Photo • Marcia Barnes David Mauchly talks about growing up in New Jersey and a move in 2022 to Hayesville to find a job.
By Marcia Barnes
Feature Writer
David Mauchly has a lot of friends.
Mauchly has friends working with him behind the customer service counter and friends who walk through the automatic sliding doors at a local grocery. He is a cashier and the self-checkout attendant at Hayesville’s Ingles.
Mauchly grew up in New Jersey. He said that one of the reasons for moving south was because it was very difficult to find work there. The jobs were already taken. When Mauchly moved to Hayesville on April 1, 2022, he quickly found work.
“I filled out the application and three months later had the job. There was a training program of a couple of days, then I was winging it. If I needed help I could just go up and ask for help. There was a big backup if I got in trouble,” Mauchly said.
The cashier and checkout attendant said there is rarely any trouble. The most difficult situation seems to be only when a money transfer is needed and there is a language barrier. When that happens the best speaker is designated to fill out the paperwork, then everything moves on smoothly.
Occasionally there’s a price error but it’s an oversight, Mauchly said and a small error among the massive amount of work.
Mauchly’s daily assignments offer him the opportunity to greet customers coming into the self checkout area and to quickly fix any problem with the computerized system where customers place grocery items big and small, frozen or not on a machine that can weigh, ask questions and add a price to the total bill.
There is a myriad of movement in the super-sized store where Mauchly has worked for over a year. He said that because it’s a larger store tourists are coming through and especially during the summer and Ingles customers from other counties come because of the selection in frozen and foreign foods.
“The big concern is freshness,” Mauchly said. “There are daily shipments and everything is fresh at the deli. Meats come in bigger shipments and bi-weekly. In addition to that, every other day wine and beer are delivered and that is accelerated during the summer.”
Watermelons can come in by the hundreds, blooming flowers and bulbs come from Mills River and Mayfield, Boar’s Head, Coke and Pepsi trucks can be seen pulling in and out of a massive driveway. Mauchly said there is also the nearly unseen, non-stop job of the scanning coordinator.
Mauchly is pleased to be working with fellow employees. The store is open just short of 365 days a year and helping customers throughout changing seasons is something Mauchly enjoys, especially the holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
“We try super hard,” Mauchly said. “Most of humanity has not had the opportunity to eat like kings and queens. Just look at the spice shelves. We don’t have direct control into what comes in shipments, but we do our best everyday to meet customer needs which includes curb-side pickup.
“What strikes me most is the appreciation customers have for the store and the service we give. We aren’t the historical center of Hayesville like the Courthouse on the Square, but Ingles gets more foot traffic,” Mauchly said.