Yes, I was a manager for Radio Shack
It was in the late 80’s / early 90’s (ish) and I was a young man with a new baby & I just got promoted to manage my own store. It was what I would call a ‘starter store’, low volume of customers meant a new manager could get the feel of running a store.
Then as you got more good at manager-ing a better store would become available from people above you who were getting promoted to better jobs. Now that I am writing this I see that it sounds a bit like an MLM pyramid thing.
But, a different fate awaited me.
One of the terrible things we HAD to do was to get people’s names & phone numbers. Customers didn’t like giving it out & I didn’t like asking for them. So, if a customer didn’t want to tell me their name, I would just pick one from the top of the list.
Then I sold an 8-track recorder to a customer.
Funny aside, I got word out to all of the other managers that I wanted to buy all of their record-able 8-track blank tapes. I got tapes from all over the US, at a huge discount. Then I sold every one of them to my grandfather who was recording his record collection on to 8-track tapes.
Anyway, the next day the customer brought it back for a refund. So, I gave him one & he left. Then I put the recorder back on the shelf, awaiting a new customer to purchase it. No big deal, right?
Wrong!
About a month later the general manager comes in to my store and accuses me of stealing money. He says that he called the customer that was listed on the receipt, which was just some random ass dude from the top of my customer list, and asked him why he didn’t like the tape player he returned.
You can guess what happens next & I even show hime that the tape deck is IN THE STORE. but he doesn’t listen. He drives me to the bank & watches me deposit the stores cash. Ant that is it.
I loved working there, especially when the nerds would come in to buy components or solder or any of the tinker-y things we had. I loved answering their questions, helping them to pick out electronics so they could build their next project. It was awesome.
I would have worked there forever. Well, at least until 2017!
