Lots of nostalgia about Fry’s here. Well, I have a different take. Fry’s was my first job, and my first introduction to wage slavery. They never at any point cared about employee health or well-being. Breaks were the state minimum. Pay was the state minimum. The entire staff (and there were hundreds back in the day, when the checkout line would back up into the store even with 20 registers open) shared one 7x7 beige break room. It looked like something from Prison Architect, just an old tube TV with bent bunny ears (you weren’t allowed to turn it on though, it was for training) and the stale smell of cigarette smoke. Knowledge was irrelevant, it was all about sales. SPIFs (bounty-style sales commissions) and revenue ruled the day. Aside from that, the owners didn’t care; cliques and in-groups ruled hiring and firing in the absence of leadership. Stores were always falling apart even when they were new. I don’t think anything over 7’ up was ever dusted; even 20 years ago, it was so thick in some places you couldn’t see the paint. The repair bar employees would regularly rifle through customers’ hard drivers and keep the juciest pictures.

Just another cynical retail empire, pumped hard and drained dry by its owners while the foundation rotted from below. May they build condos on its grave.