C&P'ed from a post I made in a similar thread over on PCEFX:
I'm surprised they lasted this long, but it still makes me sad. I used to fucking LOVE going into RS when I was a kid. Dicking around with the TRS-80s, checking out the toys. They had an awesome selection of toys during Christmas back in the day. Radio-controlled cars, pocket games, etc. I used to have one of those howevermany-in-1 electronic project kits and loved it. Radio Shack was also my first job out of high school, which was definitely at the tail end of their relevant years. RIP Radio Shack.
SignOfZeta said:
Back in the early/mid 80s Radio Shack was basically paradise. The first place I ever saw a portable CD player was RS. I've purchased tons of components and cables there.
Back in the day they used to need your name address and phone number written on carbon triplicate forms just to buy a blank cassette tape.
God, that was the worst part of my job when I worked there. Fucking EVERYBODY would ask why I needed their name and address, and I don't blame them. But we had to ask. They literally kept track of that shit, like what percentage of customers you got names and addys for. One of my friends actually got fired because he put some smart ass comment in the name/address section of someone's receipt. Something like "this job sucks". So someone was actually reading that shit.
One of my fondest memories of working there was this: We used to sell a shitty little guitar amp at the store. My co-worker and I both played the guitar, so one day I brought my electric guitar in. We would open the back door to the stock room and stand in the doorway smoking weed, then take turns playing the guitar. I just remember being high and helping some customer find some whatever thingy while Duane was in the back room wailing on my guitar with the amp turned up to 11.
We also used to sell computer games there, and for some reason sometimes the boxes weren't shrink-wrapped. So we had a copy of that game "Indy Car" by Papyrus (this was in 1995) and it wasn't shrink-wrapped. Literally NOBODY ever bought those games, so I took the disks out and took them home to play the game, fully intending to return the disks to the box. Well, before I had the chance, my manager discovered that the disks were missing (probably because he wanted to do exactly what I had already done) and he went off on us, saying that people were shoplifting in the store right under our noses and we weren't paying proper attention. So obviously I couldn't return the disks at that point or he would know that one of us took them. I still have them. :P
Lastly, I bought my Atari Lynx from one of my co-workers there (the same guy who got fired for the address thing) and I actually bought a Lynx game out of the Radio Shack Shop-at-Home catalog. I thought it was pretty neat that we sold those, since the Lynx was pretty much a dead platform by then. Desert Strike, in case anyone is wondering. Still have that, too.
I also remember one time as a young teen (maybe like 1991) going in with my best friend to a RS that for some reason still had a TRS-80 for sale. It was on but just sitting there with a prompt, so I typed:
Code:
10 PRINT "RADIO SHACK SUCKS"
20 GOTO 10
And then hit "Return".
At first the salesman was annoyed that a couple of kids were fucking around in his store, but then he was all fascinated that I got the computer to do that and wanted me to show him how. Of course he also didn't know how to make it stop. A far cry from the people who worked there in the 80's, who were all either computer nerds or electronics nerds.