imaging specialist

customer specialist

print operator

field support specialist

customer service representative

Strawbridge Studios

Most will start here as a Day Photographer, there aren't very many positions considering the size of the company.  The training if thorough, and the culture is very supportive.  I ended up working here 8 years, when I initially only intended to stay 2 - largely due to the positive work environment.
Pay is OK for a starting position, and if you put in reasonable effort, you'll generally get a $5/day raise, yearly.  After 8 years, I was earning an additional $40/day over new employees, which is ok, but not going to make you rich.
The promotion process is troubling to me, the upper management has a habit of making it feel like they are doing you a HUGE favor by promoting you to a salaried position, yet when you learn your actual salary, it's quite low (I was earning more than many salaried employees, even though I was a per-diem employee).  Once they have done this "favor" for you, you are given subtle pressure to really prove that you appreciate it, by putting in ridiculous amounts of effort and time.
I quite enjoyed working as a day shooter, but turned down promotion almost yearly because I watched my coworkers accept, burn out, and leave, on repeat.
The Strawbridge family is wonderful, and appreciative of their employees.  You won't interact with them too much unless you live in Durham, NC.  They have done things like sending a birthday card every year with a little cash :) , set up a profit-sharing plan to incentivize loyalty and help with retirement, set up a 401k program, provide insurance for full-time employees, and investing Heavily in equipment and training expenses.
The biggest critique I have of the company is that they are willing to spend exorbitant amounts of money on training and annual conferences, instead of implementing local, and web-based training.  I conservatively estimate that if they made this switch, they could raise annual pay for every employee by 3k or more.
Overall, I really appreciated my time with this company, but due to the drawbacks of promotion, and the repetitive stress injuries caused by photographing up to 400 children per day.  I decided it cannot be a "career" for me, but it was a good "job".  I am recovering from carpal-tunnel, and rotator-cuff injuries as well as back, knee, and ankle issues.
I meant to mention earlier that the hierarchy is simply: Day-shooter, full-time (in training to be the next step), Territory-Manager, department heads, and then CEO.  
Department heads are Shipping, Receiving, Field Operations, Payroll, Equipment, Training, Lab Manager, Print-Lab, and a few others.  Most of those have a very low turnover-rate.
This company also has a habit of over-communication, you will receive about 4 irrelevant emails per day, and all the paperwork you have to fill out is crazy, they want all the information submitted in 3 different ways, it's a big waste of time.  "Send an email to let us know that you submitted a form that makes us aware that you submitted a form" type stuff.

This is a very chill work environment, but during busy seasons it can get a little hectic. One thing I did like was that when the busy season hits, you were allowed to work overtime. During the slow season, be prepared to get your hours cut. I only worked 3 days out of the week because I was a college student at the time. So I was very pleased to have a manager that could work with my school schedule. This later changed, they shortly after stated that they no longer wanted to have part time employees. But because I had been working for this specific department for a while, they worked a deal with me. I grew with the company and shortly got promoted to Digital Services. BUT I was promised a raise and a specific number, when the raise finally came (3 months later) it was not what we had agreed on. When I later spoke to the GM about the situation he stated it was because "I was part time", but when I was promised the raise they already knew all of this information. So I kindly asked to be returned back to my original location since I was not gonna get paid for the amount of work I was putting forward. When I asked I was shut down and stated it was to late, this created a lot of stress and unnecessary drama in the departments. 

Long story short, make sure you get the raise you are promised because if not you will be stuck with a $.25 raise or $.50. There was a lot of favoritism in all the departments, one thing I did like was that it was easy to move to different departments normally. But when I was refused my raise, they did not want me to move back to my old department because I was working under the GM's little Brother. He did not want to leave him alone, so he held me there until I finally had enough and put my two weeks. They state that they are a "family" but only include the family they want to help. The managers loved to hear all the drama and were more evolved then you would expect.

This is a good job to fill in some spaces in your resume, or if you are a new parent they worked really well with parents having to drop off kids at school and leaving early to pick them up. But i would not recommend this job if you are looking for something long term and trying to progress with a solid equal pay.

A typical day of work as a Photographer involves getting up really early, sometimes 4:00AM early and driving sometimes 1 hr away to a school. You are allowed 1hr and a half to set up your equipment. Depending on the school the photographing process can be hectic or relaxed. You have to photograph at a steady but fairly speedy rate no more than 1 min on a student. Often times you'll have a lunch break along with the students and depending on the Territory you are in you can leave for lunch or you are forced to stay in the school and bring your own lunch. Lunches although run about 1hr or 2hrs long so it's good to bring something to distract yourself. At some schools you can be done with the entire school before lunch, but often times you are at a elementary school so you will end up having to wait for afternoon PK, sometimes for 3hrs. Once you've photographed Afternoon PK that usually signals the end of the day for you. It really only takes about 20 mins to pack up and you're off.

My father referred to this place as a "technological sweatshop" and he wasn't wrong. Management is interested in getting as much quantity out of workers as they can and are completely uninterested in quality. I worked in the cropping department and it was literally physically impossible to do the job to the specifications they gave me because the photographers were not given the same specifications and you can't crop a photo outside of the limits of how it was taken. I was also told I would be cropping as a short term and I would be moved to customer service after, I am not sure that was a truthful intention, though I can't prove anything. Furthermore, I know for a fact other departments start at $10.50, but I was told cropping, which is the least desirable and hardest to staff department, would be starting at $10/hr. 

It was horrible work cropping photos 2" by 1" on a small screen in a brightly florescent lit room that smelled very strongly of paint. The only thing that made it bearable at all is that they let you have music. Horrible place, horrible management. 

One of the salaried employees insisted on calling my insurance instead of waiting 2 weeks for me to pay her outright for a parking lot ding from my door. She went to my supervisor's supervisor's supervisor. Three people above me, and asked him to pull the tapes. This was the first time I'd met him and I was mortified. Every salaried employee had this level of disrespect for the hourly. Terrible. 

Also, the breaks were all taken at the same time in what was essentially a high school cafeteria. This work place really does feel like high school part 2. If you want to go back to high school for very little pay, I guess this might be a place for you but I can't understand why anyone would want that.

This company has potential to be great. The experience of working with the kids is something that cannot be beat and they will definitely give you all the tools and training you need to be successful. 

That being said, the pay is God awful if you are anything less than a territory manager. You have to either have a second source of income or a spouse that makes great money to afford this job. The hours are exhausting, leaving your house as early as 5AM to get to a school and working until 3PM THEN having to drive back home. And hopefully you aren’t at a school that’s 1+ hours away. Very common to have drive times of 1-3 hours with traffic in the mix. 

The pay is miserable, even as a salary employee it feels like they don’t want to pay you anymore than 30k and that’s IF you get a salary position and then ASK for more. Day rate is now 135 up from 125 after decades. 

They will pay for your gas, hotels, etc which is very nice but you won’t get  money back from gas, food, or tolls until next paycheck and if you are salary i think it’s once a month(unless you authorized to have a gas card).

Your managers kind of make your job and mine happens to be one of the only reasons I have stayed so long because they are an AMAZING and overworked individual. 

I cannot say that I would recommend this job to anyone who is single and has to pay for life alone because you just won’t make it and will be stressed out making ends meet. It sucks cause the company really is awesome but for the amount of work you have to do, the UNFATHOMABLE wear and tear to your car, and the 10-12 hour days, it just doesn’t seem worth it unless you are already rich, married, or can find time to work another job (almost impossible with working during school hours). 

. I’d give this job a 3 out of 5. Depending on your team the job can be pretty fun and you get to work and see a bunch of schools and build relationships with them (if you care about that thing). You also get to use the camera for work as well as personal photos and photography if you wish. For the most part you work Monday-Friday.  Some days you work might 6am-11am other days it 6am-2/3, or sometimes you work 9am-5pm (if it’s middle school). 
Cons:
The amount of equipment you have to pack up and carry is actually ridiculous. Between the equipment taking up most of your car space, and carrying it the physical burden of the job is not worth it. Also during preplanning (right before fall) they expect you to go to 3 different schools in 1 day, set up equipment 3x, all for the same pay. They pay low and refuse to keep up with the cost of living. The pay when I left was $130 a day I believe. Training is only $100 a day and it’s 5 days a week. Staff and students from schools can either be really helpful or the reason you quit that day. Horrible communication cause sometimes you’ll arrive at the school at 5:30/6am only to not be let inside cause no one is there.

Pros: 
Photography 
They offer paid travel training in their base Durham, NC. Some trips are fun others are not. They pay for gas and you get 2 stipends for an oil change a season (tho you’ll be driving more than that). Some days you might only work 3-4 hours and still get paid your full $125-130. Other days you might work only an hour or two.




The people at Strawbridge are lovely; the management is friendly and seems to genuinely care about its employees; and in the two years I was employed there (I left because I was moving out of state), I got to watch them make continual changes to improve the company, generally not at the expense of the people working there. 

This is also a company that hires based on merit and ability, rather than just your ability to sling buzzwords while wearing a polo shirt and beige slacks (at least in the lab - I can't speak for the field or front offices) - tattoos, "odd" hair, and even criminal pasts were not a problem so long as you could do your job. 

There was also the monthly "how is the company doing" motivational-type deal, but they always softened the blow of that a little by wrapping it up in a fun themed lunch or snack on the company dime.

My one issue is, at least in the lab, the management often started to go a little workaholic, and while it was not expected of the rest of us to follow suit, the culture of the people in charge can bleed down into the rest of the team; it could be a little difficult sometimes to push back and take breaks when we were in crunch time (and crunch time started around September and lasted for months).

The work itself was simple and easy, and I liked the opportunity to make bonuses based on performance. However, the work/life balance is needlessly chaotic. I put my application in during the summer, was hired toward the end of fall. 

Well, Fall is their busy season. Then they lay people off for weeks during the winter... at the time, unpaid. This is understandable. Except that I was being told to push errors through to print in the final product in order to get things done on schedule. It felt like most employees were sacrificing quality for output, by order of management. If instead of laying people off during the slow season management had focused on training and preparing everyone to produce quality work during the rush, maybe things would be different. 

I understand that they have switched to salary pay now so that no one is going weeks without pay in the slow months. But I can't imagine the way things are run has gotten much better.

The other thing that I was very disappointed by was the lack of team engagement. I don't need to be best friends with coworkers, but I would like to know their names and have regular interactions. Of course one can introduce themself but most do not. Some basic steps to increase friendliness between coworkers would probably make the work a lot less draining. 

After 14 years with Strawbridge, I find myself happy to have left the company.  My entire department left about the same time as I did due to major changes in the management.  5 years ago I could recommend the company with confidence and I regularly tried to get my friend's jobs there.  Today I cannot advise working there due to the serious lack of leadership.  They are very good at getting their product out the door.  The condition of that product is suspect at best.  If you are a creative person, stay away.  They don't understand creatives and will not cater to your needs.  I should have left years before I did, and they should have helped me as they didn't seem to want me there.  Hopefully, in a few years, they will see that they've made a serious error in these areas and more, and work to resolve them once their sales begin to die.  Until that time, look elsewhere.

Great job to work at when there is actual work. If you don’t mind waking up early ie. 5:30-7:00  to be at schools and finish before 2-3 generally then the job is fine. They pay for gas and oil changes, you get paid daily not hourly at a starting rate of 125 it increased by 10 each year you work.
I was here for two years going on 3 until Covid hit and made a completely mess out of this workforce. We were furloughed in March 2020 to be rehired December 2020 and now I’m quitting again Jan 2021. You go on a break with the school system during holidays which last about a month or so then start working again halfway through January. Unfortunately Covid has messed up alll the scheduling with schools and remote learning has turned this company upside down. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Imaging specialist 4 salaries reported	$15.00 per hour
Customer specialist 4 salaries reported	$45,000 per year
Print operator 4 salaries reported	$15.00 per hour
Field support specialist 6 salaries reported	$20.00 per hour
Customer service representative 3 salaries reported	$35,000 per year

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