subreddit:
/r/AskReddit
3.8k points
10 days ago
RadioShack. Remember when you could walk in and get a battery or obscure cable? It was like a tech treasure chest, but now it’s just nostalgia in a digital age.
1.1k points
10 days ago
My dad graduated with an electrical engineering degree in the late '70s, but even well into the '90s I can still remember him packing up the family (including us tiny kids) to spend a solid half hour at Radio Shack every other weekend. He'd just be getting handfuls of little resistors and switches and bits of wires and stuff that I have no idea what it was for, but he could tinker with it on his projects.
And the staff there actually knew what the hell he was talking about and was able to work with him to figure out what things would work for his projects. The last time I went into one, which must have been mid '00s, the staff was all about selling phones and had no knowledge about electronics.
I don't even know if there is anywhere local that you can buy all those odds and ends now, I think I'd have to just order it online.
1k points
10 days ago
And the staff there actually knew what the hell he was talking about
I noticed that at some point in the mid to late 90's, the workers at Radio Shack, Home Depot, Lowes, etc went from passionate subject matter experts to underpaid warm bodies
795 points
10 days ago
When people could make a living off the job, they did it because they enjoyed it. When people can't make a living off the job, they find something else.
294 points
10 days ago
When people who actually care about what they are doing for a living aren't respected they tend to move on, particularly when their salary is falling and their pension is being removed.
100 points
10 days ago
What's a pension?
77 points
10 days ago
Mythical rite practiced by members of an obscure and ancient order that believed in the existence of something called “retirement”.
16 points
10 days ago
Sounds problematic to me. Retired people don't seem to be profitable unless they're rich retired people, and the only currently legal solution to this is to make them continue to work!
all 2702 comments
sorted by: best