OT: Tandy Silver

[John Esak]

> I first went to work in October 1980 at a regular Radio Shack retail store
> in Parkington, Virgina that wasn't allowed to sell the Model II.  The
> manager and his District Manager basically conspired to let me sell Model
> IIs from this store against company policy (the store manager was an EMT
> who worked the SCCA races at Summit Point Speedway, and knew me from my
> racing there).  January 1st 1981, I was transferred to an ``X'' department
> at 19th and K Streets in downtown D.C. which I was to take over when RS
> opened a new computer center a block away at 18th and M Streets (I first
> met John Esak when he was a marketing rep. at the 18th street store :-).

Boy "Marketing Rep" is such an understatement. I was that, but also, the CSR
(or tech guy) for the whole time I was there. We had a real CSR hired to
support the huge sales I was making... I hit highest salesman for many
different months... all on Mod 16's and Proile/Scripsit mostly.  But the CSR
they hired could not spell "cat" let alone computer and I essentially did
all his work until the day I left. I have NO idea if he stayed on after I
left.... I don't see how, he couldn't even boot a system let alone help
diagnose and fix anything.  As for the manager there, I do not even remember
his name... but I essentially did his entire job, too. Once he taught me how
to the nightly (daily) transmission of data to Tandy central in FW, I hardly
ever saw him again. He would amble in from time to time make believe how
hard his job was, ask me how many computers I was projecting to sell and
then he'd leave. I ran the store from top to bottom. The reason I left is a
strange one. There was a guy named Truman... nicest guy in the world and a
helluva good computer salesman, my best at the time (of about 4 or so).
Anyway, On one Saturday, I gave him the nightly deposit to bring to the
bank. He forgot to do it and when he came in Monday morning, he told me he
forgot to make the deposit when he saw it in his trunk coming in that day. I
told him to get on over to the bank right away and put it in. So he did. We
forgot about it.  A week or so later, the FW people called and asked about
it... and the store manager, whose name I forget (not too memorable of a
fellow) just dumped it all on Truman, saying he had no idea why it
happened... FW told them to fire Truman. They did. I called everyone I knew,
including John Roach, (who by the way was the only sympathetic ear...) but
by that time it was two weeks later and Truman, with wife and new baby, was
forced to take another job, thinking RS would _never_ take him back. I gave
my own resignation over this event. He was a nice guy, simple oversight...
It's not like he went to Vegas and gambled with the $242 of cash... or did
anything with the paper checks.  The bag just simply stayed in his car
"forgotten" for the weekend.  Pity, that bureaucrats don't take the
"personal" view about rules and regulations... yet it is usually "they" who
scream the loudest when they are unfairly treated.

I don't want to brag (much :-) but when I walked out of RS, they lost one
hell of a good salesman... I was always either 1st, 2nd or 3rd in my
district for the last 8 or 9 months that I was there. Funny, but I still, to
this day, have strong relationships with many (MANY) people I sold computers
to... including people at Fish & Feathers, CPT Telephone, LOC, lawyers,
dentists, book stores, the Virginia Democratic Party (yeesh!), the then
governor of VA, who I helped to elect (directly... and I mean it) with a
filePro program written originally by George Rosenbergen but dramatically
enhanced by me... and supported for months by me. We made the difference...
in moving this guy from a Volvo dealership owner to Gov! I also put in
filePro/Tandy systems for several up-scale embassies, most notably
Indonesia... the only thing I remember about them particularly was they
named the filePro file I wrote for them "dikbud" :-)  (always sort of
reminded me of "dickwad" :-) It meant students I think... not sure now. :-)
But talk about a beautiful place... every time I went there, an orchestra
would be playing in the lobby... big, polished wood everything... big $$$$
for an almost third world country... it was pretty strange. (Don't take me
to task for calling them a third world country... I know this is unfair...
but some of the stories I heard... had me pegging it down there.)  Also, did
work for the local air force bases in filePro, and eventually the Surgeon
General's office.... for whom I wrote the most amazing medical office
scheduling package you can imagine.... I wrote it in about 3 days (or three
weeks I don't remember... it's all a blur...) but, I do clearly remember
visiting a particular Colonel at the Pentagon many times during the project.
I had to carry our company Compaq lunch box (it weighed a ton and a half I
think) all the way from the subway, the entire length (it seemed) of the
Pentagon to this guy's office on the third or fourth floor... can't
remember.  In any case, I simply told a guard at one of the first doors by
the subway lobby who I was going to see and I signed in on a clipboard. Then
I walked the huge distance to his office. No checks, no screening, no
nothing. They did not even ask what was in the funny looking computer
box!!!!  NOT after the first time, anyway... and they only asked me to open
it and show them what it was the first time because no one had ever seen a
portable computer before... It was like "Hey Joe take a look at this
gizmo... cool, huh?"  (This was the first year Compaq brought out the
portable lunch box computer and went from a 0% company to a $300 million
dollar company in one year... at the time a huge IPO, but nothing like some
since then, eh? At the time it was the biggest financial & technical story
of the day, today it completely eclipsed and forgotten.)  Anyway, my point,
there was at that time 1984/5 absolutely NO security at the Pentagon!!!!
None, zip, nada. Now, there may have been hidden metal detectors, but I
don't even think this was true. Honest to God, someone/anyone could have
walked into any office and just done anything they want, shoot someone blow
off a bomb in a knapsack, etc. Just amazing, huh?  Those were certainly
better times.

The RS experience taught me a lot... not much technically, I always did and
have done that on my own.  But it did give me lasting friendships. When I
started Nexus, I hired Steve Hood and Sunny Hunt and John Stoute and Conrad
Stolzenbach all from Radio Shack, maybe more I don't remember. I stayed
friendly with Allan Bush, my Regional manager up through the time he became
President of Computer City (was that it???) Haven't talked to him in 15
years. I haven't talked with Ed Juge or John Roach in as many years also,
but they were friends for me at the time.

All in all the RS thing was a great place to be for the time... As Bill said
they could have had the absolute lock on the small business computer
industry... and seeing what that is today... this would have put Tandy just
about side by side with Microsoft in market dominance... I can "name" the
specific people who made the specific "wrong" choices, too... and believe me
it boiled down to only a few really "short-sighted" people that Tandy hired
at the time. They all moved on to ruin other companies, too. The one guy
whose name escapes me at the minute actually made some of these unbelievably
bad decisions right in front of me.... at meetings in FW as President of
TCBUG, I had access to meetings with some top people at Tandy, and this one
guy (in charge at the time) just really was about as "stupid" over Xenix and
the Mod 16 as the Xerox copier-heads were over the much earlier Star... just
unbelievable, Tandy can pin their utter loss and failure in this market
directly on him... what a moron.  :-)

I wonder if people like him commiserate at big "Pete Best" conventions??

John