Radio Shack aint what it used to be...

[nirvana]

Was about to mention that RPM, looks like they are in a bit of financial trouble, and to think I just applied to work there:rolleyes:

[BTW]

I'd like to be there at the end..when they start eating each other...


BTW - speaking of Sears, Craftsman is now made in China. When did that happen?

[nirvana]

Pwerhaps it was around the time they closed the American Remington plant, BTW.  Good thing about Craftsman though, is that they are free replacements on hand tools, for now anyway.

[AWMac]

I work in Telecommunications... was called out to Herndon, VA on a simple job. Run a few strands of fiber to a few switches and cable out the switches and Litton box with CAT5.  Got on site and ran fiber, no CAT5 cable or frikken RJ45 connectors.
Made a trip to RS and explained to the pimple faced asst Manager what I needed. It was like talking to a Deer in headlights... even speaking slower he had no grasp on what I needed. He directed me to another RS and it was as if they had clones there and I was speaking a diff language... after the 3rd RS I said screw this.

Found a Grey Bar... said what I needed and they asked me how many RJ45s and how many feet of CAT5. They were like poetry in motion...In and out in less than 15 minutes.

I'll never go to a RS again.  

Mac

[john9001]

<>

let me see if i understand, to increase sales you close stores? that place must be run by whiz kid MBA's.  

[LePaul]

The local Radio Shack's here are already remodelled over.  There's a handful of electronics things left but you wont ever find the kinda sales staff that was knowledgeable.  Heck I remember one old salt giving a customer tips on soldering and stuff.

I used to work at a Radio Shack part time for about a year.  Right around 1990, I think...whenever the 486's first started to hit.  I remember we were knee deep in computers, selling them like crazy...and radio scanners were the craze.  I recall special ordering tons of special frequency crystals, various radio parts, etc.  Thair parts dept was really quite awesome...you could get almost any part for anything electronic.

We had a Tandy Service Center up the street from us.  Those guys were the schnitz.

Now that im into electronics more, its a shame these local resources are all but gone.  

As for Sears...

Up til a few months ago, I'd work a few hours on Saturdays.  Big screen tv dept, so it was low effort, nice comissions     Sears is being whammied by the Walmarts.  However, to their credit, they will pricematch all those big guys to get you to buy your TV there.  And I much prefer the Sears Service Plans than "whatever third party we can scrounge up" that others use.

But Sears has this odd concept of putting 20 people on the sales floor lately.  That's just too many sales folks...so I got done.  

I remember, back as a kid,  looking at the Sears Christmas Catalog and drooling at the go-karts and minibikes!

[LePaul]

Isnt Radio Shack the one that had the CEO who lied extensively on his resume, so they canned him?

Or was that someplace else?

[Dago]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
I worked at Tandy for 10 years during thier heyday started by the Model I.  Unfortunately, and in a nutshell, when a corporation does well, politics starts taking over with everyone wanting to have thier name in the, "that was my idea" lights.

The last two years I was there, the core group of people, who had much to do with the success, all left or were run off.  Politics took over in a big way.  People were no longer being promoted for thier abilities or what they had done for the company to help it grow.  

Promotions were being handed out to friends.  Once those 'friends' got into a position above the people who actually had accomplished something for the company, those 'friends' ran off the people they were afraid they could lose thier position to.

My boss got run off like that.  Everyone in the department pretty much assumed I would take over, but then a ringer was brought in from outside.  He had zero experience managing an engineering team and didn't even have an engineering degree.  But he was a friend of the person who hired him.

He called me into his office the day he started.  Closed the door and told me, "Everyone knows you should have had this position, and you should know, I will do whatever it takes to get you out of here, so you best be looking for another job.  Oh, adn I will deny this conversation took place."

Next day I turned in my notice, went up to the VP of the division and told him Tandy would be out of the computer business in 5 years.  It actually took them 6 years before they were out of it.

At one point Tandy could have owned the computer market.  They made a lot of bad decisions which took them completely out of the market.  Those decisions are still dragging the company further into the bottom of the market.  The board of directors was so obsessed with getting the stock price up, but kept hitting a wall as Wall Street refused to acknowledge them as a manufacturer.  Some in upper management held that the stock would not go up as long as they were manufacturing as Wall Street was holding that against them.  In the end, they got rid of all thier manufacturing and engineering and have turned themselves into a retail reseller.

Basically they succumbed to Wall Street.  If Wall Street was only going to recognize them for being a retailer, then that is what they will be.

Sad to see it happen.  They have lost thier direction and leadership.  Once that happens there is no place to go but down.

Tandy made Grid computers.  We has some of those at my place of employment.  Talk about your junk computers.  I hope you weren't involved in those.

[john9001]

i think k-mart bought sears about 2 years after k-mart went into  bankruptcy, where did k-mart get the money?

k-mart stock holders lost everything but k-mart turns around and buys sears, i want a congressional investigation.

[LePaul]

Kmart reorganized under bankruptcy, cut its non-performing stores and developed a new business strategy under new management.

They came out of bankruptcy and have done very well since.  So well, they were able to buy up a competitor.

[Roscoroo]

I remember waiting for the sears fall/winter catalog for the toy's
saving up $20 for some gotta have toy gettin mom to order it , then bugging her everyday if they called .... then ya went down to this little shack of a outlet store to pick it up ..
then came the tedious wait for the spring/summer Swimsuit section

[JB88]

i remember seeing a big radioshack.com store (literally that name in big letters) in phoenix whilst i was there a few years yonder...wonder what ever became of that...

hmmmm