Loraine Maurer just celebrated a very big work anniversary: 44 years at McDonald's.
The 94-year-old has been working at various Evansville, Indiana locations since 1973. On Thursday, her customers and coworkers acknowledged her contributions with personal congratulations and a cake that read, "Miss Loraine, 44 years of service," decorated with icing in the company's colors and a photo of its logo.
Maurer has not only worked at McDonald's for an impressive amount of time but has also eaten a remarkable amount of the chain's food. She's helped herself to McDonald's food during every single shift, and even when she's home sick, customers or coworkers bring it to her. The fish sandwich is her favorite menu item, but she loves everything from the blueberry muffins to the coffee.
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What's kept her at it for so long isn't the food, though: It's the people. She's gotten so close to her customers that every single day during winter, someone will offer to drop her off at home. They confide in her about their lives, introduce her to their children, and ask her to say prayers for them.
"My customers make my life," she told People. "I have traveled with them, gone to ball games with them. They’re friends, not just customers."
Last year, The Straits Times reported that Goh Gwek Eng, a 92-year-old working in a Singapore McDonald's at the time, was the restaurant's oldest employee. But it looks like they might've been wrong. Maurer might not hold that record either: In 2015, WHAG declared 95-year-old Harriett Clopper, who worked at a Maryland McDonald's, to be the oldest McDonald's employee in the country.
Whoever the true record-holder is, all these workers show commendable commitment and hard work, not to mention enviable job satisfaction. If only everyone wanted to remain at their job well into their 90s.