Retiree Finds Her Job Is Labor of Love

After she retired from her position as a Moorpark bank supervisor five years ago, Caroline Hebert, 67, widowed and the mother of two grown children, imagined her free hours would be filled with all the things she’d never had the time to do.

There were the stacks of books she would read, and the gardening, a holdover hobby from her native Virginia, she would immerse herself in.

But it didn’t take long before her feelings about time--a once-precious commodity--began to change. Hebert, who lives alone in her Oxnard home, soon felt oppressed by the weight of the hours. And within a few months of her retirement, she was volunteering part time at a nearby thrift store. Even if it wasn’t the most satisfying activity, she figured, at least it helped her stay busy.

It never occurred to her that she could return to work in a field she knew and that she would be welcomed back by her former employers. This was an idea that came to her when she spotted a newspaper ad for part-time tellers at the bank where she used to work. Seniors, the ad said, were encouraged to apply.

“I went down to the office where I used to work and asked about it, and the woman who explained it to me asked me if I would be interested,” Hebert recalled. “I said to her that I should sleep on it. It never entered my mind when I first retired that I’d ever go back.”

The next day, though, Hebert did go back, convinced that keeping a toehold in the working world was the solution to the loneliness and isolation she’d been feeling. She had a new uniform, a new office to work in and, most of all, a new sense of energy and purpose.

“I wanted to get out of the house, to have someone to talk to other than my cat,” said Hebert, who works at the Bank of A. Levy in Camarillo. “It wasn’t so much a financial need. It was a people need.”

Today, nearly three years later, Hebert is convinced she made the right decision. And there is little doubt, she says, that she is as capable an employee as some of her younger counterparts. Although she is only supposed to work 8 hours a week, when things get busy or short-staffed, she cheerfully works 40.

“I can accomplish just as much as anyone younger,” she said. “I enjoy good health. I get to see old customers. The year before last, I never missed a day of work. Last year, I only lost one day.

“I don’t intend to quit tomorrow,” she added. “I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I did.”