THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509060067
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
SHE HAS SIX incoming phone lines, a pager and a walkie-talkie.
Deborah L. Carr is the receptionist for Lillian Vernon Corp.'s National Distribution Center, a place that bulges with 3,000 people on the payroll come Christmas season.
She calls her in-house phone list her Bible.
When things really start jumping, Carr wishes she had one more prop.
``I need, like, a crystal ball out here,'' she jokes. ``I'm supposed to know where everybody is.''
In the half-million-square-foot building - a customer service, telemarketing and distribution center and warehouse in Virginia Beach - Carr stays serene behind a curved, gray counter in the lobby. Over her shoulder, a mirrored pass-thru opens to a hallway and frames a portrait of the catalog company's founder, Lillian Vernon.
``She's always watching me,'' says Carr, tossing her head at the picture. ``Watching so I don't mess up.''
Carr has sat in this lobby, with its display nooks full of monogrammed coats, towels and bags for seven years, since just two months after the facility opened in 1988. One of her bosses describes her job as a nightmare.
``She's amazing,'' said David Hochberg, Lillian Vernon Corporation's vice president of public affairs and the son of its founder. ``She's very young, has a great attitude and wears so many hats. She's the first person you see. She's receptionist, security, screens calls, greets new employees, plays detective. Just amazing.''
The phone and its constant beeping sets her pace. Job applicants call for directions, to ask if the company is hiring. Customers want store locations, or to place orders. Some call to speak to the firm's corporate headquarters. She transfers them to New Rochelle, N.Y., never letting on that she's bounced them hundreds of miles north.
Even her co-workers tie up her lines.
``If they predict snow, about 500 call up to ask if we're going to be open and I'm the one who has to tell them to come on in,'' she says. It's no surprise that she never answers the phone at home.
Carr, 28, has perfected a certain tone for each of her talking machines.
In her cheerful voice, a small lilt at the end of each phrase for effect, she answers the telephone, ``Lillian Vernon. Good morning.''
A smoother tone, a sort of sing-song, oozes out over the building's paging system, ``Paul Gram, please dial extension 7700. 7700, Paul Gram.''
On the in-house walkie-talkie, ``LV-1 to Pete,'' she gets downright bossy.
Perched on an armless swivel chair, her long auburn hair swept up into a ponytail and one foot in its beige pump tucked under her, Carr taps the 14-karat gold, five-year employee pin on her jacket lapel.
``It's from Tiffany's,'' Carr says. ``Ten-year employees get a watch. I can't wait.'' A steady stream of folks signs in. Carr sends them on to Human Resources.
``They're new employees, scheduled for interviews every 15 minutes,'' she says. The year-round staff is normally about 1,000 people. Seasonal work from October through December triples that.
Carr's also in charge of a multi-drawered box that holds aspirin, Maalox and other quick relief.
Near a snapshot of her boyfriend, Steve, right next to the stapler and tape on her neat desk, a cup holds a nail file. It's just wishful thinking. There's never time to use it. The Norfolk resident says she likes the pace.
``I like to talk to people and meet new people,'' says the Norview High School graduate. ``And sometimes we can sit here for five minutes and nothing happens.''
So she makes work.
To a visitor waiting for someone in the lobby, she calls out, ``Shane, did Paul ever come down?'' After a ``No,'' she pages the elusive Paul again.
She knows a lot of the regular visitors by name, makes small talk with Harold, the mailman, and chit-chats frequent callers.
``Hi,'' she teases one. ``You always take him out to lunch. Where are you going today? Oh, you know, you're right. I had the chicken quesadillas there last time and I couldn't finish. Had to take half of them home. Let me transfer you. . . . ''
After her break, Carr distributes the mail and message slips. On her way back from the mailroom she stops to look at a display nook. It holds the metal-legged kitchen table on which Lillian Vernon started her mail order business in 1951. On top are a personalized belt and purse like the ones she sold then.
``It gives you a dream, you know,'' Carr says, looking at the arrangement. ``It can happen in America.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MARK MITCHELL/Staff
Deborah L. Carr is the receptionist for Lillian Vernon Corp.'s busy
National Distribution Center in Virginia Beach. She tends six phone
lines, a pager and a walkie-talkie.
by CNB