Preparing for life after Phar-Mor

An ex-training supervisor hopes new computer skills will help her land a job.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
BOARDMAN -- Being unemployed isn't so bad, says Lynne Jones.
She's had time to plant flowers, bake and even take care of the yard at her Lockwood Boulevard home.
"My husband thinks it's pretty cool," said Jones, who lost her job as a training supervisor at Phar-Mor's headquarters last July.
She also has had time to care for relatives who have been ill in the past year.
"In some ways, it's better that I haven't been working," she said.
She's cut back on buying clothes and tries to buy only things that are necessary, but she and her husband, Howard, have been able to make it on his wages as a union steamfitter. They have no children.
Despite enjoying her time off, she's tried to get back to work by applying for secretarial and other office jobs.
Computers
She hasn't landed anything even though she's made an effort to upgrade her computer skills. At age 48, she knows she's in competition with younger job applicants who grew up in the computer era.
Jones already was pretty good with a computer and even wrote a training manual for the computer system in Phar-Mor's buying department. Still, there were some office programs she wasn't familiar with and others she wanted to learn better.
With the help of federal job training funds, Jones just completed her second semester of courses at the Mahoning County Career & amp; Technical Center.
The professional office assistant courses have taught her how to operate Microsoft programs such as PowerPoint, Excel and Access. Now, she feels comfortable in making a computer-based presentation or setting up a database.
"I wanted to make sure I had a real strong background in computers," she said.
Jones said she considered attempting to earn a degree at Youngstown State University but decided she didn't want to write the research papers that would have been required.
She thought the classes at the career center, however, were fun.
"People like to play games on the computer, but this is what I like to do," she said as she reached over and touched the course manuals for learning PowerPoint and other programs.
Her career
Jones started as a buyer's assistant with Tamarkin Co. in 1978, keeping track of inventory and checking in trucks. She moved over to Phar-Mor about five years later and eventually became training supervisor in the buying department.
"I've got a degree in hard knocks. I like to think I'm a pretty quick study of things," she said.
She lived through the highs of Phar-Mor's early days, when founder Mickey Monus was poised to turn the discount drugstore chain into a national retailer, and the lows of two bankruptcy cases.
She said the massive layoffs that came in the early 1990s in the first case were a shock because everyone believed the company had such great promise. Job cuts that came last year as the company was going out of business didn't surprise anyone, she said.
"We were surprised we lasted as long as we did," she said.
Jones said she isn't too worried about her future. She has watched as the friends she ate lunch with at Phar-Mor have taken other jobs.
A couple are driving daily to the Cleveland area, while others were hired by Snyders Drug Stores, which restarted the former Tamco warehouse in Austintown. One of her friends got a job with a local accounting firm.
Now that her class work is complete, Jones said she'll soon be putting more effort into landing a job.
"I'm optimistic about it. There's something out there for me. I'll find it," she said.