There are many people who can’t imagine working for so many years in the same place. However, the story of Ruth Shuster is surprising. This woman turned 100 years old and is still an employee at a McDonald’s restaurant.
Ruth has worked for more than 20 years at the fast food chain, and according to EFE, she hasn’t even thought about hanging up her apron and retiring. “I was widowed when I was 50, and I’ve been working always, always, since then, and I like to work,” the woman said.
At McDonald’s, Ruth works at a branch in Pennsylvania, United States, where she has been since she was 73 in 1994. She goes there three days a week to work greeting every person who comes to the restaurant and to clean the tables.
However, the coronavirus pandemic changed the way some food places have to operate, so now she no longer does the same things as before. As she said, she misses being able to welcome the people who came in to have a Big Mac or a Quarter Pounder.
Before, when customers arrived, she would greet them by singing and dancing. But now she said that “you can’t dance anywhere. There are no dances.” Also, it’s harder for people to stay in the restaurant to eat, so now McDonald’s is operating almost exclusively with home deliveries.
Despite having worked in the same place for 27 years and her advanced age, she has no plans to retire “in any way. I don’t even think about it.”
And her birthday caused such a stir in the city where she works that the North Huntingdon McDonald’s branch set up a mailbox so people could leave her their congratulations for reaching a century of life. In the meantime, Ruth will stay there waiting for the pandemic to end so she can once again welcome customers with dances and songs, just as she used to.
Although Ruth passed away shortly after turning 100, her place at McDonald’s remains empty: no one has been able to match the joy with which she greeted each customer. What is the legacy you would like to leave at your job?