OK, I'm game.
Posted on 11/29/2014 3:51:16 PM PST by SamAdams76
RadioShack won't be the only store to open on Thanksgiving Day, but it might be the only one of its particular makeup to do so. This isn't Walmart or a call center, in which volunteers who want overtime pay can be chosen first. Most RadioShack stores have just a handful of employees, most or all of whom will work Thanksgiving whether they want to or not. Retail employees have very, very little in the way of perks, of things that are understood to be sacred. Having Thanksgiving Day to themselves was one of them.
RadioShack is a company of massive real estate, and is peddling a business model that is completely unviable in 2014. It's very likely to go extinct soon, and I doubt there's anything its operators can do about it. In scenarios like this one, there aren't happy stories or easy answers, and if this were any other company, I'd concede that, perhaps, opening on Thanksgiving is a regrettable but necessary stab at saving the company, employees and all.
RadioShack is a rotten place to work, generally not a very good place to shop, and an untenable business to run. Everyone involved loses.
These are stories from my three and a half years as a RadioShack employee.
(Excerpt) Read more at sbnation.com ...
I gave up shopping at Radio Shack back in the 70s. And, working on weekends and holidays, well, if you work retail, that comes with the territory. If the workers don’t like it, they can always find work elsewhere. Sorry, no sympathy and, yes, I’ve worked my share of weekends and holidays over the years.
Anything you used to be able to get at Radio Schlock is now available from a variety of Internet electronics sites who:
1. Know what they’re talking about, and
2. Have excellent customer service.
The last part I bought at a Radio Schlock was a sound card for my computer that was “guaranteed to work” until it didn’t and I had to take a store credit instead of getting a refund. Oh, DANG! That store closed about a month later but not before I spent my credit on some ear phones.
They used to carry the 12AX7 and L6 and L7’s too.
My first computer was a Radio Shack TRS-80.
I’d love to see the independent electronics shops come back, but mostly what I see are installers of boom systems... You would think the prepper resurgence of the ham radios would bring some back...
I was fortunate to wach the first NFL Superbowl Game on a color TV.
The TV was a Heathkit built by a friend of mine.-tom
Definitely kidding. I knew you meant a connector but “RCA jack” made me think of the RCA “His Master’s Voice” dog, which was in fact a Jack Russell.
The 12AX7 I remember. It was Heathkit's favorite dual triode, at least for audio use.
What were L6 and L7?
I buy lots of electronics parts. The last 3904s I got were 500 for 3.62 with free shipping.
You can get them at the link below for two cents each... I consider that a steep price but they are a reliable supplier and shipping is very low....almost insignificant when buying a lot of parts at the same time.
http://www.taydaelectronics.com/2n3904-npn-general-propose-transistor.html
For a while I was who guys would come to for cheap parts in a hurry... not a money making thing, just a courtesy for fellow hams and tinkerers. Since I moved that doesn’t happen much.
“Ironic that they were THE electronics store for a couple of decades but that the ubiquity of the semiconductor in later years actually killed them off.”
No, that is not what killed them off. They had some very unreal expectations of their customers and staff. THAT killed them off! That they’re still in their death throes is just sad, but think wounded dinosaur, back in the the day when they thought dinosaurs were all cold-blooded.Too stupid to know they were dead.
I was a saleman at the Las Vegas Meadows Mall in the early 80s, sold a bunch of TRS-80’s, the expansion boxes for them, and all the accessories I wanted and couldn’t afford for mine, a Model 1, Level 1, 4K machine.
Sold a bunch of stereos, too. Told the customers, truthfully, that I had a tin ear, and couldn’t hear well enough to tell if they sounded good or not, and let them play with the stuff and see how it sounded. Also pointed out the the internals were made by Panasonic, and Matsushita,both good quality component manufacturers. Lot of the stereo cases were perforated steel, hold a flashlight to them you could read the names off the capacitors and many of the semiconductors. Only worked there one holiday season, was their high-selling salesman for that whole time. I knew something about electronics, but was not an expert. Shared what I knew, respected the customers, and did quite well for a part-time job working evening & weekends.
Had a good manager, Stan Cwikala, IIRC. He died while I was gone on a TDY (was active-duty Air Force at the time) and the new manager knew nothing about me when I came back looking to go to work again. Was OK, had fun, but had other options.
L6 & L7 were big output tubes used by Marshall and HiWatt.
That is a nice light. I have seen some of the 3 Cree LED flashlights on ebay and amazon, but I did not realize that they were that bright.
OK, I'm game.
Larger and larger integrated circuits pretty much doomed both.
Very sad. I can think of about 6 or 7 times in the past 5 years that RS was the only place to find my part or battery.
K-Mart is the same way. Huge and empty parking lots.
Exactly...
To Catch a Mouse, Make a Noise Like a Cheese, by Lewis Kornfeld, ex CEO of Radio Shack
“After retiring he served on Radio Shack’s board until 2003. He wrote “To Catch a Mouse Make a Noise Like a Cheese,” a book on small-business marketing, published in 1983.”
It depends on which light it is, Fenix makes a high quality flashlight while some lights look similar and have inflated numbers and are of low quality.
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