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I worked at Radio Shack. They had an extensive training program that all employees went through. There were multiple 50-page manuals for each product category.

I worked at Radio Shack. They had an extensive training program that all employees went through. There were multiple 50-page manuals for each product category. This meant training in A/V equipment and how to hook up TVs (which splitters and switches did what, how to wire many different audio setups, how VCR outputs worked, telephony equipment, pagers and Blackberries... etc.) We had to go through all the certifications within something like six weeks of hire in order to be eligible for pay bumps and promotions. This even meant training on circuit components (at least knowing what they were, and how they were organized). Any Radio Shack clerk that wasn't completely green went through this training, so we all knew our stuff. One of the cool things about the job was getting to talk to "elder geeks" that would come in for components. One guy I helped had set up an old IBM 360 mainframe in his garage. The university he worked at didn't want it any more. He used it for messing around with assembly and as a space heater. It was still a retail job, but it was better than most for a tech-head like me. I would've been flipping burgers or selling shoes (Payless was next door), so Radio Shack was a better stepping stone for me. It did nothing for getting me into a programming career, but it was a stop-gap to get there.

ipaddr 5y ago
I worked at radio shack. We didn't have certification program but you are forced to learn quickly. It was less about selling and more about people walking in knowing what they wanted or wanting to browse around and once in awhile someone with a problem that you had to piece together components to help. It was unlike other electronic stores I worked. You had to understand how invertors worked, rc cars and sell computers while trying to maintain an 80% names/address recorded. You did sell. You entire got paid minimum wage or a % of what you earned for a two week period. 4% for name brand stuff 10% for store brand. My first two week period I sold computer after computer got highest sales in the district. For the next month or longer the minimum. Replacing the computer inventory took forever and I wasn't as good selling all of their other products. Great fun learning experience.
kragen 5y ago
As far back as the 01990s my memories of Radio Shack are: 1. The only place around where you could go to buy a breadboard, or a transistor, or a resistor, or a headphone cable connector. Component selection unparalleled in the places where I lived. I don't want to exaggerate --- they had maybe ten kinds of transistors, not a hundred like Fry's, but I didn't live within 1000 km of a Fry's. And certainly not forty thousand like Digi-Key has today. 2. Salespeople who apparently didn't know anything but tried to get my phone number (!?) and, later, sell me cellphones. And cellphone plans. Jesus. 3. Stuff for makers getting gradually crowded out by worthless goods for mere consumers, stuff I could have bought at Best Buy or Sears if I wanted it. Things like TVs, VCRs, pagers, and Blackberries. I still use a store-brand Radio Shack multimeter sometimes, and in the 01980s a lot of my early years of programming were on store-brand Radio Shack computers in my day care and elementary schools, both TRS-80 Model III and the CoCo.
- Cederfjard 5y ago
  Complete side note, why are you adding a leading zero to you years (or decades, in this case)?
  - jhugo 5y ago
    It's to get people to ask that question.
  - bdowling 5y ago
    It's his conceit.
  - yourapostasy 5y ago
    See this LongNow article [1]. While I love the sentiment behind it, it creates an implicit fixed-length field which I think is not optimistic enough. I'd rather make software handle an unsigned long long as a year: I want our optimism to extend beyond the presumed heat death of our universe, and into, if not finding a multiverse, creating it. [1] https://longnow.org/ideas/02013/12/31/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-and-10k-compliance-at-home/ https://longnow.org/ideas/02013/12/31/long-now-years-five-di...

ipaddr 5y ago

I worked at radio shack. We didn't have certification program but you are forced to learn quickly. It was less about selling and more about people walking in knowing what they wanted or wanting to browse around and once in awhile someone with a problem that you had to piece together components to help. It was unlike other electronic stores I worked. You had to understand how invertors worked, rc cars and sell computers while trying to maintain an 80% names/address recorded. You did sell. You entire got paid minimum wage or a % of what you earned for a two week period. 4% for name brand stuff 10% for store brand. My first two week period I sold computer after computer got highest sales in the district. For the next month or longer the minimum. Replacing the computer inventory took forever and I wasn't as good selling all of their other products. Great fun learning experience.

kragen 5y ago

As far back as the 01990s my memories of Radio Shack are: 1. The only place around where you could go to buy a breadboard, or a transistor, or a resistor, or a headphone cable connector. Component selection unparalleled in the places where I lived. I don't want to exaggerate --- they had maybe ten kinds of transistors, not a hundred like Fry's, but I didn't live within 1000 km of a Fry's. And certainly not forty thousand like Digi-Key has today. 2. Salespeople who apparently didn't know anything but tried to get my phone number (!?) and, later, sell me cellphones. And cellphone plans. Jesus. 3. Stuff for makers getting gradually crowded out by worthless goods for mere consumers, stuff I could have bought at Best Buy or Sears if I wanted it. Things like TVs, VCRs, pagers, and Blackberries. I still use a store-brand Radio Shack multimeter sometimes, and in the 01980s a lot of my early years of programming were on store-brand Radio Shack computers in my day care and elementary schools, both TRS-80 Model III and the CoCo.

Cederfjard 5y ago
Complete side note, why are you adding a leading zero to you years (or decades, in this case)?
- jhugo 5y ago
  It's to get people to ask that question.
- bdowling 5y ago
  It's his conceit.
- yourapostasy 5y ago
  See this LongNow article [1]. While I love the sentiment behind it, it creates an implicit fixed-length field which I think is not optimistic enough. I'd rather make software handle an unsigned long long as a year: I want our optimism to extend beyond the presumed heat death of our universe, and into, if not finding a multiverse, creating it. [1] https://longnow.org/ideas/02013/12/31/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-and-10k-compliance-at-home/ https://longnow.org/ideas/02013/12/31/long-now-years-five-di...