The average age of our company's employees is approaching fifty. In our work teams, there are also sixty-year-olds, but also 20-year-old young people. Can they cooperate, understand each other?
Our oldest employee, Ján Hidaši, works at DZ Koksovňa as a process engineer. This year it will be 49 years since he joined the ironworks. "The facts won't let go. I am born in 1958. In 1973, I entered an apprenticeship school in Šaca, where I trained as an operating electrician. I followed my brother, who worked in the ironworks, there were good job opportunities," he says.
He first worked as an electrician, measuring instrument mechanic, computer equipment maintainer. So he is one of the pioneers, he knows microprocessors in detail, of course, not the latest ones. "Even though I was only a young ear, I got along very well with everyone, even with older colleagues. I knew many of them from Zvazarm, from a radio club that operated under the name OK5VSZ. I was happy when my older colleagues advised me and guided me, both at the workplace and in the radio club. It was so natural that they would advise me. I never took it as a nuisance. And when I started to have good results, I was pleased with their recognition. We supported each other. I was lucky enough to have good colleagues and good leaders," he says.
A few years passed and Ján Hidaši realized that computer maintainers are like dinosaurs, destined for extinction. Technology is advancing in such a way that it is no longer worth repairing a computer, just replacing it with a new one. They don't even have time to break down yet and we already have newer, more modern, more powerful ones on our desks. In addition to his job, he began to study at university – at TUKE, the BERG faculty, process quality management. He graduated in 2011.
He has been working at DZ Koksovňa since 2005, first as a programmer, later as a process engineer. Currently, all of his colleagues are younger. How does he get along with them? "Generationally younger colleagues are those who have children the age of my granddaughters, I get along very well with them. Then we have even younger colleagues, one of them is 22 years old. When we double his age, the resulting number is still lower than the number of years I have worked in the company. I work very well with him, he is very smart. But also with other colleagues. I accept that they do their job well and master their profession, and they, in turn, accept me and my profession. I don't see a problem at all in the fact that different generations of people are not able to get along well with each other and work together."
Do colleagues evaluate mutual cooperation in this way? We asked Štefan Filakovský, head of maintenance operations at the Coking Plant Maintenance Plant: "Jano is a great person, I personally wish we could "clone" him. He is very intelligent and well-read, fits well into the team and has an incredible overview. This is his great benefit, that his work is also his hobby. For us, he is an important and sometimes irreplaceable person."
Ján Hidaši is blessed among women (two daughters and three granddaughters) with whom he likes to spend time, even if they do not live in Košice. In addition, he likes music – specifically hard rock, he goes to concerts in Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic... The most popular band is Led Zeppelin.
What is his idea of how long he would like to work? I got the "papers" needed for retirement at the Social Insurance Agency in 20 minutes. But I told myself that I would not retire until my health allowed it and the company needed me. I would like to stay for another year or two."
