PART-TIME JOB WON'T DO IT FOR MOTHER PLAYING CATCH-UP

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993                   TAG: 9301260204
SECTION: ECONOMY                    PAGE: EC-20   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: JESSICA MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
PART-TIME JOB WON'T DO IT FOR MOTHER PLAYING CATCH-UP
Carolyn Tillies, a worker for the Roanoke Valley's newest major employer, Orkand Corp., said she's confident that she'll hold onto her part-time job. But she wants to work full time.
Tillies, 36, has been working for the Salem company for almost four months.
For 32 hours a week, she sits at a computer that applies bar codes to pieces of mail. Orkand, a Maryland company that employs about 600 people locally, has contracted with the U.S. Postal Service to code mail that cannot be read and routed directly by the Postal Service's computerized scanners.
The tall, thin native of New York came to Orkand because she lost another job. With six weeks of unemployment and three children to feed, Tillies still is battling the bills she accumulated while out of work.
"I'm still trying to play catch-up from the six-week period of no income," she said.
Tillies sees little immediate hope that the economy will improve. She said the immediate future appears to hold in store a stale economy with little hope for advancement for working people.
Still, Orkand is continuing to expand. It recently opened another mail-sorting operation in Lynchburg.
Tillies said she has dropped almost all luxuries from her life.
"I do not do as much as I used to. I have cut to the basics," she said.
Tillies is actively looking for another part-time job to supplement her income from Orkand. She said it would be a temporary measure to get past her financial troubles. "I am not money-hungry, but I need two jobs," she said.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB