Good Ol' Tandy Days

[Bill Campbell]

On Wed, May 09, 2012, Linda Hapner wrote:

>Reading Ken's post about the old Tandy Model I and Radio Shack, I thought
>you might get a kick out of some computer magazines I found in my archives.
>I've scanned a few into a pdf - click here to view:

The first picture from February 1983 reminds me of how Radio
Shack managed to totally screw their store managers.

I was managing the Radio Shack Computer Center in Congressional
Plaza, Rockville Maryland at the time.  I had emptied the store
during December, even selling every machine in our classroom.
Naturally I ordered replacement machines for the classroom and
inventory in January, Model IIs, Model 16s, hard drives, etc.
which were immediately obsolete with the announcement of the
Model 12s, Model 6000s, and new, higher capacity, hard drives.

The immediate effect on the store managers was a huge inventory
loss, decimating the store's P&L thus my paycheck.  To add insult
to injury, Radio Shack shipped copiers to the computer centers
that we didn't order and couldn't sell, further increasing the
inventory and limiting our ability to order new systems that we
could sell.  In effect, they transferred the inventory losses to
the stores from the warehouses which severely reduced their
payroll as store managers were paid a percentage of the store's
profit.

My "promotion" from manager of an X-department in D.C.  to RSCC
manager cut my pay about 70% because of the higher overhead and
these booked inventory losses.  I was 'demoted' to another
X-department in D.C. about a month later where (a) I recovered
most of the lost income, (b) won a trip to Hong Kong, and (b)
resigned the day I returned from the trip to take a job as V.P.
of a customer's software company in Seattle.  Unlike most
store managers who were escorted out immediately after they quit,
my District Manager, Alan Bush, asked me to stay another 30 days
to close several large sales I had pending, and the divisional
V.P. called me to try to get me to reconsider.

Bill
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