It’s no surprise that we receive more complaints than praise. Ask those who deliver any product or service — cable company, gas company, restaurants, airlines, media — whether they receive more complaints or compliments and I believe you’ll hear the same answers. It’s not that exceptional service isn’t delivered on a consistent basis, but it’s that you rarely hear from people when things are going great.
That is, unless you work for College Station Public Works’ Sanitation Division.
In terms of our city organization, these men and women apparently are the shining stars, because I see more citizen expressions of gratitude toward them than all other departments combined. Some recent excerpts:
Regarding crews — especially Daniel Garcia and Alan Pedrazine — picking up pieces of an old fence stacked curbside:
“Amazing effort and excellent service provided by our city! Every city I have lived in before College Station, it has been a hassle to get large trash like this picked up. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate the job you and your team are doing and you made me proud to be a resident of College Station today.”
A residence that had many trees pruned, creating large stacks of debris:
“Your workers did a great job of cleaning the small debris left by the cherry picker. Please thank the crew that services our area. We are impressed with the curbside services the City of College Station provides. We appreciate and thank everyone involved who make these services run so smoothly.”
On a request for brush pickup:
“I want to thank Missy Green and Trey Schultz for responding so promptly to pick up my brush. I know you get calls all the time when you do something wrong, so I wanted to take out the time and call in something done right. Missy was courteous and professional when she explained that the crews would try to work me in, but to actually come home and see that Trey had removed the brush and left my yard spotless was amazing.”
About brush collection led by crew members Danny and Alan being so professional in removing debris and performing additional clean-up:
“They are employees of the month!”
When a resident’s trash can was knocked over and the trash not picked up (via a friend):
“My friend called Sanitation and had an ‘unbelievably pleasant’ conversation with Kym (Rucker) and reported that Sanitation was out within the hour to pick up her can and get everything back to normal. She was very appreciative of the thankless job the Sanitation workers have. She posted her positive experience on a social media site, and several other CS residents piped up with similar positive experiences.”
Related to debris stacked in a precarious location:
“I simply wanted to say THANK YOU! to the Trash department for their assistance yesterday. We had a tree company remove several large trees from our property at that were creating issues with power lines, etc. The tree company placed the refuge on the curb but under a low-hanging limb making it near impossible for the recycling truck to remove. I called the office and was greeted by a very respectful and professional lady (unfortunately whose name I did not get). She transferred me to the supervisor in charge of curb pick up, Victoria Williams, who immediately agreed to go by the property to see what could be done. Between her professionalism and willingness to go above and beyond, as well as the boom operator’s technical abilities, they were able to remove the debris. Thank you again! One of the many reasons we miss living in the BCS!”
To be clear, we routinely receive positive comments about our police and fire personnel, parks staff, utilities crews and many others who work hard every day to deliver high-quality services to residents and visitors. But our sanitation personnel consistently lead the pack in garnering well-deserved praise.
And that’s the kind of trash talk we really enjoy.
