their workday easier. There are still many minor tasks that have to be done by hand and this can really hurt our bones in the long run.

Problematic once one get older

It is reported that most fallers report physical health problems like back pain in their older years and some of them even have to quit their jobs since it would simply be too painful to do this exhausting work any longer.

As the work is done outside and subjects to weather conditions, it is important to understand how felling methods need to be adapted to fit local circumstances. Being a faller can’t be a long-run profession, it all depends on how to fit your health is.

Have to work outdoors

Fallers also have to work during nice summer days or during extreme rain or snow. Fallers have to work outdoors under extreme conditions while other people can just sit in a cozy office and have heating and air conditioning to make their office life as convenient as possible.

Fallers are replaceable

Fallers do not have to get plenty of education to carry out their work, they are therefore replaceable. It means that they will suffer from pretty high uncertainty regarding job security and that one might lose their job from one day to the other.