Rotorua grandmother Lynne Ogilvie is one of KFC’s longest-serving employees, stepping down in June this year after 43 years with the restaurant chain.
It’s a remarkable tenure, but growing up one of eight children, the 71-year-old says she’s always known the value of hard work.
Her Wainuiomata childhood was busy caring for her younger siblings, she was married at 18 and didn’t hesitate to take on five jobs when as a young mother her family needed the financial support.
One of those jobs was at KFC, where for more than four decades she steadfastly served locals.
These days, Lynne’s semi-retired, although she’s still busy every day helping her daughter and grandchildren or in the garden. But on a rare free morning, she sat down to talk to the Weekly about life after KFC…
“It was 1979 and I had two young children when I started to look for work. We’d recently moved to Rotorua and jobs were hard to come by then. But I went around everywhere and I ended up with five!
I was a hotel portress Sunday night to Friday morning from 11pm-7am. I worked at KFC Friday and Saturday night for four hours and all day Sunday. And every second weekend I worked at a fruit shop, and I had two house-cleaning jobs.
I used to wake up in the morning, thinking, ‘Oh, my God, what day is it? Where am I meant to be?’
Eventually, I got asked to work full-time at KFC and over the years, I slowly cut down my hours when my grandchildren came along.
Now I still maintain the gardens in the carpark. It’s about first impressions. There’s nothing worse than going into a place and seeing rubbish in doorways.
I also work for my daughter three days a week, and normally pick up my grandkids from school and look after them till 6pm.
Compared to 43 years at KFC, this is easy. There, you’re under pressure and there’s always something to do. I was never standing still.
I’ve always been a hard worker. I was the third oldest of eight kids, so I mothered the younger ones. My younger sisters didn’t like my husband much for taking me away from them.
I started on $2.47 an hour at KFC, but I’ve got a nice home now and you could say that’s from KFC. I’ve always believed if you want anything, you have to work for it.
When I see the younger generation today not turn up to work, I can’t understand it. The respect I had for my employer, I could never have done that.
I look around now and I’m happy with what I’ve achieved and taught my own kids.
They both worked at KFC when they were younger for a while. Now my daughter and her husband have a thriving car dismantler business, and my son is in Australia working for himself as a painter. He learned the trade off my husband Trevor and he does such a good job, he could be teaching his trade.
When I first started at KFC, it was a little hatch store. On race day, we used to have queues out the door and I could take around 100 orders on my shift.
Then we changed to a restaurant and drive-through, and the screens started coming in.
I remember first talking on the mic, and my boss asked me to go home and practice using a loud, deep voice because my voice was very high-pitched.
But I loved my customers. Over the years, I’ve seen them courting, get married, have kids, sometimes separate and even partners sadly die. I really got to know all these people.
I still go in sometimes or take the grandkids and quite often, there’ll be a customer there that knows me and says, ‘Can’t you keep away from the place?’
I could have climbed the ladder and become a manager, but I liked to just be me, come in and do my job.
On my last shift, a customer bought a quarter pack and wanted me to sign the box. He made it very special for me.
But it was time to go. My knees are struggling now. I ran competitively for 20 years and standing on the concrete floor in boots was getting harder.
It was my neighbours who got me into running. They could see that I needed to do something for myself. I did marathons, cross-country, track, I even won a few national titles.
My husband took up running just before he turned 50 too and went on to be a world-class runner. That was another journey and a different part of my life.
I haven’t been running for about 10 years, but I mountain bike with my friend.
Now, I’m so proud of my grandchildren Bayley and Brooklyn, and how well they’re doing with their sports. I’m really enjoying having the extra time we see them every day.
I don’t know if or when I’ll fully retire. My husband is 74 and he’s still painting, but being more flexible, I’m loving it.”
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