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Donald Falvey, who is 82, retired from his $97,000-a-year job as deputy director of the Division of Standards at the end of January. Falvey worked in state and county government for 57 years, serving as an aide to former Governor Foster J. Furcolo before moving in 1959 to the Division of Standards, which makes sure weighing and measuring devices used by businesses are accurate.

Several State House sources say Falvey did not want to retire. They said he had been coming to work for years, but did little once he was there. He was hard of hearing and didn’t use his computer. The agency’s No. 2 official handled all administrative duties. Falvey, who did not return phone calls, will receive an annual pension of $50,700.

Colman Herman, a Dorchester consumer activist, says he came away from a meeting with Falvey in December 2006 thinking the guy should retire. “Half the time he couldn’t hear me. When he could hear me, he had no sense of the question,” Herman says.

State officials said they didn’t know if Falvey was the oldest state government employee when he retired, but assumed he was one of the oldest. “You don’t run into many people who worked in the Furcolo administration. Most of them are six feet under,” says state Sen. Michael Morrissey of Quincy.