AT 24, Paulina Mansa Gollo assumed duty as a lotto receiver of the then Department of National Lotteries, now National Lotteries Authority (NLA) and at 74 she is active on the job.
Over the decades she served has her customers smoothly and diligently without any pause.
Popularly known as Daa Paulie in Ho, she started work on August 15, 1974, in her kiosk near Tarso Hotel in Ho.
That was after she completed the Ho-Kpodzi E.P. Middle School.
Daa Paulie said she earlier applied for many jobs with little success.
At one stage, she said she trained as a typist and worked briefly as a secretary with a law firm.
Daa Paulie also trained as a Hello Girl (telephone operator) and was offered that job by the then Post and Telecommunications (P&T).
However, that job offer coincided with that of a lotto receiver.
Weighing the two, Daa Paulie chose the lotto kiosk because with that she would be allowed to bring her newborn son to work, unlike the other.
“So, I started working as a lotto receiver with great zeal and enthusiasm,” she told this reporter.
The single mother of four said in those days, the lotto numbers were written in ink and the job entailed travelling to Accra weekly for the booklets and the draws were only on Saturday.
She said she was not daunted by the frequent trips to Accra, carrying her baby along because she was full of energy then.
TM: There are a lot of lotto receivers in Ho but you seem very popular. What is the secret?
Daa Paulie: You just have to be nice to the customers. They are the reason I am in the kiosk. I also do not allow any customer to jump the queue, no matter their status. I respect all my customers equally.
TM: So, have you never had any unpleasant encounters with a customer since you started this job?
Daa Paulie: That was in the days of the revolution when one political officeholder tried to jump the queue and I told him to join the queue and he got upset and invoked his political status, asking me if I knew him. But I told him to respect those who were in the queue before he arrived at the kiosk. We later resolved the issue amicably.
TM: Will you never retire?
Daa Paulie: I still have so much strength in me and I cannot just sit at home.
Source: graphic.com
