The Chain Gang

93-Year-Old Wendy’s Employee Would Rather Refill Your Drink Than Be Lonesome

He remembers when Wendy was <i>this</i> big.
He remembers when Wendy was this big. Photo: Wendy’s

Joel Presson loves people, so he basically plans to work for as long as he can at the Oxford, Ohio, Wendy’s where he’s been since 1989. He’s half a century older than the company, at least putting him in the running for oldest fast-food employee in the world, and despite years of wisdom from working food-industry jobs throughout his life, Presson refuses to go into management. “I didn’t want to do that, because I’d had 60 years of it, and that was enough,” he says.

Instead, Presson says he plans to stick to customer interaction, the thing he does best. “[W]hen you lived on a farm during the Depression years, and you didn’t have anybody visiting you except a mule, you swore then you were going to find a place where you could be around people,” he explains, apparently forgetting the part about how he’s an unstoppable workhorse: Presson “carries big buckets of ice, he takes the garbage out, he gets all the refills, he cleans the tables, he mops the floors, he prepares salads,” his shift manager says. “He does a little bit of everything.”

93-year-old Wendy’s employee going strong [Dayton Daily News]

93-Year-Old Wendy’s Employee Would Rather Refill Your Drink Than Be