Checker Bags Grocery Chain’s Courtesy Crown

When it comes to nice, don’t even think about tangling with Pam Yerman.

Yerman is not merely nice, but tournament-caliber nice. She can out-greet you, out-smile you, and out-extend herself for you, no problem. At the Ralphs supermarket chain, she has outshined 10,000 other female employees and recently was crowned this year’s Queen of Courtesy. There’s also a King of Courtesy. I understand that he’s nice too.

I was anxious about meeting Yerman at her east Ventura home last week. Some people think of me as a nice guy but--like most other men--I’m just a repulsive toad wrapped in a veneer of niceness as thin as the crust on a corn dog. If anyone could see through me, it would be the Queen of Courtesy.

But she gave me a cup of coffee and put me at my ease--because she’s really, really nice--both to me and to her customers.

“My job is to make them happy, and I’m happy to do it,” she said.

Need some impossible-to-pronounce vegetable for a new recipe? No problem. She’ll call around to see if she can find it.

Wandered into the express lane with a full cart? That’s all right: She’s sure you didn’t realize.

Fuming because the lady in front of you dredged a sock full of coupons from her handbag and you had to wait longer than usual?

“Gosh!” Yerman exclaims to the line of fidgeting shoppers. “Do you realize she saved $82 with those coupons? You’ve got to admire that!”

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Yerman works a checkout counter and does other customer-service chores at the Ralphs on Telephone Road in Ventura. For four years, her fellow employees have voted her the store’s courtesy queen. This year, she made it up to district queen. After a grueling series of cordial interviews with Ralphs executives, she was named--to her great surprise--the queen of the chain’s 312 stores, the nicest woman who ever put squash to scanner in all of Southern California.

“It’s embarrassing,” the queen said with a smile. “I mean, it’s humbling.”

She had just completed her morning routine: Up at 6 a.m., coffee, Bible study, walk on the beach, prayer.

“Beautiful!” she said. “Even on the bad days, I know I’m blessed to have a job, blessed to live in this area--why, people come here on vacation!”

It would be churlish to argue with such a positive viewpoint, especially because Yerman has had more than her share of bad days.

Seven years ago, her husband’s health plummeted. Near death, Barry Yerman survived only with the help of a liver transplant. Since then, the anti-rejection drugs have done a hellish job on his immune system. He has diabetes and is hobbled with osteoporosis. He has endured six heart attacks.

For a while, Pam, the mother of two, didn’t let on that she was profoundly frightened. The victim of her own relentlessly upbeat attitude, she developed an ulcer. Her customers, of course, never knew.

“You’re a professional,” she said. “No matter what your problem, when you step onto the sale floor, you put a smile on your face. Two seconds later, you’re feeling good.”

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A veteran of 24 years in the supermarket game, Yerman started at Alpha Beta, which was acquired by Ralphs five years ago. At 43, she has served generations of shoppers.

“You know when their babies are due,” she said. “You see them growing up. You even see some of the kids coming to work for us. One time at Yosemite, someone passed us on the trail, came back and said to me: “Alpha Beta, Ventura--right?”

Yet for all her grocery experience, she never felt a thrill quite like the one that ran through her at last month’s company awards banquet.

About 1,600 guests had gathered for the lavish affair at the Century Plaza hotel in Los Angeles. Images of the finalists were projected onto huge overhead screens. Yerman had met the 15 other finalists for Queen of Courtesy, and they were all as nice as could be.

The tension mounted. The winner would receive not just corporate acclaim, but also a diamond brooch, a check for $1,000 and a trip for two to Hawaii.

The third runner-up was announced, then the second and first.

“When they announced that our queen comes from east Ventura, I didn’t hear another thing,” she said. “I jumped up, my husband jumped up. It was quite a moment.”

But she vowed it wouldn’t go to her head. “Even when I was a box person and got a promotion to checker,” she said, “I told myself, ‘I’ll always remember what it’s like to be a box person.’ ”

Nice words to live by.

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Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. His e-mail address is steve.chawkins@latimes.com.