 Dayna Awkard |
Worked for Albemarle County for: 18 years come March 15
Resides in: Waynesboro
Job title: Deputy Clerk. She started working as a deputy clerk straight out of Fluvanna High School after her mother noticed an ad for the job. “She knew I loved typing and office stuff,” Awkard says. Although she initially resisted taking the job, she says she now loves it. “I couldn’t see myself anywhere but here. I’ve been here for so long.” Still, she says that one day she would like to be a lawyer, “since I know a little about the law and everything, the codes and how you do this and how you do that. Me and the attorneys get along great.” When Awkard’s not filing or attending to the other aspects of her day-to-day gig, she rushes home to her new son, born seven months ago. “I love to spend all my time with him,” she says. “I can’t wait for the summer to get here so we can do things.”
Best of times: “Doing the new suits because I love typing. There’s never a dull moment here.”
Worst of times: “We deal with the public all day long and they can be a pain in the you-know-what, and they can be mean as you-know-what. They come up here, especially when trying to get a divorce, and they don’t understand that we have no forms, we can’t tell you how to do it, we’re not attorneys, we just work here. They don’t want to hear that.”
Strangest moments on the job: “Nowadays, nothing surprises me at all. It all plays out. For example, divorce files that go on and on and on with no children, and we’ll have, like, five boxes for one file. They’re fighting over the property, or a dog. That’s strange. From 1997-2008? C’mon now. Somebody got to agree on something. Move on.”
If her job were done by a superhero, it’d be: “The Incredibles, all of them. I can stretch my arm out and get this and get that. They do all kinds of stuff.”