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Why do I even bother shopping at radioshack?
paigeoliver:
Radio Shack isn't adapting to anything, it is trying to be Circuit City AND Toys R Us AND the Sprint store AND an actual electronics store all at the same time, a store SMALLER than ANY of those.
It ends up doing a terrible job at all of them. Best Buy (and even Commission City) are better consumer electronics store, every toy store is a better toy store, cell phone kiosks in the mall are better cell phone stores, and even those jumbled up mom and pop electronics component stores where everything is all randomly mixed up are better electronics stores*.
* Electronics Exchange, the electronics junk store I frequent USUALLY has most things I need. If I go in there with a list of caps I can usually find 90 percent of them. I shoot about 50 percent on ICs, and things like switches and edge connectors I have always found. It would cost me like $45 to put together a cap kit at radio shack, and that was IF I got lucky and they actually had enough caps in stock to make one.
tommy:
Im not sure why you would expect anyone in anystore to know whats going on, they dont train them to be experts on all electronics.
Maybe they could give you a general idea where to find an item, answer the phone and work the register thats it.
DaemonCollector:
I actully applied to work at one of these stores last year. They're hiring tactics are ass backwards. They do a presentation thing like once a month and all the applicants sit in a room and they do their whole speil on how they are there to answer questions and train every employee on everything in the store. After the presentation they take each person to a mini interview, during this interview they don't question electronics background or anything. I still get a kick out of going in the stores and confusing the hell outa some of the employees. But there is one store near me who has a hobbiest working for it, he always helps me out :) Otherwise its over to Fry's
nipsmg:
Unfortunately, there's no other local option if you need components in a pinch.
For the most part, I hit up digikey for large orders. I work for a contract circuit board manufacturer and I can get orders of stuff from suppliers for OUR cost, which is generally a lot cheaper than book pricing.
However, if I really quickly need some wire or a DPDT switch or a RCA jack or something, I have to go to radio shack because there are no other stores in the immediate area. It kinda sucks, but then again, there's not a large consumer demand for components. :-/
Stingray:
Actually I'm fairly lucky, both of the Radio Shacks near me one knowlegable employee. Sadly everyone else who works at both stores are clueless cell phone salesmen, but one at each store isn't bad.
-S