You can't make up a funnier parody than that.
Stupid is the new smart.
I wonder if Rat Shack executives read this commentary and realize just how knuckle dragging stupid their store looks to their customers of a couple generations ago.
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"We are doomed as a society."
My thoughts exactly. It seems nobody wants to actually WORK for anything anymore...DIY is a dying art. Everybody wants it right now and doesn't want to be bothered by or God forbid have to actually THINK when they build something.
Our whole society is on the way down. It is all "gimme gimme gimme I want it right now but I don't want to have to do anything for it". Maybe that is why kids these days don't seem to appreciate anything because they didn't work for it. It was just handed to them and they have grown to expect just that.
When I was sixteen years old my parents bought me a car...they then proceeded to give me the payment coupon book! I appreciated that car because I had to work my butt off for it.
Sorry for ranting but I just had to get it out.
My thoughts exactly. It seems nobody wants to actually WORK for anything anymore...DIY is a dying art. Everybody wants it right now and doesn't want to be bothered by or God forbid have to actually THINK when they build something.
Our whole society is on the way down. It is all "gimme gimme gimme I want it right now but I don't want to have to do anything for it". Maybe that is why kids these days don't seem to appreciate anything because they didn't work for it. It was just handed to them and they have grown to expect just that.
When I was sixteen years old my parents bought me a car...they then proceeded to give me the payment coupon book! I appreciated that car because I had to work my butt off for it.
Sorry for ranting but I just had to get it out.
My favorite idiocy at RatShack these days is the service contract scam. I have been given the hard sell on a service contract, once to cover a 25' spool of coax cable and on a different occasion a USB to micro-USB cable. They wanted about 20% of cost. In each case I played along, asked what rate of failures they were seeing and thought long and hard about it. Finally told them I thought they were making plenty of profit at their prices (usually 4x internet but there is that "get it now" factor) and I couldn't see why I should add more profit with a service contract.
The current state of the RS stores is certainly saddening, but I'm not sure it's all their choice. When they had serious parts, Digikey and Mouser's catalogs were just flyers. Now you can view a million different complete manufcturer datasheets without printing anything and order online parts that RS could never stock in a store even if they wanted. There's always same day shipping too. It seems like a simple economics problem.
Maybe you could find a tantalum capacitor in one of the phones they sell.
Maybe you could find a tantalum capacitor in one of the phones they sell.
When I went to universities, we were taught to think. Now they are taught to obey.
And it shows in the business world too. Corporations (actually just about anywhere) were great to work for. You were considered an asset and treated like one. Now you are just a number (a "job description") and you are treated like one; they will delete you just like you are a piece of data in their database. In fact, I had one employer (who hired me because I was "smart" what irony) tell me "you are your job description." And please pick up your corporate mandated lobotomy on your way out the door.
I was there firsthand when the transformation took place. I was a person that was considered indispensable because of all my knowledge, experience, and most importantly my business contacts and negotiating skills. After a couple of management changes via corporate mergers/buyouts, I was suddenly persona non grata; an over 50 employee that was at their top of their pay scale and easily replaced by a younger "equivalent" that would accept less than half my salary and be more compliant as well.
In other words, they had no idea who I was and what I did. These decisions were made by number crunchers in Paris; I was working in Chicago.
Rant away.
I came to America for my first time in my life just a few weeks ago. On my first day in New York City I went to Times Square. I saw a Radioshack store and thought to myself that I just had to go in there. It's Radioshack after all. I have read so much about Radioshack selling all these cool things like components, general DIY-stuff and so on. I even have a SPL-meter from Radioshack.
When I entered the store I was really disappointed. No cool stuff at all, just the same stuff as every other electronics store. There were computers, phone, ipods & ipads, headphones, and so on. I left the store very disappointed.
About one and a half week later I'm with my host family in New Jersey, watching the Super Bowl. This Radioshack commercial comes up and confirms what I had seen a week and a half earlier. It's really sad how all those specialist stores just disappear and in the end all that is left is one store under different names owned by different companies. Everything is just becoming too mainstream. We need things to be special and different.
Those days are long gone here, my friend. You are describing the USA of yesteryear. This country was indeed something special.
Now it's a race to the bottom. Stupid is the new smart. Everything is becoming corporatized and homogenized. The hard working, can-do attitude of this once great country is evaporating like a fart in a hurricane.
It's not like that in Sweden, is it?
Just a day ago there was an announcement that RS would close 500 of its 4500 stores.Report: RadioShack to close 500 stores which also shows how the stock price has cratered.
Ah yes, Wassons Lafayette, off of Main street (Now MLK blvd.) downtown, east side Portland Oregon, Tables & tables, perhaps a dozen tables. Drivers of all sorts & sizes in stacked cardboard boxes. A big 30" EV driver in an in-house built enclosure, mounted up high so no one would do the inevitable dustcap poke.
Radar Electric off of East Burnside....then there was the premium store(Can't remember the name now) downtown Westside (High rent)...the burgundy silk draped tables with receivers proudly displayed, the subdued track-light spots illuminating the new Marantz 2285B with the wood case.....I can still see it in my mind.
Another hi-end store, passing thru doors inside & seeing all the Phase linear gear, the 700 Series Two taking center-stage.
All those, & more ...........now, the crap they pass off is jammed side to side, scratched ends, garish tags announcing the prices. How far has audio fallen?
_________________________________________________Rick.........
Radar Electric off of East Burnside....then there was the premium store(Can't remember the name now) downtown Westside (High rent)...the burgundy silk draped tables with receivers proudly displayed, the subdued track-light spots illuminating the new Marantz 2285B with the wood case.....I can still see it in my mind.
Another hi-end store, passing thru doors inside & seeing all the Phase linear gear, the 700 Series Two taking center-stage.
All those, & more ...........now, the crap they pass off is jammed side to side, scratched ends, garish tags announcing the prices. How far has audio fallen?
_________________________________________________Rick.........
"Can I get a service contract on these fuses I'm buying?"
"Whatever you came here for, we have a cell phone for you!"
I remember in the 70's Radio Shack parts were crap.
There's still stores that sell "high end" audio gear, but they don't let people like you and me in. You have to be filthy rich and reek of money.
There's a place like that around six miles from my house. "By appointment only" it says right in the window. I bet you need a letter of credit from the bank just to get an appointment.
The RS parts are still crap. Cheapest they can buy and charge the highest prices they can get way with. I'm really surprised they still sell parts, it's been in decline so many years. But the profit when they do sell a part has to be grand.
The main problem I see in Radio Shack is actually trying to pay for something. You have to wait forever for geeks behind the counter to finish a never endeding cell phone sales pitch. Don't think I've ever seen a phone sold.
The main problem I see in Radio Shack is actually trying to pay for something. You have to wait forever for geeks behind the counter to finish a never endeding cell phone sales pitch. Don't think I've ever seen a phone sold.
YES!, That red & white card....we had boxes chock full of those cheapie batteries. They would work just fine...if not short lived. All was good until "they" started creating devices that REQUIRED high current...AKA the birth of the Alkaline.
Then there was the first of the "RC" cars. We modifyed one that had two "AA's for the motor drive.........somehow we wedged in a 9V in its place...the circuitry held up.......the tiny 1/32th car would accelerate the length of the store...never did "top out" the car, maybe some 20+MPH worth. No smoke from the motor........yes, good times.
____________________________________________________Rick..........
Then there was the first of the "RC" cars. We modifyed one that had two "AA's for the motor drive.........somehow we wedged in a 9V in its place...the circuitry held up.......the tiny 1/32th car would accelerate the length of the store...never did "top out" the car, maybe some 20+MPH worth. No smoke from the motor........yes, good times.
____________________________________________________Rick..........
Even Allied Electronics had a few retail outlets for a year or two, circa 1970, but sold the retail business to . . . Radio Shack. Burstein-Applebee was another catalog house that operated retail stores.
But by far my favorite was McGee Radio in Kansas City. (Was it at 1901 McGee St?) When I lived in the region I was down there every other month or so. In addition to first-line merchandise they carried a lot of overrun, surplus, and closeout items - some of which never made it to a catalog listing. Their particular attraction to DIY'ers seemed to be speaker drivers - from every manufacturer you've ever heard of, many you haven't, and some with markings obliterated so you couldn't tell. In the mid 70's McGee even provided Thiele-Small parameters for many of the drivers, before that information became the foundation of speaker design. Saturday mornings would often find people lined up 3 or 4 deep at the counter, some wanting an eyeball examination of several drivers before making a selection.
I was last there when a business trip took me to K.C. in the early 80's. When my son moved to the region in the early 2000's they were gone and forgotten.
Here in St Louis (Missouri, USA) we still have Gateway Electronics as a supplier for hobbyist components but they haven't added many new items to the stock list for 20 years or more. (They'll sell you a genuine uA741, but don't ask for a PIC microcontroller.) I fear their days are numbered.
http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulle...ee-Electronics&p=121088&viewfull=1#post121088
I bought so many things from Gateway, Radio shack never had me in their store. Lou and Stew open the first store on the corner of Delmar and Skinker, before they move on Page and Midland. They Moved out near 270 but close to Page where they are now. They do Mail order too. Electronically Speaking, Gateway's Got It! They had stores in Denver and San Diego at one point, but I do not know why they closed them. Great Guys, Great Store.
Here in Orlando there is SkyCraft. Skycraft Parts & Surplus, Inc.
Here in Orlando there is SkyCraft. Skycraft Parts & Surplus, Inc.
We have You Do It Electronics in Needham, a suburb of Boston. Commonly referred to as "You Blew It Electronics" I only go there under dire circumstances when I need something urgently, they even sell a limited selection of tubes. Parts quality is not much better than RS, but they usually have something usable. They are however ridiculously overpriced on most items.
As I get older I realize a lot of things just are not that urgent. In such cases quality and price win out and I will go to one of several vendors I like or eBay.
As I get older I realize a lot of things just are not that urgent. In such cases quality and price win out and I will go to one of several vendors I like or eBay.