The lottery starts in less than a month and that means the rush is on as a billion dollar business starts from scratch.

From the front desk to back rooms, phones are ringing off the hook at the education lottery offices.

“I mean, you’re on the phone and you’re taking care of one client and your phone is beeping at the same time and then retrieve your messages and you have 12-15 to return,” said Retailer Services Representative Joyce Rivera.

Most calls are from retailers.

“’What’s my status? Where’s my terminal? When can I get set up for training?’” said Retailer Services Representative Samantha Reed. “So everyone is wondering if they are approved.”

Reed has a three-year-old son and is a full-time student. On top of that, she’s working 10-12 hour days, seven days a week.

“I feel like I’m saying some of the retailer’s names in my sleep,” she continued.

It’s so many hours and days but they bring food and even tennis shoes with them to work.

Rivera added, “Yeah, I need to get out every once in a while to just walk and get out of the office since we are working all these long hours. It’s nice to get out and get some fresh air and come back refreshed.”

They need to be refreshed to help get retailers online so tickets can go on sale.

“So these are the applications and they are all organized by the retailer number,” said Communications Director Pam Walker. “Each retailer is assigned a number.”

Close to 6000 applications have to pass criminal background checks and get terminals in place as fast as possible. For some of the workers, they are already inside their third building for the lottery but it’s not the last one. Their current location will become the lottery’s headquarters sometime in August.

It’s a lot to deal with but it doesn’t faze these employees.

“We’re all energized because we have a goal and we are all excited about it and it will be so great to actually see it launch,” Walker added.

In the meantime, it’s back to the phones.

Scratch-off tickets are set to go on sale March 30th. If the lottery starts on time, employees get a bonus for working the long hours and days.

For more information about the NC Education Lottery, visit the official website http://lottery.nc.gov/

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Sunday, March 5, 2006 at 9:54 am and is filed under Education News. Tags: “Each retailer, Education News, food, Joyce Rivera, Pam Walker, Samantha Reed, Student, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.