Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993 TAG: 9301260278
SECTION: ECONOMY PAGE: EC-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PHOTO USA SHARES INFORMATION, HELPS BUILD EMPLOYEE CONFIDENCE
Alice Worley admits her tenure with Photo USA has been rocky.Yet, when the small, locally based firm filed for bankruptcy protection in September 1991 and rumors of liquidation were flying, Worley says she never felt that management was giving its employees the runaround.
"Just the opposite," she insists. "The president of this company works very closely with us, and he was always honest about what was going on."
It's better to know something's wrong than to just come into work one day and find you don't have a job anymore, she says. That's something Worley has seen happen at some shops neighboring her Photo USA outlet at Valley View Mall.
An admitted job-hopper, with stints working for 7-Eleven, Hills Department Stores and Kmart, Worley points to her six years with the film and photo finishing chain as a sign of how confident she feels about the company she works for.
"They treat employees here better than anywhere I've ever worked," she says. "They really consider the fact that you have a family and don't want to work every weekend night."
Though the bonuses Photo USA employees used to get are now ghosts of Christmas past, Worley says her wages haven't been frozen and she's been given what she considers fair increases.
The company's plan for financial reorganization, approved in August, calls for partial payment to creditors but left a $190,000 tax bill unpaid.
This year, Photo USA introduced several sales-incentive programs for its employees. In addition to offering them a chance to make extra money, it's fostered some good-natured competition between the area stores.
The average employee at each month's top selling store can earn an extra $50 to $150 a month.
Now, she says, employees at her shop regularly call the workers at Photo USA's shop in Tanglewood Mall to see how they're doing.
"We get really excited when we meet our goal and do the best we can to see just how much more we can do above that," says Worley.
After 16 years of wanting to go to Florida, last year she finally made it. When things got rough economically, she and her husband cut back on credit cards; they even paid off a couple of accounts and threw away the cards.
She's not in bad shape, pointing out that last year she paid off her car and refinanced her house.
If Worley doesn't get to take another vacation, in her line of work it doesn't much bother her.
"When you develop film, you get to see places you've never seen," she says, describing somebody else's photos of London she really enjoyed when she checked them for print quality.