You haven’t really made it big in a place like Hollywood or New York City until you’ve been a guest on any of the late-night talk shows. Leno, Letterman and Conan, among others, are the milestones to many up-and-comers and been-there-done-thats that keep those names relevant to us, the wanting public.
This week a very special and well-deserved guest made his, or her, debut to late-night television. The Madagascar Hissing Cockroach made a guest appearance on Chelsea Handler’s “Chelsea Lately” show. Chelsea herself was actually absent, so funnyman and Leno sidekick Ross Matthews filled in as host. Animal enthusiast Mireya Mayor couldn’t get it to actually hiss, but it did a great job of scaring the laughs out of Mr. Matthews.
This about mirrored our first encounter with our very own Madagascar Hissing Cockroach. We bought him, or her, online from an online pest farm based in Ohio. We only assume that they (we bought 2) were imported straight from Madagascar. At least we like to think so. And we got ours to really hiss though!
*Did You Know: The head portion of the Madagascar Cockroach is said to be what George Lucas used to patten the design of Darth Vader’s helmet.
In July of 2004 I came to this company with an understanding that Bulwark was a customer service company first and pest control company second. Little did I know they actually meant it; on my second day of on the job training here in Austin Texas I was paired up with Silvestre Loera. He made the day great, but he stressed how it was important to start your day on time and get to your first house promptly. He also showed me after that the first service you could go get breakfast tacos, which I thought funny due to he was stressing right before to be on time. As the day went on he proceeded to provide great customer service to every customer we serviced. I was thinking wow, great company, I made a great choice coming to work here. Then we came to a customers house where Silvestre gave new meaning to customer service. I was standing at the door beside Silvestre when we rang the door bell. What happened next seemed very strange to me, but not at all to Silvestre. A man answered the door wearing nothing but a hand towel around his waist, hairy chest and all showing to Silvestre and myself. I was ready to walk off but Silvestre talked to the man as if nothing were wrong and proceeded to listen to the mans every need. He even offered to go inside and treat if needed, which the man did require. I was taken by surprise that the customer service mentality at this company was that deep, because to be honest that was my 7th overall day at bulwark and I was ready to quit. Overall the experience is one I won’t forget and says a lot about what is instilled in the employees at Bulwark by the owners, managers, and technicians.
One day I was servicing a home while training a guy that had been sitting in the truck while I did all the spraying and all the services. He always was having an excuse to be on the phone. I was really getting frustrated cause I believe that he was just being lazy. I knocked on the customer’s door and there wasn’t an answer. I checked the gate, it wasn’t locked, so I went back to the truck and asked if the trainee wanted to spray the house. He was still on the phone so I just started to spray the house. When I got to the backyard I made it to the far side when this big dog came from under the dog house, filthy dirty, and growling viciously. The dog came towards me, and I felt like I had to run. I jumped the neighbor’s wall and came to the front yard. I saw that my trainee was off the phone and I just quickly asked him to finish up the back while I made a phone call to the office. He went towards the back yard where I was sure that he was going to have to jump the wall like myself. To my surprise he finished the service and rolled up the hose while I faked being on the phone with the office. I guess if I would have not run the dog would not have chased me. But at the least it got this tech to start to spray houses and learned the lesson that not all dogs of this sort are really vicious. Richard Wickoff
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