Any ex Radio Shack employees have any war stories to share?

the skipper

the skipper

Professional Curmudgeon
I worked for the sgack four times in my sorted life.First time was in 1967 when I was hired to manage a Tandy/Radio Shack in a local Department store (Bambergers') and I got the honor of selling the last tube receiver Allied made. Then, in '68, I got drafted.
Next up was 76 -77 when I was going to Radio/TV repair school. Some of the people I met then remained friends throughout my life

Then, 81 - 84 when I went to Computer school. Likewise, I made more friends.

Finally, part time in 96 - 99 when I went through a divorce and wanted something to keep me busy so I went to work for one of my radio shack buddies..

Now, in the 81 - 84 stint, it became possible to buy your own telephones and we sold a one piece phone for $11.88. It was a POS but it did work. I know I had two.

Now, fast forward about 18 years. I'm working part time (I was a programmer full time) and this little dweeb storms up to the counter and slams one of those crap phones on the counter and DEMANDS that I fix it. I look at the phone, then I look at him. I'm not smiling. I say we haven't sold that phone in abut 20 years and, besides, it's not worth fixing.

He says well,then, give me a new phone. I said simply no, next customer?

Now, consider, this skinny guy didn't come up to my nipples. (I'm 6'3" and about 240 lbs.)

He tries to climb over the glass counter but I just push him off. All the customers are having a ball watching this. Now, he screams at the top of his lungs "If it weren't for that counter I'd kick your effin. ass." I an trying to not laugh now. Now, the manager who was watching all this on the CCTV from the back room, comes out and says as loud as he can "Skipper. it's your break."

I turn to the dweeb, smile and say, "Do you want to take this outside?" His eyes open wide, his jaw drops, he drops the phone and, just like that, there's a puff of blue smoke where he was just standing.
 
Register to hide this ad
From the DM, "The sole purpose of the life for a Radio Shack manager is increasing sales and profits for the Tandy Corporation".
 
Aside from the guy threatening me over the Mach 3s, story I told in the smile thread, I don't have much else. The manager chuckled when I told him about it the next day. Since it was a Tandy owned store, he couldn't just give customers credit anyway as Tandy Security could have audited our books at any time. The guy who tried to get the speakers was not someone the mgr would have done that for anyway since he would probably not be able to pay for the speakers any time soon. That btw, is assuming he was even planning to pay for them.

I Moonlighted at the store in Newton, NJ for a couple of months. Then, everyone working there, including the manager got laid off. I thought they were going to permanently close the doors. They just replaced all of us with robots. It's probably closed now as not many RS stores still exist.
 
I don't think any exist anymore. I worked in New Jersey then. In the Menlo Park mall, the computer store in Springfield, Woodbridge Mall, Belleville and finally in Linden.
 
There’s a store with a Radio Shack sign in Immokalee, Fl (that’s where the people that pick the tomatoes you get in winter live).
They still have a few drawers of electronic parts and a few used cheap guitars and stereo equipment but it mostly is a furniture rental store. This is a town where most people walk.
I think they’re just too lazy to take the sign down.
 
The only Radio Shack stores left in operation are franchise locations. In Boothbay Harbor, Maine, there's a store called Harbor-Tech Solutions which has multiple sections including a copy center, a cell phone retailer, picture framing, and (yes) Radio Shack products. I believe they also had a video rental section at one point, but it was just an empty space when I was last there.

I've bought a fair number of things from Harbor-Tech over the years, including an enclosure for a speaker/amp switcher I'm planning to build. They proved to be a 'lifesaver' while on vacation some years ago when my iPad decided to reject its SIM card, essentially turning it into a brick. Various tricks failed so I took a trip to the store, bought a can of DeOxit, sprayed the contacts on the SIM card, put it back into the slot, and it was good to go.
-Adam
 
I grew up around electronics. Before getting in the insurance business in 1977, my dad had worked Teague Electronics as well as Bluff City. He was on really good terms with the local Radio Shack franchise and designed his own antenna system for the house with parts bought mainly from them. When most people were pulling in 3-5 stations, we were pulling in 12 on a consistent basis, and even more if the weather was "just right."

I always dreamed of working for Radio Shack and would bug another franchise owner for a job as a teenager. He never would hire me. I went to vo-tech to learn electronics in hopes of being a repairman. I bugged another franchise owner locally to take me on as a tech and train me. Nope, sorry, just not enough business. I got married (that didn't work so well, but I have 3 kids to show!) and moved off. I was thrilled when a local corporate store in the mall wanted me to come to work. I was in Hog Heaven!

I made some pretty good money for that being one of my first full time jobs. Within no time I had a store key. I also found out that if you want to know the depths of people's stupidity, just go to work for Radio Shack! The era of the VCR was in full swing. VCR's have line level inputs/outputs. We would have ignorant people come in who were insistent on buying F to RCA connectors to make the connection between the RF from the wall and the line level inputs on the VCR even after you explained to them that wouldn't work. Why they didn't just use the RF to RF connection is beyond me, but I sold it to them if they insisted. Then you had the people that "I need a needle for my stereo." Do you have the old one? No. Model number for your stereo? Oh, it's a Zenith. The same thing with batteries, or "bat-trees" as many called them.

The best one ever, though, was this story. The Internet was just starting to be a "thing." This was 97 or 98. This woman come in with a "laptop" that she'd bought at a yard sale and wanted me to put Internet on it for her. It had a diskette drive, so her friend loaned her the diskettes to put Internet on her "laptop," but it just wouldn't install. The "laptop" disk drive was for low density diskettes and the Internet diskettes were high density. She still couldn't understand why it wouldn't work. Topping it all off, it was just a word processor with a drive to save/edit documents on a diskette.

My best customer was a little old man, probably in his 80's at the time. He come in right before closing and needed a stereo needle. He didn't know the make or the model. Now y'all look at my avatar and y'all know I like my music vintage. I figured I'd blow his mind a little, so I asked him who was his favorite singer. Jimmie Rodgers. I explained I loved Jimmy. I was barely in my mid-20's, so he looked at me really funny and said I was thinking of someone else, that there was no way I could know the music of the Jimmie Rodgers he liked. Mind blowing time! He was amazed that I knew so much. Instead of him investing in a new stylus, he bought some cassette tapes, brought them and his records back to me the next day, asked me to be really careful with them, to make him cassette copies, and make myself cassette copies!

I moved back out here, which is 52 miles one way from where the store was, but I kept driving because I was making good money, plus the DM kept telling me how close they were to buying out a local franchise due to excessive complaints and I could transfer. I held on to it for a while. I finally had my fill of things one day when corporate sent down a memo leaving it to the "discretion of the DM" as to whether or not to open on Easter. The DM was going to open us on Easter and it was my turn to work. We wound up not opening, but between that, pay scale changes, and being told the DM was lying about the franchise store getting bought out, I turned in my notice.
 
I think they are franchises that can sell certain items, not a "real" company owned full line Radio Shack store that sells only Radio Shack products like we remember.
 
I got one, circa 2004. Army type guy comes into the Shack dressed in his fatigues, and probably loaded up on more uppers than he can handle while on leave(this incedent takes place in the meth belt). He starts babbling this hard core visceral tactical war stuff to my friend working there, about what he has seen, done, and been through the first few years post 9/11.

My friend knows a bullshitter when he hears one, but he maintains this dude was genuine, and the rapid-fire delivery of his amazing stories were enough to prompt him to try and start a tape recorder as the soldier continued spilling all kinds of perhaps covert stuff he probably wasn't supposed to be telling anybody.

Well, because soldiers are trained in things like espionage, he notices immediately and karate chops the deck and runs out of the store, jumps into a large truck and hastily Powerstrokes out of the parking lot to maintain his cover.

I'm still pissed I missed that occurence, I practically used to live at that radio shack by my house after I graduated high school, but I guess you can't win 'em all.
 
My stint as a RS employee was only a couple of months, but I was a customer for many years before and after that. Back in the 70s and 80s, I enjoyed shopping for parts for projects and DIY repairs and talking to the manager whom I ended up working for. Not only was he knowledgeable and friendly, but he also put an interesting spin on a lot of concepts. He also never seemed to let much of anything bother him. I was in the store a few times when customers were yelling at him for things that had little or nothing to do with him. He never yelled back, but he didn't back down either. He used to stand on the floor facing the customer and calmly tell them how it was. Eventually, the person would realize that he/she wasn't going to break the manager in any way and walk away frustrated. After the unreasonable customer left, he would simply go about his business as if nothing had happened. It was very cool.
 
I was lucky/blessed to have two good managers. The guy that hired me was fired about 2 weeks after I started, so he doesn't count. He was too interested in talking to his younger employees about some online role playing game they were involved in. He was replaced with a long time veteran named Ron Bethea. I thought I was going to HATE the dude (oops, I used that HATE word....lol!!!). He laughed after I got to know him better and said he'd been referred to as Hitler and saluted by employees who didn't like him. He knew his stuff front and back. I loved working for him. He relayed a funny story once. I don't think he's on here or anyone knows him, but I think he'd get a laugh that I remember this 20+ years after.

This is the worst area for allergies given that there's a lot of farming. He went to the doctor for something for allergies. They gave him a new medicine which he went and picked up, presumably at the local Walmart. He takes it and notices he's having an allergic reaction to it. He knows he needs help, so he looks around for somebody he knows. In front of the McDonald's in the Walmart he was at, he notices a guy sitting on a bench that looks familiar to him. He can't place him, but he just knows that he knows this guy from somewhere. He sits down and starts telling the dude he's having a reaction and needs help. The guy wouldn't talk back to him at all. He finally came to his senses enough to know he was talking to Ronald McDonald!!! :crazy::crazy::crazy::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rflmao::rflmao::rflmao:

I wound up transferring to the store across town which was a shopping center instead of a mall location. I figured I would tank as far as sales. I actually did better at the shopping center and really hated to leave. I'm still friends with my boss from that location and we talk on Facebook every now and again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom