It would be hard to miss George Corday when visiting Terceira’s Shell Service Station in Smith’s.

Known for his jovial manner and big smile, George has been a part of the businesses family for more than a decade. It all started, Mr. Corday says when he finished working for BGA, where he was the transportation manager and decided to take about six months off to do some work at home and travel.

“It wasn’t even two weeks into my six months that I ran into Ralph (Terceira) and he convinced me that he needed me desperately to come down and work for him. So I came down here, sort of, just to see how it worked out, and, 12 years later, I’m still here,” he chuckles.

The two men have known each other for many more years through Mr. Terceira’s father, Malcolm and their mutual interest in horses.

Mr. Corday served as manager for most of the time he has been at the service station, until four years ago when he decided to cut back: “I’m only working part-time now. I used to work full-time and ran it for (Mr. Terceira) when he wasn’t here, but I decided that I only wanted to work part-time, so now I just work mornings, Monday to Friday, which works out good for me.”

“It gives me free time in the afternoon to do what I want to do like play golf,” he adds.

Today golf and his grandchildren take up much of his free time and he can be found on the green at Belmont Hills Golf Club at least twice a week.

“We have a bunch of guys I play with every Wednesday and Thursday. And of course, we have either fun or regular tournaments up at Belmont every Sunday. So, I definitely enjoy playing golf.

“I also play with my three grandchildren and each one spends a day at our house during the week. So that keeps me quite busy, picking loquats and playing games, and keeping up with them.”

Mr. Corday admits he has thoroughly enjoyed working at the service station, and admits you need to be a special kind of person to work in this line of business: “You must be a people person. You must greet people in a friendly manner and ask them if you can help them and assist them.”

He adds that it is a customer-orientated business and if you are polite to people and friendly, everyone will give you a tip and reward you for your services.

“Of course, working in a gas station is like anything else. If you are a reliable, dependable person and you show your employer that you can make time; they need people inside the places to run them and you get paid accordingly.”

Mr. Corday is always eager to share advice: “If the fuel pump attendants are friendly and polite to customers, they can make quite a substantial amount of money in a day in tips, as well as their wages.

“You can make a decent living working in a gas station if you’ve got the right personality,” he concedes.

How much longer does he plan on staying at the North Shore service station? “Well, my big 6-0 is next year. It’s not written in stone, but I always said when I got to 60, I would retire. But I don’t know. I’m kind of a young 60 — I’m quite an active guy,” he chuckles. “I don’t feel 60, yet, so when that day comes— actually, I go 60 next year in May.

“Well, I’ll make the decision then, but I imagine I’ll probably hang around for a couple more years.”