17 ms·
100-year-old Brazilian breaks record after 84 years at same company
- jeandejean 4y agoThat's a record very unlikely to be broken anytime soon. Starting working before 18 is becoming more and more uncommon and staying at the same company is definitely unfashionable nowadays...
- lnsru 4y agoI learned from clever dad in Germany - employ your kids asap. So you will help them paying into retirement fund reach working year count needed for retirement faster.
- ghaff 4y agoWhile this is obviously a way-way outlier, 10-25 years is not that rare (including in more traditional technology companies) and I'm not really sure 2-3 years is the norm in a lot of places.
- scarface74 4y agoJust as an aside, the longest serving employee at any of the Big Tech companies has to be Chris Espinosa. He started working at Apple in 1976. The only current Big Tech company that is as old as Apple is Microsoft and their longest serving employees started in the 80s. Larry Ellison comes close. He founded Oracle in 1977 and he is still the CEO. https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Chris_Espinosa https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Chris_Espinosa https://news.microsoft.com/2005/09/21/qa-members-of-microsofts-20-year-club-reflect-on-the-past-and-the-future/ https://news.microsoft.com/2005/09/21/qa-members-of-microsof...
- ghaff 4y agoMore common is companies like IBM and people who have continuous employment through acquisitions by IBM/HP/etc. My favorite long-term tech employee is Thomas Nies who co-founded Cincom, arguably the first ISV, in 1968 and is also still the CEO.
- scarface74 4y agoWell, IBM purged a lot of their old timers. https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-american-workers/ https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-a...
- travisgriggs 4y agoOh wow. Finding Cincom mentioned here in HN is like a cognitive dysphoria for me. I worked at Cincom between 2006-2012. Eliot Miranda summed it up best when he said “Cincom is where software goes to die.” It is the geriatric retirement center for aging software.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- akamaka 4y agoThis person worked for Intel for 47 years before retiring last year: https://community.intel.com/t5/Blogs/Intel/We-Are-Intel/Intel-s-Longest-Serving-Employee-Leslie-Serrano-Retires-After-an/post/1334652 https://community.intel.com/t5/Blogs/Intel/We-Are-Intel/Inte...
- oblio 4y agoFounders/owners shouldn't count.
- _8j50 4y agoEither way, shouldn't be a big deal. It's a job not a marriage, there are no "till death do us part" vows which people still break because they "grew apart" or whatever. An unhappy employee staying only for loyalty harms both the employee and the employer and no one can be expected to know where they will be in life and as a person more than a few years into the future.
- david422 4y agoI wonder what his performance reviews are like. 4/5 stars, room for improvement.
- labster 4y agoHis answer to “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” really showed his lack of engagement.
- misja111 4y agoSeriously, I'm 52 years old, last year I was interviewing for a new job and one company was asking me that same question. My honest answer would have been 'retired' but this would probably have broken their HR system.
- amanzi 4y agoHe looks pretty good for a 100-year-old. Not sure it's a record I would want though...
- spyremeown 4y agoNever thought I’d see something from my state on hn’s frontage.
- madengr 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- meetups323 4y ago> Walter broke his own record set in 2019 with 81 years and 85 days. So not exactly news... still impressive, and some quotes worth considering: > Walter believes that the best part about having a job is that it gives you a sense of purpose, commitment and a routine. > He comments that the best professional advice he can give is to try to work for a good company and in an area where you feel motivated. > "I don’t do much planning, nor care much about tomorrow. All I care about is that tomorrow will be another day in which I will wake up, get up, exercise and go to work; you need to get busy with the present, not the past or the future. Here and now is what counts. So, let’s go to work!" An Eckhart Tolle fan? :)
- novok 4y agoWhen your 100, you don't know if you'll wake up the next day, so you take one day at a time.
- FinanceAnon 4y agoTechnically, he is breaking his record every day that he doesn't quit
- gusfrehse 4y agoor die...
- chrisco255 4y agoIf only this guy knew how much money he left on the table by not switching jobs every 2 years.
- teh_klev 4y agoHow do you know that he wasn't already being compensated well enough?
- tacocataco 4y agoOur lives are priceless. So IMO, everyone will always be underpaid.
- asd88 4y agoI know. He could have switched jobs and doubled his TC a long time ago.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y agoi mean i 5x'd my tc with 1 job switch but i didn't start in faang
- skeeter2020 4y ago
- hdjrudni 4y agoty.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoI did that too once when I went from a 6 hour part time after school job to my first proper job.
- headsoup 4y agoOr, perhaps this guy was happy and has enjoyed his whole career, rather than constantly seeking that bigger paycheck 'cos money rules. This guy might just ask how content you feel now, or are you already looking out for that next paycheck jump?
- donthellbanme 4y ago1st picture there's a typewriter. And why not. (I sometimes think we threw the baby out with the bath water.) He needs to make a shipping label. No problem. No computer. No printer. No special labels.
- sumanthvepa 4y agoI'm impressed by the longevity of his employer. At least one of the companies I worked for no longer exists.
- ghaff 4y agoNone of my previous employers still exist. And I'm close to retirement. (And my current employer is now a subsidiary.)
- leovonl 4y agoThat's quite an achievement, and I'm even more impressed he was able to do so in the textile industry that suffered so much in the mid-nineties in the region. Context: I'm from the Itajaí Valley (where Brusque is located), which has a strong textile industry - one of the main drivers of the local economy. It used to be much stronger until the disastrous Collor government caused a number of them to go bankrupt or severely reduce their production due to some serious mismanagement of the Brazilian economy. Edit: His original employment contract can be found here (in Portuguese, a bit difficult to read): https://www.brusquememoria.com.br/acervo-imagem/2057 https://www.brusquememoria.com.br/acervo-imagem/2057
- jrumbut 4y agoWell, by the 90s he had some seniority.
- schoen 4y agoWow, at the very top of the contract it says Brusque - Sta. Catharina That h looks so out of place to me. It looks like etymological ch, ph, and th (for vocabulary derived from Greek) were abolished in 1943 https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formul%C3%A1rio_Ortogr%C3%A1fico_de_1943#A_ortografia_do_portugu%C3%AAs_brasileiro_antes_da_reforma_de_1943 https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formul%C3%A1rio_Ortogr%C3%A1fi...
- DoctorDabadedoo 4y agoThe language evolves with society, Santa Catarina now is spelled like this. Brazilian Portuguese had a bunch of strange phonemes in the early XX century, to be honest.
- spyremeown 4y agoPharmácia, anyone?
- tomcam 4y ago
- mattkrause 4y agoPer the article, he was born in Brazil (Brusque, a small town in Santa Catarina).
- hasmolo 4y agoit’s an implication he’s a nazi
- skippyboxedhero 4y agoWait until he finds out where most people in the US came from...big twist incoming.
- TapWaterBandit 4y agoHow so? Most people in the USA are descendants from the British Isles (including Ireland).
- skippyboxedhero 4y agoNowhere close to it. The early migrants were from Britain but they were vastly outnumbered by later migrants in the 19th century who came in their millions. Just generally, the reason why people left Britain in the 17th century was of excess labour/crushing poverty. The English Civil War increased mortality so that by the end of the 17th century, few were willing to leave (which led to a change in labour supply for the US of some significance). Migration increased, again, in the early 19th century due to some fairly harsh recessions in textiles employment...but people fled Italy, Ireland, and Germany in far larger numbers because the economic issues there were more severe: crushing poverty, massive overpopulation, no economic opportunity or way to sustain life. Just quantitatively though, I suppose Mexico is probably close to the biggest actual migrant flow...although that largely reflects the fact that the population is bigger than it was in 1850.
- skippyboxedhero 4y agoIrving Kahn is another example of someone who worked, I believe, until he died at 109. Famous investor, was a TA in Ben Graham's course when Buffett was a student (the latter is now 91), and worked in fund management from 1928 (good timing) until 2015 (87 years in all)...but not at the same company. Not everyone finds themselves in the kind of job that they are happy to do through old age, but it is nice to see when it happens.
- brailsafe 4y agoOh man with a personal best of ~1.5, I got a ways to go
- coastflow 4y agoThe longevity of his employment is likely a result of the company's willingness to promote him instead of hiring externally, despite his start at the entry level. This is not likely to happen anymore, at least nowadays. From the article: "After getting his first position as a shipping assistant, Walter showed outstanding skills and willingness to learn, always doing more than expected. [...] Shortly after, he was promoted to a position in sales. Then, he became a successful Sales Manager." I once spoke with a professional baker who started off as a machine operator for a bakery in his late teens, then earned promotion to become a production supervisor and then distribution manager. He then moved companies to become a plant manager, and later an operations director involved in baking formulation, until becoming an account manager (sales) for large baking firms. The commonality between these stories is that loyalty and hard work at a job has historically enabled people to earn a good quality of life. Nowadays, it intuitively seems like internal promotions from the very entry level are harder to come by, as many firms prefer to hire people with degrees for management or hire externally. Instead of promoting internally like in the past, I read and heard from managers they prefer to recruit externally for management positions. They perceive that internal candidates lack "leadership qualities" from past interactions with them, and/or perceive that they produce more value in their current positions. When asked how they account for these people changing jobs for promotions to lead elsewhere, the response was that they would say they understood the former employees' positions and would wish them well (without openly reconsidering whether they were under-weighing the value of internal promotion).
- Tepix 4y agoNot necessarily. I encountered a coworker who retired after having worked for 50 years at the same company. He was not in management.
- radu_floricica 4y agoWell, hiring from outside is a solution to the Peter principle. I'm not saying it's a good idea, but it has its justifications.
- ftlio 4y ago
- DarthNebo 4y agoNever
- Shadonototra 4y agoThat's impressive, living this long and having enough energy to be active
- pil0u 4y agoI understand why some people might find this achievement positively impressive. The article also describes this mister as happy and in a good health. It reminds me of how sad I find the idea of working 84 years. This is the paroxysm of how humans are trained and educated to work.
- moltar 4y agoWhy is that sad? And how do you define work? Personally, I love what I do and would be delighted to be still able to work at his age.
- ehsankia 4y agoThe definition of work is definitely important. What if your work, for example, is creating art. Would "retiring" mean no longer creating art, and just sitting at home all day doing nothing? Watching TV, eating and sleeping? The issue is that a large portion of jobs are repetitive and uninteresting work that people only do as a way to get money. But for others, work can be something that gives them purpose and they enjoy. If anything, I would wager the reason he's lived so long is partly due to staying active with his work.
- renewiltord 4y agoThe Remains of The Day described one particular pathology quite well. Reducing one’s identity to one’s work and intentionally closing doors on experiences can lead to a life with regrets. However my parents are in their late 60s and I can see that there is a joy to be gained from being able to put your skills to work. They’re both great parents but now we’re all grown up and they can do whatever they want and despite traveling the world and everything they are still most satisfied when they’re operating (apart from when they’re with us, obviously). That’s definitely something I want for myself. It reminds me that the Polgar sisters still enjoy chess. Their parents early drive for them to excel at the game did not hurt it for them.
- Aloha 4y agoI watched my grandparents friends retire and die. I decided that retirement was bad, better to keep working and enjoy life at home he same time rather than saving it up for the end.
- headsoup 4y agoWhat astounds me, is not the time spent at the company but how much change and advancement he saw along the way. I'm not old enough to have experienced the absence of internet, smoking in offices, manually switched phone exchanges, no digital mail, fully manual processes, etc. What an incredible amount of change to witness. I just get to see a continuous rollout of technical solutions to mostly questions not asked or understood :/
- greedo 4y agoI always tell my kids how their great-grandfather was a real Renaissance man. He graduated with a degree in Engineering and learned to fly biplanes between the World Wars and ended up flying for Pan Am. The last plane he flew was the 707. Quite a bit different than the Curtis Jenny he started with.
- bjarneh 4y ago> On 17 January 1938, Walter Orthmann started work as a shipping assistant when he was fifteen years old at a textile company in Santa Catarina Hard to wrap your head around someone working at the same place from before 2. world war. Both him and his employer must have been quite good at adapting to a changing business landscape.
- tibbydudeza 4y agoI worked 19 years at one company - Covid got me.
- sgt 4y agoYou got sick or the company went bust?
- tibbydudeza 4y agoI got sick like many but the MBA's made me redundant before that. Being close to retirement age played a role.
- sgt 4y agoFrom your name it looks like you are in South Africa. If so, it would be interesting to know if you are in the market. I'm in Stellenbosch.
- tibbydudeza 4y agoThanks but I am contracting now since the beginning of the year. C for a long time but then SAP ABAP when the company implemented it 11 years back. After the layoff I picked up JS/Python and doing that now.
- sgt 4y agoGlad to hear. There really is insane demand for developers at the moment. We struggle to find people.
- tibbydudeza 4y agoWhat are you looking for - JS/React ???
- 4y ago
- ryanmercer 4y agoThis year I left my previous employer with 15 and a half years of service shudder I can't imagine having worked another single day for them, let alone 84 years.
- mupuff1234 4y agoSurprised the record isn't in Japan given the work culture and the high life expectancy.
- itsumoiru 4y agoThere's a culture of forced retirement there too, so it's not at all surprising. Pay generally increases with age so Japanese companies want people to retire.
- tapanjk 4y ago> "I don’t do much planning, nor care much about tomorrow. All I care about is that tomorrow will be another day in which I will wake up, get up, exercise and go to work; you need to get busy with the present, not the past or the future. Here and now is what counts. So, let’s go to work!" That's something I want to do but find it extremely hard to do.
- throwaway743 4y ago"Achievement"? This is depressing as hell. It'd be one thing if he was working for himself, not an employer and not out of necessity.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agovs every farmer ever, who worked a lifetime at the same job?
- ghaff 4y agoYeah, this is really about employees at a large company. There are probably quite a few family businesses where someone(s) have been connected with the store or whatever for a long time.
- charlieyu1 4y agoA record of longest career in same company. Does it imply someone has a even longer career but with different companies?
- vmception 4y agoHe didn’t break a record, they created a record. Which guinness does.
- outsidetheparty 4y agoI was wondering about the poor fellow who'd worked 83 years at some other company, now stripped of his majesty
- birdman3131 4y agoI have a couple coworkers that are up there but not quite to his level. 1 is a machinist started in 1962 and is half retired. Comes in Monday - Wednesday from 7am-11am. The other is sales and works a full 40 hour week. Started in 1960.
- mello151 4y agoThe cynic in me is thinking they just didn't pay this man enough to be able to retire.
- zw123456 4y agoOK, I dunno if I can top that. Definitely not. But... I went to work for Bell Labs in 1978 after getting MSEE, then went to work for a start up with a bunch of Labs buddies about 5 years later that company got bought out by one of the "baby Bells" that went on a spending spree of acquisitions after the break up of ma bell, they bridged my service as if I had never left, hey, thank you very much ! then, a few years later I went to work for another startup working on this new cool technology you may have heard of "cellular" wireless phones duh. K, again, guess what, airtouch bought us out, they bridged my service again, hey thank you very much dudes. Then, (tired of this yet) after working for those dolts for a while I left and went to work for another start up which will go nameless but has to do with fiber stuff. Those guys got bought out by the Big V company, they bridged my service again ! thank you very much again (tons of vaca time). I have worked for, but my count 5 different companies and yet, never lost a day of service! 44 years and counting. So anyone out there who would like to get bought out by a big company, simply hire me and they will buy you to get me back. Probably, I am thinking that has to be it. right ? it's all about me :)
- env123 4y agoAm I the only one who notices that for a centanarian, he looks in a good shape. And I'm not talking health-wise but also mental-wise. You could tell from his posture, demeanor and gleam of his eyes that his mental capacity has not been dimmered by old age