This Guy Has Spent 84 Years at the (Same) Office

A man in Brazil has just broken his own Guinness World Record for the longest stint at one company. And after 84 years, Walter Orthmann is still excited to get up and go to the office. He's a 100-year-old sales manager at textile company ReneauxView, which was called Industrias Renaux SA when he came aboard as a 15-year-old shipping assistant, intending to help out his family, on Jan. 17, 1938. "He went to the weaving mill with his mom to apply for a job, and, because of his strong proficiency in German, he was hired," according to Guinness, which notes his native area of Santa Catarina "has a large German population." Soon after appointed to a position in sales, "I traveled to São Paulo and in less than one week I filled the production with orders equivalent of three (months) of work," Orthmann tells Guinness.

On Jan. 6, Guinness confirmed his 84 years and 9 days at ReneauxView mark the longest career anyone has had with a single company. Orthmann, who broke his own record of 81 years and 85 days set in 2019, says it's his "proudest achievement." "I don't do much planning, nor care much about tomorrow. All I care about is that tomorrow will be another day in which I will wake up, get up, exercise and go to work," he says, per USA Today. Orthmann, who celebrated his 100th birthday on April 19, says work gives him a routine and a sense of purpose. His advice for anyone seeking a similar long-term post is to find a good company where people feel motivated. "You need to get busy with the present, not the past or the future," he says. And "when we do what we like, we don't see the time go by." (More Guinness World Records stories.)