Good Ol' Tandy Days

[John Sica]

Wow, this is like re-living my career at Tandy.  But you have to admit 
Bill, that Hong Kong trip was one of the most amazing trips ever.

John

On 5/9/2012 1:01 PM, Bill Campbell wrote:
> 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