Lottery’s Big Winner Is in a Spin : New Millionairess Copes With Fame, Phone Calls and an Extra Work Shift

What kind of an employee does a millionairess make? A dedicated but not terribly effective one--at least not the day after she becomes the second person to land the largest windfall in California Lottery history.

“The phone has not stopped ringing,” said Bonnie Snell, who went to work at Westminster’s Don Jose restaurant Sunday morning--even though she had won $3 million less than 24 hours earlier. “I haven’t been able to do the office work and the general watching of the restaurant. I appreciate all the attention, but I’m not a public person.”

When the 54-year-old Huntington Beach woman spun the multicolored wheel in Sacramento on Saturday and watched the tiny ball fall into the coveted slot, she didn’t realize that she had inherited Orange County’s biggest headache at the same time she became Orange County’s biggest winner.

So she went to work anyway. Granted, she showed up a bit later than her scheduled 9 a.m. arrival time, but then her lottery party had kept her up until 3:30 a.m., and “I just couldn’t get motivated” the next day, she said.

On arrival, her co-workers presented her with a cake and a balloon bouquet. Appropriately enough, the cake was decorated with green dollar signs and another (although losing) lottery ticket, and the balloons bore sentiments such as “Happy Retirement,” “You’re a Winner” and “Congratulations.”

But when the celebration stopped, the telephone started ringing. Reporters, photographers and well-wishers dogged the exhausted assistant manager all day.

So when she finally strode into the restaurant’s darkened bar at 3 p.m.--where subdued Rams fans were watching the New England Patriots trounce the Miami Dolphins--she bore the same frustrated expression as Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, who had just been sacked on the screen behind her.

“Our other manager just called in sick, and I have to make arrangements to reach our supervisor, and my time is getting short, and I have to do the payroll,” she said, blinking bloodshot eyes and wringing her hands.

“I’m not trying to be hard to get along with, but it’s been so hard to get anything done today. . . . I just figured it would be all right (to come to work as planned), but I didn’t realize all the confusion it would cause,” she said breathlessly, during her sixth--or was it seventh--interview.

Unfortunately, Sunday went from bad to worse, and Snell soon learned that there is no rest for the wealthy. Instead of spending her first day as a millionairess by cruising the Mercedes-Benz dealerships and Saks Fifth Avenue’s fur department, Snell put in a double shift at Don Jose’s to cover for her sick colleague.

Anyone else might have told the restaurant management where it could put its nachos and gone home to bed, but not this soft-spoken winner. Before scurrying off to fill an order, one Don Jose waitress described her boss as kind and understanding, “just like your mom.”

Waitress Kim Langlais, 23, said the lucky lady is “fantastic.”

“I don’t think anyone deserved this more than Bonnie,” Langlais said. “Everyone comes before her. If you need anyone to talk to, you can always talk to Bonnie.”

And bartender Victor Gonzales, who had heard of Snell’s win on a Spanish-language radio station the day before, said: “I was so happy for her. That way, she doesn’t have to work no more. At the same time, I am sad if she leaves.”

For now, Gonzales doesn’t have to worry. Snell said she will work for at least “a little while longer.” Her only plans so far are to take a week’s vacation, pay some bills, give her two sons and one daughter some financial assistance and get out of the limelight.

“I’m not going to scream if someone asks me what I’m going to do with the money,” she sighed, “but I don’t know how many more times I can get asked that question.”