Lessons From a Wasp Murderer
Art the Bug Guy came by my house yesterday.
Here's how Art works: I call his office. His wife answers. She chats for a while, then tells me he'll call me when he returns from wherever he's currently chemically massacring insects. Later, he calls me. He never forgets, and I never have to call twice. When he calls, he always asks how my family and the school where I work are doing. He tells me when he'll be in my area, and I promise to leave him a check on the kitchen table and remind him where we hide the key.
He's never, ever missed an appointment.
Yesterday, I pulled in the driveway as he was getting ready to start. Art had gotten to my house early, and was tramping around the vacant lot next door, just looking at trees and plants. I had my kids in the car, so Art handed them both a sucker from a bag he keeps in his glove box, and asked how their little league games had gone. He let them watch him mix the poison and showed them how the giant pressurized spray tank works. He talked about his son, about to head off to Anderson College on a full scholarship, and how quickly our children grow.
He asked where I went to high school, and we learned that I had formerly taught several of his current clients.
Then he began killing bugs.
While he sprayed, Jack Tyler followed him, fascinated. Macy and I were planting some flowers, so we went out to the compost pile to get some dirt. We found some bugs that we thought were termites, which made no sense to us, since there was no wood underground for them to eat. So we brought them to Art.
He confirmed that they were termites, and informed us that they often live in compost piles digesting the cellulose of the paper people compost. Art found some more termites closer to the house in an old stump, then gave a short lesson to my children on what makes termites so valuable (they're the only living organism on the planet that can digest cellulose).
On his way back to the truck, he pointed out a tree that needed to be dropped. It was leaning away from the house, but a strong wind could blow it down in the opposite direction, and it would reach my roof without too much trouble.
All this, on a Saturday morning.
This is business at its best, as pure art. No policies, no procedures, no handbook. Just simple, human relationship combined with excellence of function that approaches beauty. Art understands his job. It's to ensure that my family can enjoy our home without being stung by wasps or bitten by spiders. Art loves his job. It's evident in every movement he takes. He took five minutes to discuss the engineering work that went into his spray can. He wasn't selling them; I just asked an innocent question and he explained what made this model better than any other spray can on the market. It was like listening to Jackson Pollock discuss the relative merits of color.
Art has no playbook. Art has no infrastructure. Art has no business degree. What Art has is an abiding love of his work, and a style of communication that makes that love evident to anyone who watches him do his job.
Armed with only that, Art is making a comfortable living, and leaving comfortable lives in his wake.
If you have a house around Pelham, AL, call Art at 205.620.4519. I'm not getting paid for this. I'm just mesmerized by excellence, and I love to watch and talk about people who love what they do.
I think this touches on one of the things we get wrong in our high schools: we focus so relentlessly on grades and scholarships and colleges that our kids don’t have nearly enough time to simply head out into the world and interact with professionals who can show them what it’s like to love the work so much that it doesn’t feel like work anymore.
I’d rather create students who skipped college but feel value and purpose in their work than students who went to college for free but dread getting out of bed each morning. Wouldn’t you?
(This has been repurposed from a post that I originally posted in 2011 on the now-defunct 36 Review website.)