Wernher, 32, knows what it is like to struggle.

The son of a math and physics teacher, Wernher came to the United States, and Cambridge, on a student visa in the winter of 1981.

After spending three months learning English at Northeastern University, he was admitted to study electronics at the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Roxbury. Even though he had been exposed to the best Haitian schools offered, Wernher found American education different, and more difficult.

Books and studying did not bother him. But America's wealth of technology and advanced electronic equipment was overwhelming.

"School was hard," he remembers. "In my country, we don't have laboratories."

Still, Wernher caught on quickly, specializing in work with transistors, and earned his degree in electronics in 1985.

Diploma in hand, Wernher P. went looking for a job. It was then that he ran into a stone wall. No one in New England was hiring in the field of electronics.

That is when Wernher discovered Au Bon Pain.

At just over $7 per hour, working behind the counter at the ABP in Harvard Square seemed like a good temporary job. Granted, it offered no health insurance, no benefits, no vacations. But it was a job, and Wernher P. needed the money.

Five years later (minus a brief stint in 1986-87 working for another fast food chain), Wernher P. is still there, now with his brother, Berkeley. The two share an apartment in Chelsea.

In July, the hourly wage dropped by more than a dollar.

"With regard to money, it's depressing," he says. "I know I'm capable of doing better than that. But, as the saying goes, the one who wins the best race isn't always the best." And in characteristic fashion, he laughs.

Wernher P. does not blame anyone for his hardships. "Basically, the people here are great," he says of his co-workers and supervisors at Au Bon Pain. "But the big shots? I won't say they don't care, but they don't encourage you too much."

A Matter of Self-Respect

Despite all, Wernher is working harder than ever.