Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 26, 1993 TAG: 9301260346
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`THIS IS JUST AN OMEN OF THINGS TO COME'
For Brenda Petty Campbell, the closing of Roanoke's Sears Telecatalog Center will be another economic blow."I just keep getting laid off," she said as she waited for a Valley Metro bus to take her home from her shift on Monday. "At last, I thought I'd found something permanent for myself, but I was wrong. It's just really disappointing."
Campbell had been working 25 hours a week at the national retailer's phone center. Now "I'm going to really have to hustle" to find another job.
She works with children in a gardening program at Roanoke's Lincoln Terrace housing complex and needs time off during the spring planting season. Sears was flexible about that, but she's not sure if she can find another employer who will be as understanding.
Workers at Sears, Roebuck and Co.'s Roanoke center said they were surprised by the company's announcement Monday of the closing.
"We get little messages from the big office in our computers, and we were told this Christmas had been our best season in a long time," said one employee, who asked that her name not be used. "The big guys were saying they were pleased with the job we were doing in Roanoke."
But she said managers in Roanoke had as little an idea about the shutdown as the workers. She said there had been no official word about exactly when the order-taking center would close.
"What I'm hearing is it's just through Christmas - Dec. 31," the worker said. "There won't be another spring catalog. That's all we know."
After taxes, the woman said, she makes nearly $5 an hour at the center. "It beats the heck out of flipping burgers for minimum wage."
She already has a full-time job, but the 15 hours a week was an important supplement. "I'm getting over a romance that left me $8,000 in debt," she said.
Now, with the closing announced, "a lot of people are talking about moving out of the valley, because this is just an omen of things to come. Which is sad, because I've lived here all my life."
Elizabeth Muller, who works 16 hours a week at the catalog center, said one regular customer called from Seattle, Wash., to say how upset he was at the news of the closing. He swears by Sears' tool catalog, and he and his wife and children do most of their Christmas shopping through the company's other catalogs.
"And so do a lot of older citizens who used the book," Muller said. "That's their mainstay."
Muller, who uses a wheelchair, said she is especially sad about the closing because the company has done a such a good job of supporting workers with disabilities. They've made adjustments to her workstation and have been flexible about her taking time off for doctor's appointments.
She said the Roanoke center had been conducting a training session for about 100 people. "That definitely led us to believe that we would be open. I don't think any of us expected that this would happen."
But she said managers in Roanoke held nothing back from the workers. "It's a good group to work for," she said. "As soon as they found out, we found out. "