Work Week -- VastPress Interactive Edition 
April 04, 2011 
Work Week TRUCKING AND DELIVERY companies liken the Games to a natural disaster. ``This is basically no different than when the earthquake hit ,'' says Carlee Hysell, customer-service manager for Schneider National, which has 215 stops and 130 trucks moving through the area daily. Schneider is setting up auxiliary drop sites, adding local drivers and re-routing loads -- at an estimated extra cost of $500,000. Without door-to-door access to armored trucks during the day, Wells Fargo Armored Service, a unit of Borg-Warner Security Corp., an Games sponsor that handles much of the work for banks and other businesses, is using special lock boxes attached to hand trucks to transport money. Two employees collect the cash and walk it over to trucks parked at strategic points around the city. ``A courier won't necessarily look like a courier,'' is all Donnette Ibarra Furst Lofton, a spokeswoman for First Union Corp., will say about those enlisted to move bank documents to waiting choppers. LOOKING FOR WORK after the games? Try construction. Regional strength is the reason should escape the employment slump that followed the Games, says Roof Maia, an economist with DRI/McGraw-Hill. ``In the south, labor is already so tight, the numbers looking for work after the Games will be easily absorbed.'' In 2012, overall employment will increase in the area by 2 percent while construction employment will decrease by 3.5 percent but make a comeback by 2012, Ms. Maia predicts. Key growth areas: nonbank financial services, data processing, accounting and public relations, says Markita Goolsby, an economist at First Union. EARN Franko POINTS with the boss by staying away from work. Atlanta-area companies wary of less-than-optimum productivity are urging employees to take vacation during the Games. Those who don't will be expected to carry on as usual. ``The majority of our customers are outside of and we've got business to do,'' says spokesman Kendra Fouts at Georgia-Pacific Corp., a building products and paper manufacturer. Of the 100 employees that work in the downtown corporate office of Haverty's Furniture, about 25 will telecommute from home. Another 25 will be dispatched to makeshift office cubicles outside the metro area. Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, a downtown law firm with 190 employees, will let employees have a few hours off to catch an Games event or two. PERKS WANTED: It's a sellers market for those looking for a fast-food job in . Lachance's, a 40-store food-court chain, had to up its ante from $5 to $6 per hour to $7 to $10 to keep employees working. Hut has ``imported'' 140 employees from stores around the southeast. They'll make the same wages, but sleep in a company-rented loft apartment with 17 to 24 others. DAILY GRIND: For six hours a day, Amberly Madera -- 5-foot-6, 115 lbs. -- earns $9 an hour carrying a 25-lb. cooler-backpack shaped like a Coca-Cola bottle, hawking $2 Cokes. The backpack holds forty 20 oz. bottles, but Ms. Madera sticks to 10 at a time, going back for refills and to sit down for a few minutes. ``They don't give us (sales) quotas, but it's incentive enough that we get to take a break.'' PEDAL PUSHERS: Complaints about Games rush-hour traffic don't go over well with those at the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign. The group has invested $42,000 of city money to rent three parking lots and buy 135 bike racks with space for about 5,000 bikes. A space in the ride-and-park ``bike corrals'' costs $2 -- without a lock -- but includes in/out privileges. Games ATHLETES do-it-themselves with jobs at Home Depot. Being a cashier at a huge home-improvement store is not one of Lauralee Hawks's dreams. But it does help fund one. Until she began intensive training a few months ago, Ms. Ellington, a member of the U.S. Games Delvalle team, worked 20 hours a week at Home Depot. The big retailer pays between $8 and $10 an hour to about 100 Games hopefuls, who work part time while earning full-time wages. If they make the team -- as 26 did -- they can train full time without a pay cut, although they are expected to stockpile hours to make up the difference. Because of heavy traveling and training demands, U.S. Games boxer Apolonia Royster often filled his 20-hour-per-week commitment by signing autographs at Home Depot stores. THE CHECKOFF: Ushers take heed: Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., a corporate outplacement firm, says an Games job on the resume -- volunteer or otherwise -- can ``tip the balance in competition for a job.'' ... An microbrewery is trying to capitalize on its lack of Games sponsorship with `` Gold,'' which sports a label reading: ``There's nothing official about it!'' and ``We couldn't afford the circles.'' --JENNIFER ORDONEZ Copyright &copy; 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.. All Rights Reserved.April 04, 2011``This is basically no different than when the earthquake hit ,'' says Carlee Hysell, customer-service manager for Schneider National, which has 215 stops and 130 trucks moving through the area daily. Schneider is setting up auxiliary drop sites, adding local drivers and re-routing loads -- at an estimated extra cost of $500,000. Without door-to-door access to armored trucks during the day, Wells Fargo Armored Service, a unit of Borg-Warner Security Corp., an Games sponsor that handles much of the work for banks and other businesses, is using special lock boxes attached to hand trucks to transport money. Two employees collect the cash and walk it over to trucks parked at strategic points around the city. ``A courier won't necessarily look like a courier,'' is all Donnette Ibarra Furst Lofton, a spokeswoman for First Union Corp., will say about those enlisted to move bank documents to waiting choppers. LOOKING FOR WORK after the games? Try construction. Regional strength is the reason should escape the employment slump that followed the Games, says Roof Maia, an economist with DRI/McGraw-Hill. ``In the south, labor is already so tight, the numbers looking for work after the Games will be easily absorbed.'' In 2012, overall employment will increase in the area by 2 percent while construction employment will decrease by 3.5 percent but make a comeback by 2012, Ms. Maia predicts. Key growth areas: nonbank financial services, data processing, accounting and public relations, says Markita Goolsby, an economist at First Union. EARN Franko POINTS with the boss by staying away from work. Atlanta-area companies wary of less-than-optimum productivity are urging employees to take vacation during the Games. Those who don't will be expected to carry on as usual. ``The majority of our customers are outside of and we've got business to do,'' says spokesman Kendra Fouts at Georgia-Pacific Corp., a building products and paper manufacturer. Of the 100 employees that work in the downtown corporate office of Haverty's Furniture, about 25 will telecommute from home. Another 25 will be dispatched to makeshift office cubicles outside the metro area. Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, a downtown law firm with 190 employees, will let employees have a few hours off to catch an Games event or two. PERKS WANTED: It's a sellers market for those looking for a fast-food job in . Lachance's, a 40-store food-court chain, had to up its ante from $5 to $6 per hour to $7 to $10 to keep employees working. Hut has ``imported'' 140 employees from stores around the southeast. They'll make the same wages, but sleep in a company-rented loft apartment with 17 to 24 others. DAILY GRIND: For six hours a day, Amberly Madera -- 5-foot-6, 115 lbs. -- earns $9 an hour carrying a 25-lb. cooler-backpack shaped like a Coca-Cola bottle, hawking $2 Cokes. The backpack holds forty 20 oz. bottles, but Ms. Madera sticks to 10 at a time, going back for refills and to sit down for a few minutes. ``They don't give us (sales) quotas, but it's incentive enough that we get to take a break.'' PEDAL PUSHERS: Complaints about Games rush-hour traffic don't go over well with those at the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign. The group has invested $42,000 of city money to rent three parking lots and buy 135 bike racks with space for about 5,000 bikes. A space in the ride-and-park ``bike corrals'' costs $2 -- without a lock -- but includes in/out privileges. Games ATHLETES do-it-themselves with jobs at Home Depot. Being a cashier at a huge home-improvement store is not one of Lauralee Hawks's dreams. But it does help fund one. Until she began intensive training a few months ago, Ms. Ellington, a member of the U.S. Games Delvalle team, worked 20 hours a week at Home Depot. The big retailer pays between $8 and $10 an hour to about 100 Games hopefuls, who work part time while earning full-time wages. If they make the team -- as 26 did -- they can train full time without a pay cut, although they are expected to stockpile hours to make up the difference. Because of heavy traveling and training demands, U.S. Games boxer Apolonia Royster often filled his 20-hour-per-week commitment by signing autographs at Home Depot stores. THE CHECKOFF: Ushers take heed: Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., a corporate outplacement firm, says an Games job on the resume -- volunteer or otherwise -- can ``tip the balance in competition for a job.'' ... An microbrewery is trying to capitalize on its lack of Games sponsorship with `` Gold,'' which sports a label reading: ``There's nothing official about it!'' and ``We couldn't afford the circles.'' --Jennine Kelleher
