Home Depots oldest employee, 100, couldnt stand retirement shes still ringing up customers: Ive gotten so sick of myself
At 100 years old, JoCleta Wilson still isn’t ready to retire — but she is ready to share her tips for a long life.Wilson works two mornings a week, from 6 a.m.
to 10 a.m., at a Home Depot in Louisville, Kentucky — making her the company’s oldest employee in the U.S.The centenarian applied to the job to socialize and engage with people after retirement bored her.
“That is because I want to communicate with people,” Wilson told WAVE 3 News.“If you are not working, you lose your art of conversing.“I’ve retired three times. Each time was 10 years, and I’ve gotten so sick of myself, I couldn’t stand it,” she quipped.She celebrated her most recent milestone birthday last October with a lively shindig at her home, featuring two piano players and 80 guests, and a “huge party” hosted by Home Depot.
Wilson lives independently in her own house, driving herself to work and the store, not to mention cooking for herself.She hires help for cleaning and yard work, explaining to TODAY.com with a laugh, “I could do it, but I don’t want to.I’ve gotten a little smarter by this age.” But Wilson doesn’t necessarily feel her age.
“I feel like I’m 39 heading into 40.That’s how it feels,” she noted.
The energetic woman is a breast cancer survivor with emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and a pacemaker, but insists that “everything else works just fine” and remains remarkably active as she has all of her life.“You can’t sweat the small stuff. So, I just don’t think about it,” she said.
Wilson was a professional dancer for much of her life, starting as a child and later performing with the June Taylor Dancers doing rhythm tap.For 37 years, she owned and taught at the Louisville Dance Academy and still dances daily.
She uses her Alexa speaker to play music that inspires her to let loose.“I have the radio everywhere.Thank goodness for Alexa.
I tell her to play something that’s really good to jump to, and I ha...