Lead Huddle Mart manager Tyrone Diment will be hanging up his jester’s hat when he goes home after his Halloween night shift, a fitting costume for his last day of an 11-year tenure working at Notre Dame.
When dealing with students, Diment is always smiling.
His signature jest is telling students “good morning” after midnight. He also says “see you tomorrow” to students as they leave LaFortune Student Center for the night, whether or not they’re everyday customers.
“I love it,” Diment said of his job. “Saying good morning and getting some shock reaction, I love that. Especially today, I'm getting people looking at me then looking away. They don't want to talk to me with this hat on. It's Halloween. Come on! It never was a regular day.”
Student employees at the Huddle interrupted Diment’s interview with The Observer to give Diment a hug.
“We’re not going to ‘see you tomorrow,’” one of the students said jokingly in reference to his own line.
Despite believing strongly in the value of the Huddle for the lives of Notre Dame students, Diment’s job as lead manager had significant challenges.
“It’s a very essential business. We need more, better products. I'm just having problems with the people who give us our products, our purveyors.” Diment said. “We’re too small peanuts. (The purveyors) do all the grocery stores.”
He would shrug his shoulders when students asked if the Huddle sells lighters. According to Diment, they are no longer sold in the market due to problems with purveyor services, but he often would suggest other places on campus where students with unlit cigarettes could locate a flame.
Diment said he has found the work “entertaining.” His job entails interacting with countless “inebriated students” on weekend nights along with hordes of freshmen and sophomores who populate the student center each night.
“There’s the partiers. There’s the ones who are doing well in school. There’s ones that have a lot of manners. There’s a few ‘rich-ies,” Diment said. “There’s all different types, and that’s great. I love that, and that’s why I fit in here so well.”
Diment is a South Bend native, but has also lived in California and Florida, having visited at least 38 states and three countries.
After a 23-year stint working for Quality Dining, Diment’s arrival at Notre Dame came after taking a two-hour community course in South Bend on job applications and resumé creation, where a now-retired Notre Dame ethics professor was teaching at the time.
“He said business ethics and ethics are the same thing, and I go, ‘no, they’re not,” Diment said.
The “friendly argument” was friendly enough to prompt the professor into encouraging Diment to come look for work at Notre Dame. After attending a job fair in Grace Hall, he secured an internship in food services at Notre Dame, taking on lead manager positions at the former Smashburger and Subway locations in LaFortune Student Center before entering his current role at the Huddle.
As he enters retirement, Diment will devote more time working on his Ebay business along with “organizing my life a little better.”
What else did Diment have to say about his time working at Notre Dame?
“I miss Quarter Dogs.”
