By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Customers at Dillons on 10th Street in Great Bend know pretty fast if Donald Robinson is working. For the past three decades, his boisterous laugh has been part of the grocery-shopping experience locally. Last week, he officially celebrated 30 years with the store...and of sharing laughs with customers.
"If I actually think about it, when I was a lot younger, I wanted to be a comedian like Richard Pryor," he said. "Now since I think about it, it's like the customers are my audience. That was the closest I could get to that dream, I guess."
A Great Bend native, Robinson began working at Dillons as part of a work program for high school students. He was one of eight kids in the program, and the only one that lasted.
"Of course, out of the eight of us, I was the only one that kept my job," he said. "That is funny because I was the laziest kid but still kept my job."
Robinson carried out groceries when he first started. A previous store manager tried to get him to check, but Robinson was not interested. For nearly two decades now, Robinson has helped run the U-Scan self-checkout lanes.
But his biggest asset to the company may be the laugh. Customers far and wide know the laugh, and many do what they can to get a chuckle out of the 47-year-old. For Robinson, the laugh is nothing new.
"The laugh started when I was in elementary," he said. "It was just something I got in trouble for a lot, boy, especially with Homer Kruckenberg. He didn't like my laugh when it was test time in class."
For one of his favorite store memories, Robinson goes all the way back to his starting days when a customer routinely came in and told the employees how to go about their jobs.
"I still, to this day, don't know his name," Robinson said. "He came into the store, and he also came into the little one. I called him the 'Dillons Monitor,' because he solely came in there, not to shop, but to tell you how to do your job. The first couple of weeks, I thought he was a corporate person."
In his downtime, Robinson enjoys playing video games, and he's up to speed on current TV shows. For his 30 years, Dillons celebrated with a cake, complete with Robinson's likeness on top. He also had the opportunity to shop from a gift catalog, going with an iGrill Bluetooth meat thermometer.