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Re: Role of ignition condenser in a distributor?

Unless, of

>course, you're at Radio Shack, where you'll get a look that's not just >puzzled, but positively bovine in its utter lack of anything resembling >the spark (Errr... no pun intended) of intelligence.

Be nice! A lot of RS stores have gone to Hell in a hand basket, but I resent the stereotype, nonetheless.

Up until fairly recently (I'm talking 6 or 7 years ago), my local RS stores had quite knowledgeable staff.

But let me tell you what happened to me about 19 or 20 years ago.

There was a local RS office in downtown ("Old Town") Eureka. It was a few years prior to the start of the "Urbanization of Eureka" project. God Damn the city council!

In this event, there was an employment ad run in the local job market, for a "manager trainee" position. This point is important to note! I did not want to be a salesman. I like dynamics, not stagnation. Thank you very much!

Well, it turns out that the so-called "manager trainee" position was a hoax: A come-on. Truth is: ANY employee can be later considered, trained, and promoted. I didn't realize that then, but I do now.

Let's backtrack.

OK. I applied for the job.

At the interview, we talked turkey. This is where I probably shot myself down, but I didn't care at the time. I was blinded by intellect. During the course of the interview, I was alarmed to learn that RS was phasing out the "smart salesmen", in a quest for volume sales push. The interviewer started to explain the policy to me. Here is what I heard him say:

"Actually, we are not looking for manager with electronics knowledge. The less they know about electronics, the better."

I asked, "Why?" (big mistake)

"Well, it's a distraction. We don't want customers calling up our store to pick our brain. We want to be able to keep sales on an even keel, and basically just run the store."

I proceeded to tell him, quite frankly, what I thought about that protocol. I didn't get the job, needless to say. But at least I left an impression.

Yeah, it's sad. In the past 20 years, ost of the knowledgeable staff in my area RS stores have either been transferred, fired, or have gotten frustrated and quit!

--
  -john
            wide-open at throttle dot info
Reply to
~^Johnny^~
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Be nice, my ass. Too damned many people in this world are "being nice" in an effort to avoid offending the tender sensibilities of some worthless waste of humanity, when what's needed is a good solid smack upside the head with a dose of reality.

Resent it all you like. Your resentment means *EXACTLY NOTHING* to me, as my view is dead-on accurate: If you walk into pretty much any Radio Shack today, you cannot find anyone with even the amount of electronic know-how needed to point you at the capacitor rack, let alone give you any useful information to decide why "This one is the one you want, rather than that one." You'll find a shitload of salesdroids that'll try and sell you a cell-phone when what you want is a 33K resistor, but beyond that, you're walking into an intellectual wasteland.

Most of them wouldn't know a capacitor from a resistor from a pimple on their ass. Of course, this assumes that the store you walk into even

*HAS* a capacitor rack. It's getting to the point where Radio Shack should seriously consider renaming itself to "Cell phone and satellite TV shack" to reflect their true business.

Radio Shack: You've got questions, we've got blank stares.

Despite being something of a cliche, it's dead-on accurate in the huge majority of RS stores.

And no, I don't care whose feelings I hurt by saying so. Get over it. If you don't want to be seen as "the imbecile behind the counter", you've got two options: Learn something, or get the hell out. But don't expect any touchy-feely "spare your poor sensitive feelings" bullshit from me. I call 'em as I see 'em, and if you don't like what I'm seeing, you need to change what it is I see. At Radio Shack, I see morons. Don't like that? Then change it - Get yourself at least rudimentary education in the field you're supposedly working in, so that when I come in with a question, you've got an actual answer, instead of a blank stare or a line of bullshit that's so obvious even a blind man couldn't miss seeing it.

Izzat clear enough for you to understand, "Johnny"?

--
Don Bruder - dakidd@sonic.net - New Email policy in effect as of Feb. 21, 2004.
Short form: I'm trashing EVERY E-mail that doesn't contain a password in the
subject unless it comes from a "whitelisted" (pre-approved by me) address.
See  for full details.
Reply to
Don Bruder

There was an RS "droid" who really cracked me up trying to convince me that a gold-anodized antenna was required to receive color signals ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Lemme guess... The "plain aluminum" version can only get black and white?

And I'd be willing to bet my last nickel that the "gold" version was at least 10-20 bucks (if not quite a bit more than that) pricier than the "regular", wasn't it?

Thanks for illustrating my point so nicely, Jim :)

--
Don Bruder - dakidd@sonic.net - New Email policy in effect as of Feb. 21, 2004.
Short form: I'm trashing EVERY E-mail that doesn't contain a password in the
subject unless it comes from a "whitelisted" (pre-approved by me) address.
See  for full details.
Reply to
Don Bruder 

--
  -john
            wide-open at throttle dot info
Reply to
~^Johnny^~

Awwww... Guess I hurt his poor widdle feelings...

--
Don Bruder - dakidd@sonic.net - New Email policy in effect as of Feb. 21, 2004.
Short form: I'm trashing EVERY E-mail that doesn't contain a password in the
subject unless it comes from a "whitelisted" (pre-approved by me) address.
See  for full details.
Reply to
Don Bruder

PLONK

Reply to
Bill

Well, yeah, but he's got this *great* gold-plated DVD player dust cover, which you need if you're going to watch DVDs put out by Disney in the widescreen format, and it's available for only $39.99. It's also eligible for the Radio Shack Protection Plan for only an additional $13.49. How many would you like today? Three dozen? Four dozen? Let's start by giving me your home address and telephone number...

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

Since you are making this statement as some sort of authoritative comment, are we to assume that you have personally visiterd over 3500 stores (more than half would be a bare majority - we'll give you the benefit of the doubt) in doing the research that leads you to this conclusion?

Name them.

Reply to
Bob Ward

Have you ever visited a RS store where the counter help actually knows anything about anything other than the CD players out front? I think I may have, once, but I'm not sure. Most of the time I can find what I'm looking for (or determine they don't have it) faster than any employee.

I suspect the "parts" section of RS is much like the little bins of metric fasteners in the "big box" hardware stores - they're stocked once, when the store opens, and never looked at again.

nate

--
replace "fly" with "com" to reply.
http://home.comcast.net/~njnagel
Reply to
Nate Nagel

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You left out one other alternative: They got a better job - especially pay-wise.

Reply to
Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, th

Why just RS? Include McD and BK in there too.

need

In the education biz, they're called intellectually challenged, among other things..

seeing

Oh, bruder - er, brother!

21, 2004.
Reply to
Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, th

The critical key difference is that Shit Shack *used* to be useful. McDeath and Booger King have *always* sold crapola.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

My son hired a RadioShaft assistant manager away because he was tired of

*having* to sell cell phone service in an area that had no coverage. A large part of his compensation was in useless cell phone contracts. 
--
  Keith
Reply to
keith

Radio Shack used to be (maybe 30 years ago) an intriguing place to browse and buy project parts. But for whatever reason, the selection and quality of discrete components has plummeted to the joke level. It was bad 10 years ago, and it's even worse now.

My proof? Well, I can go into any store in the San Diego region, and get the same level of cheap parts. From what I hear on Usenet, this is typical everywhere else. You could refute my experience, if you could cite a Radio Shack that sells RG-214 coax, type N coax fittings, or switches that have tin-plated terminals and a good "feel."

Sure, I still go to Radio Shack. Last week I found myself hovering over the parts trays, looking for female BNC chassis connectors (none found), two fuseholders (that bright finish on the terminals sure is hard to get solder to flow onto it), a pair of SPST bat-handle switches (they had one) and a metal project box (only carry plastic boxes). While I was searching for parts dumped back into the wrong bins (hope springs eternal), I was approached by two different sales droids with their canned welcome / help speech (and both didn't know what a BNC connector was).

I found myself standing there, wondering why I wanted to build anything with the crappy quality parts they had. I found myself hoping that the other sales droids would ignore me, as I don't think I could have tolerated explaining what a BNC connector looks like a third time. Imagine that you went into a NAPA store looking for flexible fuel line, and all they had was

8 different fluorescent colors of plastic aquarium hose. Or imagine that they only had 10mm bolts in 2cm lengths, no other length, and they only had three of those. And no Grade 8 bolts at all. And no stainless either.

Radio Shack's marketing must really understand their market, because I have never seen any of the local stores go out of business. Clearly, they can make enough money selling cell phones, cordless phones, stereos, alarms, smoke detectors and batteries. The square footage of the stores devoted to component sales seems to shrink every so often, till now there's just a couple of metal tray bins and a short wall of plastic bagged stuff.

I don't attack the RS people. I just try to avoid them, because interaction with their store personnel is painfully embarrassing. I wouldn't expect the NAPA guys to know what a BNC is, so why should I expect the RS people to know either? Sure, there's that "radio" in the name, and "shack" harkens back to the built-it-yourself ham radio days, but you don't seriously expect to find royalty at Burger King, do you?

Times change, salmon die after the upstream swim. Good parts are still available on the Web (Mouser, Digikey, Newark, Allied). Acquire Zen. Ultimately, WGASA?

Ed wb6wsn

Reply to
Ed Price

Elitist scum! Haute cuisine is anyplace you can drive through!

Ed

Reply to
Ed Price

Let's face it. Few people do electronic hobbies anymore. When I was a kid in the 50s, I built my own transistor radio before anyone else had one. You could actually build something which was not available commercially. Often if it was available, what you built could be superior. This is hardly the case anymore. And it's not just electronics. When was the last time to saw a kit for a stick built model airplane with tissue paper fabric. Why bother building when you can buy something for less than 50 bucks on the internet and it flies out of the box?

Radio Shack is surviving by selling what most people want to buy, pre-built electronic toys. And the realy trouble started when a woman took over as CEO. At least the stock holders are somewhat happy.

I needed a couple of -12VDC 3-terminal regulators recently. The only way to get them is by mail order. I lucked out when my son found some at the MIT Flea Market. I won't be surprised is soon DIP parts will no longer be available anywhere. And how are hobbiests able to deal with SMDs.

Al

Reply to
Al

Naw it ain't. Haute cuisine is the kind that comes out of the oven or off of the stove, as opposed to caulde cuisine, which comes out of the fridge or freezer.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

I don't have a citation/link (it's been several weeks since I read it) but a recent industry rag had an article commenting that Radio Shack might be returning at least partway to its roots. They apparently had a "D'Oh!" moment and realized that there's no possible way to compete with the warehouse retailers for the big ticket items. A typical RS has less total shelf space than in just the notebook PC aisle at CompUSA.

On the other hand, a customer driving to CompUSA (or fill-in-the-blank) probably passes at least a couple RS stores en route. So they're looking to capture the "I need a ..." market for smaller items and piece parts.

I wish them luck. It is, perhaps, a sign of uber-geek sophistication to dump on Radio Shack. But, even in the days of on-line ordering and overnight delivery, it's pretty handy to be able to walk a couple of blocks to the local RS and pick up a spool of wire-wrap wire.

--
Rich Webb   Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

That would be when I stopped into the Hobby Lobby store in Chino Hills last week - they still have a full selection of advanced level kits for RC hobbyists.

Why bother building a high performance aircraft when you can buy RTF junk on the Internet? You tell me.

Reply to
Bob Ward

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