84-Year-Old Drive-Thru Cashier Retires from McDonald’s After 45 Years: ‘I Feel Great’

In 1978, Dot Sharp, a single mother of four, would visit a McDonald’s in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania, where her two daughters were working at the time.

“I used to pick them up and drop them off, and then I would go late at night and pick them up or on the weekends and pick them up to take home,” the now 84-year-old tells PEOPLE. “And they told me: ‘You’ve been here so long. Why don’t you just get a job here?’ And so I applied.”

On Jan. 12, 45 years after she started working there, Sharp had her last shift.

“I feel great,” he says of retirement. “But it’s so sad that I’m leaving because I don’t get to meet all my great customers and all the great people I work with. But I’ll visit them often.”

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File photo of former McDonald’s employee Dot Sharp.

Courtesy of Kerry Ford PR

Sharp worked in several restaurants and offices before starting at McDonald’s, where she says it was easy to balance work and raising children.

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“I always started at four in the morning and was done around one or two in the afternoon,” she explains. “So I was at home taking care of the kids, bringing them dinner and making sure they had their homework and everything done. So [McDonald’s] was a great place to work.”

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Sharp held several roles during her nearly five decades working for the fast-food giant, but she found immense satisfaction as a cashier at the facility.

“I loved the customers in their auto-thru,” she shares. “They used to sing to me. If they knew I was on the loudspeaker, they would sing to me. We had a great time and had wonderful customers coming in.”

She witnessed firsthand several McDonald’s innovations — including the Happy Meal in 1979, McCafe beverages in 2001 and even the McPizza — and also has fond memories of bingo held every Tuesday morning at Gibsonia for seniors, including a former Pittsburgh player Steelers Fran Rogel.

Dot Sharp has worked at the McDonald’s location in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania since 1978.

Courtesy of Kerry Ford PR

“He’d walk in the door in the morning. Everyone would stand up and clap, and they’d say, ‘Hey, doddle doddle, Rogel up in the middle,'” she says. “And he’d run around the store and pretend he was playing football, and he’d make us laugh the whole time he was there. Memories like that kept me there, and it was just luck.”

On January 12, Sharp celebrated her last day of work with a surprise party that included a cake, balloons and flowers. “It was a complete shock because I really didn’t expect anything like that,” she says, adding that she expected him to just “go home.”

“It was amazing what they did,” she adds.

Retirement cake in honor of longtime McDonald’s employee Dot Sharp.

Courtesy of Kerry Ford PR

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Sharp’s ties to McDonald’s will continue through her granddaughter, Dottie Sims, who herself has been an employee at the restaurant since she was 15 years old.

“It was always a work ethic,” Sims, now 35, says of her grandmother. “Honestly, I can’t remember her ever being late for work, and she was always well-dressed and well-dressed. If I had come in with a wrinkled shirt, they would have yelled at me.”

Speaking to PEOPLE, Meghan Sweeney, owner and manager of McDonald’s Gibsonia location, also praised Sharp’s dedication.

“One of my favorite memories of her is that she would come up and yell, ‘Get out of that row!’ or ‘Move that bus!’ because [Extreme Makeover: Home Edition] was one of the popular TV shows,” she says. “When we weren’t driving on the freeway, she would turn around and yell, ‘Move that bus!’ You had to have fun.”

Dottie Sims, granddaughter of Dot Sharp; Dot Sharp and Meghan Sweeney, owner and manager of McDonald’s.

Courtesy of Kerry Ford PR

Sharp attributes his commitment to “fun” at work. “It was luck,” says the 84-year-old, who kept her “coming back and coming back.”

Sharp now says he plans to spend his retirement with his family. “I have a daughter who is retired and a son who is retired,” she says. “I think we’re going to spend a little more time together and visit family we haven’t seen in a long time and be reunited with family.”

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