Many people in America today, particularly those that have email jobs at megacorps, bounce around from job to job every few years, so staying at the same job for half a decade seems like a long time to many people. Well, a woman in Tyler, Texas, just retired from a Dillard’s store at which she worked for nearly seven and a half decades.
That woman, Melba Mebane, is now 90 and started working at the store in 1949, before it was even called “Dillard’s,” and first worked as an elevator operator, then sold clothes to men, then finally moved to selling cosmetics. Now she’s retired and a party was held in her honor on June 10th, at which time she was presented with a Certificate of Excellence for being the longest-working employee ever at Dillard’s.
Speaking about the job from which she just retired after 74 years, Melba said, “I loved everybody there, and I loved to go to work every day.” Then, when asked what it meant that so many people got together for a retirement party for her, she said, “Oh, I love it. I didn’t know I had so many friends.”
Melba Mebane, 90, started working at the department store in Tyler, Texas as an elevator operator in 1949. https://t.co/MKCJ4W0zmF
— 13abc (@13abc) June 12, 2023
Her son, Terry, spoke about why she decided to retire after working there for so long, saying, “She kind of had outgrown most of the fellow employees, and all retired, and it was kind of a new generation, so she decided, ‘Maybe time to go do something fun.’” He added that she very much enjoyed working with all those there, saying, “She loved, she really enjoyed the conversations with the people.”
Further, Terry said that Melba was very close to the executives of the retail shop, saying, “My mother was good friends with Mr. and Mrs. Bill Dillard. They just adored her for being there all those years. So bottom line, the store managers would say, ‘Hey, the Dillards are going to be here on Thursday. Somebody call Melba because she’s got to be here when the Dillards are here.’ She was like a buffer.”
Similarly, the vice president of Dillard’s, Drue Dillard Matheny, said, “[Melba] is the happiest most ‘up’ person — gives so much service to the community. She’s made so many friends. I would come watch her in cosmetics and just go, ‘I wish I could be like that,’ because she was incredible with people. Still is.”
Matheny added, when speaking to Melba about her long record of working at the store, “We love you. You’ve been one of the most important people at Dillard’s for 70 years, and we love you, and God bless you.”
Dillard’s store manager James Saenz, speaking to Fox News about Melba and her career in the store, said, “Even [with] the changing times, from where she started to where we are now in the modern world, her values and everything still stand.”
Saenz added, when speaking about Melba, “Melba sets the tone for everything, every expectation, every customer service quality that we look for in a luxury experience. She provides all of it to the team. Can you imagine how many people she coached and taught and trained to aspire to be more? It’s just amazing to think of how many people’s lives she touched. She’s not just a salesperson. She’s a mother. She guides you. She gives you advice on life. She’s amazing.”
Saenz also said that Melba has never missed a day, making her long career at Dillard’s all the more impressive.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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