In the sitcom “Friends” (1994-2004), Joey Tribbiani is well-known for his pickup line: “How you doin’?” Here at Albion, we have our own person who asks how our days are going: a cashier at Baldwin who is always doing “peachy.”
According to Carol Triemstra, she began working at Albion College four years ago in the smoothie shop and became a Metz cashier two years later, swiping people in at Baldwin. In her work and in life, Triemstra said she likes “to make people happy.” It was as a cashier that her “peachy” catchphrase – her go-to response when someone asks how she’s doing – began to catch on.
“I started saying ‘peachy’ because I said that anyway,” Triemstra said. “Then all of a sudden, people started saying that back to me, and I’m going, ‘Oh, okay! This is going to be fun.’”
The ‘Peachy’ Fan Club
Berkley sophomore Madeline Welsh said that ever since her first year on campus, Triemstra has made her want to keep coming back to Baldwin. She added she now feels like she and Triemstra mutually look forward to seeing each other.
“Eventually, we started talking every single day,” Welsh said. “I would come in, she would ask how I was, and now it’s our thing where I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m lemony,’ and she’ll be like, ‘I’m huckleberry’ instead of peachy.”
Dallas junior Elliott Cooper, who goes to Baldwin daily for lunch and dinner, said he used to tease Triemstra for always saying peachy, resulting in a brief period where she’d respond that she was “grapey” instead. He said he appreciates Triemstra’s “cheekily happy attitude” and the way she says she’s peachy “every day without fail, with a smile on her face.”
Cooper said that “if being happy is a mindset,” Triemstra “exemplifies that perfectly.” He added she has a “lightheartedness” about her that’s “kind of whimsical, almost.”
“Life isn’t a fairy tale, but if you force it to be, it can be,” Cooper said.
Triemstra’s Life, Travel
Triemstra said she and her five siblings grew up with their parents in Kalamazoo, often traveling as a family to swim at Silver Beach, run up the 303 steps and down the dune at Mount “Baldy” in Saugatuck and sled at Echo Valley.
Once she was older, Triemstra said her brother took her to Hawaii and Europe, where she took the train to Zermatt, Switzerland, visited the Colosseum in Rome and saw the Eiffel Tower.
After graduating high school and working for eight years at a post office in Kalamazoo, Triemstra quit her job.
“I just knew there had to be more to life than Kalamazoo, Michigan,” Triemstra said.
So, Triemstra and her high school boyfriend traveled around the country while he spliced telephone cables. They lived in Arizona, New Mexico, California and Washington; the couple briefly returned to Michigan before moving on to Ohio, Louisiana and finally settling in Florida, but “broke up not that long after” arriving in Florida, she said.
Soon, Triemstra got a job as the first woman working on the factory floor at Simpson Cleaning Systems. She said she’d been looking through index cards at the employment office, and upon pulling out their business card, an employee said, “they only hire men.” Triemstra replied, “Make me an appointment with that one.”
“I had four brothers I grew up with,” Triemstra said. “I could do everything they could.”
She added it was “funny” how she got the job. She didn’t have a car at the time, and during her interview for the job, she talked to the matriarch of the family-owned business.
“I went on my 10-speed, bandana around my head, flip-flops on,” Triemstra said. “Then I was sitting there talking to the mother. We never talked about work. We were just sitting there talking, you know? And after a while, she goes, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, you’re hired.’”
Triemstra said she later became a supervisor and remained at the company for 20 years until they merged with a larger company. A few years later, she moved back home to be near her parents and “got a good job in Battle Creek, working at the fort in quality control,” where she stayed for 20 years.
In 2014, Triemstra met her current boyfriend, Randy, and later moved to Albion with him before eventually starting her current job at Albion College.
Bringing ‘Infectious’ Joy Into Students’ Lives
Initially, Triemstra said she was nervous to transition to a role with a lot of face-to-face interaction, having worked factory positions for many years. However, she said she realized “it’s fun.”
“You get to meet everybody and look at them in the eye and say, ‘How are you today?’” Triemstra said.
Triemstra added that Albion students remind her “of being young.”
“I can see how hard they’re working to help better their lives,” Triemstra said. “They help me, and I hopefully help them.”
Welsh said she thinks “a lot of people can learn from Carol,” adding that her “consistent” manner of asking people how their days are going stands out.
“That is radiant, and it is infectious,” Welsh said. “That’s probably the most special thing about Carol. She doesn’t have to be the way she is, but she continues to do it.”
Triemstra said sometimes she notices students “are hard to crack,” and when she sees them not smiling, she wants to help. When students are having a bad day, Triemstra said she tells them, “You’re doing good, just keep on trying.”
“I challenge myself here to make all you students happy,” Triemstra said. “When you walk away after scanning, I want to make sure that you’ve got a smile on your face.”
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