At 90, She’s a Real McMaster on the Job : Elderly: Mary Virden isn’t spending her golden years at home--she’s the oldest McDonald’s worker in the state.

When 90-year-old Mary E. Virden goes to McDonald’s, she doesn’t settle into a booth with a coffee, burger and fries.

Instead, with the intensity of one of her teen-age great-grandchildren, Virden hustles through the busy Torrance restaurant near her home with a broom and dustpan in hand, scooping up trays and wiping down surfaces in a flurry.

McDonald’s officials say Virden is their oldest employee in the state, and nationwide she is second only to a 91-year-old worker in Texas.

Her red company hat sitting atop her gray head, Virden recently agreed to sit down on the job for a few minutes to talk, but when the brief interview was over she took off to make up for lost time.

“I do everything,” explained Virden, who works the four-hour afternoon shift four days a week for $4.90 an hour. “I clean tables and seats. I empty all the waste cans--there are eight of them. I sweep the floor. I do spills--there are a lot of those. I make sure the restrooms are kept clean.”

Some might find the work grueling or tedious, she acknowledged, but not her. Working at a fast food restaurant is easier than housework, she said.

“I don’t want to sit at home,” Virden said. “There’s nothing to do but watch TV and I can’t do that all day.”

Before she donned her polyester uniform and “Mary V.” employee badge 5 1/2 years ago, Virden occasionally stopped into the fast food restaurant in Del Amo Fashion Center for a coffee and mall-walking break. She spotted some graying, wrinkled employees and thought, “Why not?”

She surprised the manager when she revealed on her application that she was born in 1901. She was hired as a part-time crew member in charge of keeping the eating area clean.

“She’s doing the job of young kids,” said repairman Walter Dias, 63, a regular customer and admirer. “I wonder if I can get to that age and keep working. I wonder if I will be that strong at that age--if I get to that age.”

Virden is one of a growing number of senior citizens who are still drawing paychecks. Companies, seeking to stave off a shortage of teen-age and twenty-something workers caused by the aging of the baby boomers, have tried to tap the senior citizen market through recruitment drives like McDonald’s “McMasters” program.

McDonald’s launched the program in Baltimore in 1986 to formalize its practice of hiring senior citizens. “McMasters” prints applications aimed at seniors on tray liners, encourages franchise owners to recruit help at senior citizen social functions and provides skills training for older workers.

McMasters employees are on the same pay scale as other hourly employees, which begins at the federal minimum wage of $4.25, and can advance to assistant manager and manager positions like their younger counterparts.

One concern among older workers is keeping their annual earnings low enough--currently about $10,000--that they do not lose Social Security benefits.

“She’s an older lady and she works as hard, if not harder, than the other employees,” said Ray Lim, who has owned the restaurant for the past year. “She’s hard working, dependable, very energetic and likes to help out people.”

Virden, who lives in a home that her son owns in Redondo Beach, doesn’t pay rent or mortgage. Her Social Security benefits from the days when she ran a hotel near El Segundo and her restaurant pay cover her living expenses and the coins she pumps into slot machines during occasional jaunts to Las Vegas.

Many of Virden’s friends and relatives tell her she ought to slow down but she says working keeps her spirits high and fights off the aches of old age.

Virden, a widow who has four retired children and a host of other kin, is not a member of any senior citizens club and does not think she could ever live in a retirement community. She’s a people person, she says, and gets along just as well with the young customers who call her “Grandma” as with the senior citizens who are closer to her children’s age.

On her days off, Virden does not relax at home, either. Tuesday is shopping day, and every Thursday she takes the bus to Gladys’ Beauty Salon in Hawthorne to get her hair done.

Owner Gladys Shaffer, 81, a hairdresser for the past 62 years, considers Virden an inspiration.

“She sure doesn’t look like her age,” she said. “She bubbles over with energy. I don’t think I’ll be working when I’m 91.”

Virden is not a big eater so she rarely samples the Big Macs, Chicken McNuggets or other McDonald’s fare. Instead, she spends her 10-minute afternoon break munching wheat crackers or a slice of bread covered with peanut butter.

“I know I should say that I eat McDonald’s food,” she said, “but if I ate a burger in 10 minutes I’d get indigestion.”