'Della' dishes out lots of love to students at the Pit
By Kezia McKeague
Contributing Reporter

ARAMARK Campus Dining Services employs over 165 people, but Odella Conrad is one of the best known to the student population.

Called Della for short, she chats and smiles while swiping cards behind the Pit register. She says her favorite part about her job is getting to know students, whom she affectionately calls pet names like darling, sugar or sweetie.

In her effort to connect faces with names, Conrad usually looks at the name on the card when a student pays. “I’d say I know an average of 30 names right off the bat, but it’s probably a lot more,” she said.

Conrad also tries to judge the student’s mood. “When somebody looks tired or upset about a test grade, I ask: you want a hug?” she said.

On Family Weekend, Conrad says students frequently introduce their parents to “their friend in the Pit.” Some children attending a camp held at the university this past summer also became attached to Conrad. As a good-bye present they gave her a T-shirt decorated with over 75 signatures.

Junior Jonathan Horvath thinks that Conrad’s consistent cheerfulness makes the food “taste 10 times better.”

Horvath first met Conrad as a high school student interviewing for a scholarship.

“The scholarship officers took us to lunch in the Mag Room, and as I was putting some tomatoes on a salad, I heard somebody say loudly ‘Who’s that? He’s cute.’ She then asked my name and whether I have a girlfriend,” Horvath said. Conrad’s response to his affirmative reply “You just need to leave her alone.”

“She keeps you laughing all the time. She teases you in a really jolly way,” said Veronica Cruickshank, the resident district manager of ARAMARK.

“I guess I have a knack for getting people to run their mouths,” Conrad said.

Conrad has worked for ARAMARK “off and on for about two years,” she said. Except for six months spent in the Magnolia Room, she usually runs the registers in the Pit.

Conrad grew up in Winston-Salem. Divorced, she is a single mother to her 13-year-old son and six-year-old daughter.

She describes life as a working mom as “most definitely difficult.” Her schedule gives her Fridays and Saturdays off, but she works the night shift on Tuesdays and the first shift (breakfast and lunch) the rest of the week.

Aramark makes a policy of not releasing its employees’ pay rates, according to Cruickshank. Conrad described her salary as “not bad,” although she thinks she should be paid at least 50 cents more per hour. She said, “I’ll put it this way—it’s less than eight (dollars an hour).”

“I gave myself extra work because I got a puppy two months ago,” Conrad said. “But the kids enjoy it.”

Habitat for Humanity will soon build her a house so that she has more space for what she calls her “2.5 kids,” puppy included.

“I’ll know in November where the house is going to be, Conrad said. “A lot of students I’ve mentioned it to want to help construct it.”

When she has spare time, Conrad likes to do jigsaw puzzles and to “take old and beat-up stuff and make it look new.” Her last project was re-sanding and re-painting a desk and chair for her daughter’s room.

Though raised a Baptist, Della has been studying the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses for the last two years.

“I don’t claim to be one, but I do believe that what they say is the truth,” Della said. She plans on becoming baptized as a Jehovah’s Witness in the near future.

Della’s other plans involve continuing to work in the Pit.

“I really do like my job,” she said.