COPY, COMPUTER CENTERS REPLACE OLD OFFICES.Byline: Stanley Holmes Seattle Times On a recent Friday morning, Mary Jo Gordon and Martin Shreeves shared a desktop computer at Kinko's Copy Center on Capitol Capitol, seat of the U.S. Congress Capitol, seat of the U.S. government at Washington, D.C. It is the city's dominating monument, built on an elevated site that was chosen by George Washington in consultation with Major Pierre L'Enfant. Hill in Seattle. The two home-based marketing consultants - laid off last year by the same medical-devices company based in Redmond, Wash.- were producing a flier for a client, the Red Cross. For Gordon and Shreeves, Kinko's and other copy centers are their virtual office. Copy centers, with their vast range of services, have been one of the keys to the consultants' quick and successful rebound rebound (rē´bownd), n/v 1. a recovery from illness. n 2. an outbreak of fresh reflex activity after withdrawal of a stimulus rebound adjective from the harsh realities Harsh Reality are a little-known, proto-prog band born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire out of the remnants of the Freightliner Blues Band (formerly the Revolution) in the early sixties. of corporate America, they say. ``It (Kinko's) makes us bigger than we really are,'' said Gordon, 40, a veteran marketing executive who offers a broad range of marketing services from a one-woman office inside her home. She is now in the enviable en·vi·a·ble adj. So desirable as to arouse envy: "the enviable English quality of being able to be mute without unrest" Henry James. position of turning business away. ``The advantage we have is that we can pass on the savings to the client, and that makes a huge difference,'' she said. ``It makes us competitive.'' Not only are copy centers a place to copy huge blueprints, produce color proofs or use powerful desktop computers, they also have become places to network, hold business meetings and make sales calls. ``It's kind of a switching station,'' Gordon said. ``If it weren't for Federal Express, Kinko's and the Internet, we couldn't do this business.'' Gordon often meets Shreeves at a Kinko's to approve final projects, discuss business or toil past midnight on a fast-track assignment. Often the meetings are short, just enough time to discuss important details or examine a color proof. Time is at a premium in the nanosecond (1) One billionth of a second. Used to measure the speed of logic and memory chips, a nanosecond can be visualized by converting it to distance. In one nanosecond, electricity travels approximately a foot in a wire. '90s. ``Speed and skill are what gets me jobs,'' said Shreeves, 28, who produces computer-generated graphics for Gordon. ``What keeps clients is the rapid turnaround and cost-effective budgeting.'' The rise of the virtual office coincides with large numbers of unemployed white-collar professionals - the most recent victims of Wall Street's appetite for downsizing (1) Converting mainframe and mini-based systems to client/server LANs. (2) To reduce equipment and associated costs by switching to a less-expensive system. (jargon) downsizing . There were 169,000 layoffs in the first three months of 1996, the most in any quarter for two years, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the U.S. Department of Labor. |
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