“Just hire me for two weeks.” At age 75, Kyungtaek Jang convinced the manager during a job interview.
Since retiring, Jang has applied to more than 200 workplaces over the past two years. Although there were plenty of offers for caregivers and night shifts, he finally landed two jobs a few miles from his home. Despite not having a resume, the manager at Taco Bell was impressed by his confidence.
Jang has worked part-time at Taco Bell’s Santa Clarita location since September last year. The franchise restaurant employs many workers to minimize hours and allow them to work in shifts. The average employment period at a location is six to eight months, but Jang has now been working there for almost a year.
He started working 24 to 30 hours a week, but since April, he’s been working fewer hours as the company adjusted to the $20 minimum hourly wage for California’s fast food workers.
Jang is the oldest employee at the restaurant, which employs 25 people who work part-time day and night. He set aside his previous experience and apprenticed from the bottom up. Jang, who does three times as much work as he’s given, is the best employee for the 23-year-old manager.
No job is exactly what it seems. Everything in the restaurant is part of the job. Cleaning and washing dishes are basic tasks, along with frying French fries and making Mexican pizza. If a coworker runs out of ingredients, he restocks them, and if the floor gets messy, he cleans it up. Jang is the first person his manager calls when an employee calls in sick.
Since his retirement in 2021, Jang has kept himself busy with mountain biking, marathons, triathlons, and snowboarding, but his days off felt too uneventful.
There was still some inertia from the 50 years of nonstop work he’d done since immigrating to the U.S. He came to the U.S. with his older brother in 1973, and at the age of 27, did whatever he could to make a living. In 1992, he opened a small gift shop in a mall.
It was then that the vice president of franchise leasing for Wetzel’s Pretzels, who had noticed his diligence, suggested he start a branch. Jang won the license for two locations in South Bay Galleria Mall and Lakewood Mall, becoming the first Korean-American operator of the pretzel franchise. He was trusted enough by founder and CEO Bill Phelps to win the Glendale Americana at Brand location over 100 other applicants. At one point, he had the No. 1 monthly sales among franchisees nationwide, a feat he attributes to his diligence.
That diligence is what makes him one of Taco Bell’s elite employees at the age of 75.
Jang operated four locations of Wetzel’s Pretzels, including the Glendale Americana at Brand, for 28 years before selling them upon his retirement.
Working at Taco Bell has given Jang a sense of accomplishment and confidence that money can’t buy at age 75.
“I was so happy that I couldn’t sleep when I got the job,” he said, emphasizing that “if you want to do real work after retirement, you have to forget your old career and start anew.”
BY EUNYOUNG LEE, HOONSIK WOO [lee.eunyoung6@koreadaily.com]
