At RadioShack, 'you've got mail' means 'you're fired'

AP via StarTribune ^ | August 30, 2006 | AP

[Hawkeye's Girl]

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - When the ax fell for about 400 workers at RadioShack Corp. this week, the bad news was delivered by e-mail.

[Xenalyte]

There hasn't been anybody in an RC store for years that knows the difference between a capacitor and a diode.

I know, and it hacks me off 'cause I need replacement parts for my flux capacitor and those freakin' Libyans won't come across.

[madison10]

I've always disliked Radio Shack's "interrogation" every time I tried to pay for something in their store.

I dislike how they stand over you waiting for you to make a decision... To appease the clerk: Bought it, took it back, 'nother Radio Shack within three hours.

[Non-Sequitur]

I worked at a company a number of years ago where they handled layoffs in an even worse manner. There was a weekly status meeting on Thursdays. One Thursday I was told by my boss to make myself scarce at that time. Don't go to the meeting. Don't go to my desk. Find a place and hide out for an hour. After that hour I went back to my desk and my boss said that everybody in the department except me and another person had been laid off. They showed up for the meeting and a few minutes after it was supposed to start some human resources and security people came in and dropped the hammer. They people were escorted to their desks, given 10 minutes to collect their belongings, and escorted out. Cold.

[Xenalyte]

Yo Bacon, Trash-80 ping!

Ern, my best friend had a TRS-80 that was the only computer in our subdivision. The cassette player was on a card table next to the computer, and if you nudged the table while the cassette was forwarding to the app you wanted, the tape would skip and you had to rewind and start over.

A list of TRS-80 games, to fuel the morning's nostalgia!

[Xenalyte]

Best Buy's service, such as it is, is strictly confined to the cell-phone area. I think they're caged in with an electronic fence.

Not a Best Buy employee to be found in the entire freakin' store, including the cash registers, but walk within 10 feet of the cell phones and four of them descend on you wanting to know how they can help. And when you say you're here for toner or a new game, they get this blank look.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

I played the dungeon and dragons knock off exclusively. And yes, ours was sitting on a card table also.

[4yearlurker]

Went to Best Buy last year to buy my daughter a laptop for school. They were like wolves!! They tried to push this stupid warranty on me,over and over... I told them what kind of junk are you selling that needs a warranty after a year. It was a most unpleasant shopping experience and I never went back. Emailed the company and told them so. I got back a standard customer email that basically said "Thanks"...And those wonderful rebates...

[razorback-bert]

And those wonderful rebates

@#(+#!&^ Rebates!

I refuse to buy any product that has a rebate at Best Buy. If asked why I won't, I tell them that a rebate means it is overpriced to start with and is probably shoddy merchandise to boot.

[CriticalJ]

This is amazing. Not one person can say anything nice about Radio Shack. I always thought it was just me who believed it was a hole filled full pushy, under informed, sweaty, rude men who looked like they would dress like the Gimp on Saturday night.

As far as customer service, if you haven't noticed, it sucks everywhere. Not just RS or Best Buy.

[Sender]

Radio Shack can't keep the best and brightest because of their abysmal pay structure.

I remember getting a motivational memo titled "How to make $11.50 an hour!". The way to do that was to sell several cell phone contracts per day, along with substantial commission sales and LOTS of overpriced accessories.

How motivational. If only I can be perfect, someday I might make $11.50 an hour. Woo hoo!

[GoBucks2002]

Instead of signing the back of my credit card, I have written "PLease See ID." This means that when the clerk looks at the back of my card, he or she will then ask for my ID, such as a driver's license. Anyone can steal a card and match the signature.

[DannyTN]

Oh ok, that makes sense, I thought you were talking about signing the receipt.

[KarlInOhio]

Instead of signing the back of my credit card, I have written "PLease See ID."

I think that is against Visa's and Mastercard's policies. I know the Post Office strictly enforces that there must be an actual signature on the back of the card or they won't accept it.

[GoBucks2002]

The Post Office is the only other retailer I've encountered which enforces that policy. At least they are up front and clear about it, which is more than we can say for RS.

[razorback-bert]

I was in a grocery store checkout and talking to people and signed the receipt with a scrawl(it looked nothing like my name or signature) and the clerk checked my card signature against the receipt and okay-ed it.

[Milhous]

I remember when Tandy sold leather and leather working tools.

Tandy sold leather and tools up to a few years ago in my town. :)

[Milhous]

They didn't merge with Radio Shack, IIRC. RS started as the electronic equivalent of the Tandy leather stores, and as it got more popular, replaced them as the main source of income for the corporation.

Tandy's Money Machine: How Charles Tandy Built Radio Shack into the World's Largest Electronics Chain

John Wilson recalled the genesis of the spin-off plan.

"We first started talking about it one evening in Charles' office. He said to me, 'What the hell's wrong? Why aren't we being recognized?' He was talking about Wall Street. We both agreed that the reason we didn't have the kind of recognition we wanted was that we were a conglomerate and conglomerates had lost favor. We talked about it a number of times after that, and we both agreed that the spin-offs were something that we ought to do. So Charles took it to the board and the board said, 'Okay, let's go.'"

The impactful announcement that would signal a turning point in the history of Tandy Corporation was made on the afternoon of May 27, 1975, in a press release that declared:

"The Board of Directors of Tandy Corporation, following a meeting in Fort Worth, today announced tentative approval of a plan which would separate the business of the corporation into three distinct publicly-held companies. The plan calls for the issuance to shareholders, in the form of a tax-free dividend, of the common stock of two new companies to be drawn from the handicrafts and from the leather products operations of Tandy Corporation.

"The resulting two new companies will be named Tandycrafts, Inc., and Tex Tan-Hickok, Inc. Tandycraft's primary operations will consist of the Tandy Leather, Color Tile, American Handicrafts and Stafford-Lowdon Divisions. Tex Tan-Hickok's primary operations will consist of the Tex Tan and Hickok Divisions. Tandy Corporation, under the plan, would carry on the consumer electronics (Radio Shack) operations as its sole business.

"The purpose of the plan is to provide more intensive and distinct management leadership of the three basic and diverse businesses of the company, each of which has reached substantial size in recent years. It will set out clearly the operating and financial progress of the three businesses, each with a distinctive growth pattern. It will provide shareholders with three clearly-defined investment vehicles, each with a simplified corporate structure and business direction. The plan also underscores management emphasis in developing the principal [sic] businesses of the company.

. . .

The more limiting Tex Tan-Hickok name was changed several weeks later to Tandy Brands, Inc.

Over the years Charles Tandy got involved with a department store and Pier One Imports IIRC. My favorite anecdote from the book:

It was after 2 p.m. when Tandy headed back to his office and found Charles Fleer [with the President's Commission on Executive Interchange] waiting to see him. Fleer asked if Tandy did any business with the federal government. "Fortunately," Tandy answered, "we don't do business with the government."

"You're luck," Fleer responded. "Hell, no, I'm smart," Tandy shot back.

Fleer's mission was to interest Tandy in permitting a government executive to work for a year with Tandy Corporation or for a Tandy executive to go to Washington to work in some governmental agency. "Like the IRS or the SEC?" Tandy asked, laughing. Fleer assured him that those agencies did not participate in the program for obvious reasons. Tandy concluded the interview by subjecting Fleer to a lecture on the faults and failures of government and the shortcomings of politicians.

"Government officials say they're not going to tax the people, they're going to tax business. Well, the only thing business can do is put it back in the price of the product. Hell, there ain't no such thing as a free ride. I just don't see how we can help each other out," he told the representative of the presidential commission.

[Old Student]

They still sell leather not too far from my home, but not in my town, in the city next-door. Bloody-awful expensive leather, too!

Thanks for the corrections and references on the Tandy split, looks like I got many of the details quite wrong, but it has been many years ago.

I used to work for RS in Las Vegas, many years ago. Part-time job, to help finance my burgeoning computer habit. Generally, I enjoyed it, and I quickly became that store's highest-grossing salesman. I took the time to find out what the customer was interested in, and helped them find it, and otherwise stayed out of their way... Which I would recommend to any salesperson as a method of operation.

[Roccus]

Thanks for that. As I said, the stores that I knew had just disappeared when I got back from the service.
I never shopped at RS years ago. For anything electronic I used Lafayette in Jamaica, Queens. (After they tore down radio row to build the WTC that is.)