MCSENIORS

By JEFFERY C. RUBIN/IN NEW YORK CITY

BERNARD JUPITER is having a hard time with the electronic cash register. As the machine beeps a warning, the sixtyish Jupiter, his watery blue eyes peering over half glasses, struggles to find the right key. "I'm sorry, sir," he says to the man on the other side of the counter, who appears to be waiting somewhat patiently for a burger and fries. "I just started working here."

Fortunately, "here" is only a simulated fast-food joint, not the real thing. Jupiter and 19 classmates, all of them 55 or older, are the first students in an odd if hopeful training program begun jointly this fall by New York City's Department for the Aging and the Riese Organization, a Manhattan-based company that owns 200 chain-restaurant franchises. Designed to help the elderly rejoin today's service-oriented economy--sometimes after years of unemployment or retirement that has left them with skills applicable only to old-fashioned, well-paying jobs--the center was created with $100,000 donated by Riese. "This ought to be a win-win-win situation," says company ceo Dennis Riese. "We're helping the seniors get jobs, helping employers expand their labor pool and helping the city in the process." Riese's enthusiasm is almost enough to make you forget there's something kind of sad about the need for such a program in the first place.

From the students' perspective, all that matters right now are the baffling electronic registers. The training center itself is a full-scale mock-up of a fast-food restaurant, complete with menu board, soft-drink dispenser and enthusiastic instructor Bernadean Rouse, who plays a hard-driving shift manager. As she attempts to straighten out Jupiter, she shouts a general alert to the class: "If you don't hit the keys really hard, the numbers don't come up." Students help one another find the maddeningly elusive cash-register keys--there are 119 of them--while reminding their fellows to "Smile," "Make eye contact," and "Ask me if that is all I want."

Rouse picks out an unsuspecting pupil for an impromptu job interview, demanding, "Ernie, tell me about yourself." Thrust into the spotlight, Ernie Washington describes his four decades in retail and delivers a winning paean to experience, "Being that I'm an older person," he says, "I know the company comes first."

In the past, however, some members of the class have had trouble convincing prospective employers of their worth. "I can just read it in their eyes--'Another old guy,'" Jupiter says. "They're thinking, 'You're too old.'" Fortunately, more open-minded businesses are beginning to take a keen interest in the students; four were hired before they could even complete the course. One landed a part-time bank teller's position; three others, including Washington, work as shipboard hosts for a dinner-cruise company. Restaurateur Riese himself foresees taking on several. "But I don't think we can hire all of them," he says. "I certainly hope my competitors will take full advantage."