A Day in the Life: A Pier Cashier

"Who's next?" she calls as you step up to the plate.

"I'll have the turkey sandwich with BBQ Baked Lays, two strawberry yogurts, a veggie tray, a large Powerade and an oatmeal cup," you say as she punches the color-coded buttons, the balance rises, the Spidercard is swiped (twice) with a "How you doin' today?" punctuated by the one-handed wave of a paper bag, and before you can answer, she's off...

"Did she get all that?" you wonder as you watch her glide through the aluminum galley. Will she remember I said strawberry? you think as she ducks into the display case. If you're standing in front of Pat's register (second from the right), she will.

Pat has been working beneath the golden letters of Tyler's Grill for nine years. Before that, the Richmond native worked as the cashier in a convenience store at Virginia Commonwealth University, she said.

"I'm pretty familiar with college life," she said.

When Pat gets to work in the morning, it's still dark outside.

"So I sure should be bein' appreciated this week, you know, with it bein' foodservice appreciation," she said with a laugh.

I'm not sure that I'd be as cheerful as Pat if I had to be at work at 6:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. Even as her shift nears it's 3 p.m. end, she's still smiling.

The first thing she does when she arrives in the morning is stock the front case with yogurts and snacks as the cooks prepare the food. She said it didn't start to get busy until 7:30 a.m. and it stayed that way until 9 a.m. She knows most of the kids that come in, especially the football players.

"I tell em' 'Good luck' if they have a game on Saturday and 'Congratulations' if they won a game," she said.

She said that the most poplar breakfast items were the sausage, egg and cheese biscuit or the egg and cheese bagel, but when the lunch rush began around 11 a.m. it was the weekly special and the turkey sandwich that went fastest. She estimated that the students order between 60 and 70 wraps a day.

Most of the students are pretty polite, she said. Sometimes she had to be especially patient with a student who couldn't decide between the chicken tenders and the chicken tender wrap or the apple tray and the bagel. ...

"You know, patience, I guess, is a virtue for some people," she said.

On her lunch break, Pat likes to try the weekly special. She said that this week's roast beef and cheddar wrap was very good but she especially liked days when the frozen yogurt is her favorite flavor: Georgia Peach.

Pat said she liked her job, but when she was younger she had wanted to be a journalist. I told her to write for The Collegian.

Lucky for us, Pat has no plans of leaving and after nine years she certainly deserves our appreciation.

So, this week, if you're unwrapping a straw in front of the second register from the right, let her know you care. And if you're thinking about getting Pat something special, her favorite color is royal blue. ...