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Comment by colecut | Hacker News Reader

My only retail job ever was at Radioshack back in 2009, I lasted about 2 months before landing an office IT job..

It was barely a shell of its former self then.. the only training I remember was being told to upsell batteries with every transaction..

I didn't make it long enough to be trained on selling cell phone plans which was the only way to make commission...

I don't understand the mindset of someone willing to be sold a cellphone plan during a random radioshack visit enough to work with them =p

Black Friday was during my short time there, I wasnt overly familiar with our inventory or locations of things, and fielding questions like "What gift should I get my grandson?"

I was anxious pretty much every minute that I worked there. May I never experience retail again.

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Oh yeah, it was awful by then. At my store you made essentially minimum wage plus a sort of commission for addons/upsales (as long as they were over a certain percentage of your total sales) and flat bonuses for new cell contracts, phone/accessory sales.

Theoretically it could add up to a passable paycheck for retail, but they had it set up so that only a few senior staff ever got enough hours/good shifts where you could conceivably hit the addon percentages needed to qualify for commissions. So the only way to make any money was to sell cell plans, phones, and accessories. The whole store was totally focused on hawking cell plans.

Then we had to go to monthly meetings an hour out of town on our own dime. That's where they talked at us about the company and how cool and great it was. Such a shitty place to work. IIRC there was a dedicated web forum called "RadioShackSucks" or something like that where staff complained to each other.

Also anecdotal, but it seems that RadioShack in that era was a particularly awful place to work. I applied around that time (might have been that exact year, or else it was 07-08). I was weeded out by the online personality test. My dad was friends with the store manager and he said "your son doesn't really have what we're looking for". Mind you, this would have been my 3rd or 4th retail job by that point, and I had references. I knew they did commission sales, and I had no experience in that, but I also wasn't the kind of person to upsell crap the customer didn't need. I'm glad I didn't get the job.

My first job was also at RadioShack but back in 1995. We were all focused on batteries, adapters and consumer electronics. and cell phones were starting to be a big deal as carriers started subsidizing phones.

I remember the "Battery Club" you could get one free battery a month I think. They gave you a little card and would punch a hole in it for every battery you got. My dad would stop in every month to get his free battery. I don't recall if any purchase was required but I don't think so.

In the 1960's, my brother and I would walk about three miles (over Red Mountain in Birmingham AL) to the closest Radio Shack. We would each get a free battery using our cards and usually we didn't buy anything. Eventually we became pretty good customers.

It wasn't; at least for me as a teenager in the 80's. Could have been a per-store policy, but the one in the Lockport suburb of Chicago and the one in the Winter Garden suburb of Orlando didn't.

2009 is around the last time that I remember going into a Radio Shack, with the intention of buying a Nintendo DS and a game. I watched the guy go to the back to get a baggie containing the system, manual, accessories, etc, and stuff it into the box. He went back looking for the game (which was similarly absent from the case, along with the manual), came out empty handed.

"Well, couldn't find the game. So just the system?"

"Umm...no. I'll just buy the system down the street, since I'm going to have to go there to buy a game anyhow."

I have great memories of buying electronic components, kits to work on with my grandfather, and such. They were pretty sad by the end though. No decent kits, no little drawers of components.

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