So I recently ended a month-long stint at a local-area RadioShack, and since I managed to get an entire update out of my part-time experience Working at Staples, I've decided to once-again share my work-related insights with all of you.  This experience was especially excruciating given that it was my first time working on commission in an environment where management actually gave a shit about it's employees' sales performance instead of just being satisfied that you arrived on-time and at least semi-clothed, and I believe that my quitting this job firmly cements a permanent end to my hellish retail bitchwork career.  However, as many of you may be just now getting interested in working at RS, here are a few tips, tricks and caveats.

Ah, commission.  That wonderful fairy tale that you'll make eight hundred million billion dollars in a single month provided that you can sell wireless phones, fully-loaded Bentleys and HP laptops to every mouth-breathing retard that walks into your store.  "We're here to help you earn money!", your manager exclaims at orientation in a ridiculous effort to raise employee morale with promises of mythical pyramid-scheme-esque $2,000 weekly checks and magical oases filled with liquid gold and hot naked babes.  The employees hear these outrageous claims and are excited.  "If I can only sell an average of $450 dollars of merchandise every hour for thirty straight hours my paycheck will be large enough to sustain basic necessary life functions such as paying my rent and buying food to eat!", the employee tells himself.  Little does he know that there is not enough merchandise in the the entire store for him to accomplish such a feat, especially given the fact that about five people per hour come into his store and there are ten other predatory employees working that day.

Take it from me:  The sooner you realize that you will never make commission, the better off you will be as a RadioShack employee.  The commission carrot being dangled on a rope in front of you with promises of huge paychecks is really only that, especially if you work in a very low-traffic location like I did, so it's really just better to not even stress yourself out about it and leave the wallet-chasing to the overly-excitable jerks you work with.  You'll probably never make more than your base salary so you should really just chill out and let your idiot co-workers fight over the "privilege" of assailing the yuppie checking out the digital cameras with their inane questions and uninformed sales pitches.  Shit, even if you have a chance to make commission you should still probably ask yourself whether it's worth the extra $10 on your paycheck to run up to every dumbass that mistakenly wanders into your store and try to sell them big-ticket items.  Personally, I'm fine losing out on ten bucks if it means I don't have to pretend like I give a shit about the customers' stupid questions all the time.

Trying to Sell Wireless, and Failing Miserably

Most of the typical RadioShack employee's bonus money comes from selling cell phones, because the wireless service providers pay you $20 outright just for signing someone up to a new plan.  While twenty bucks in the bank sounds like a great deal simply for being lucky enough to meet one of the few people left in the world who doesn't own a cell phone, the chances are that you will never have the opportunity to see this money because every single 'Shack in existence has a resident "Phone Shark" -- some irritating bastard who spends the entirety of his eight-hour shift standing next to the cell phone display accosting every customer that comes within a twenty-foot radius.  "Have you seen our new cell phone?  It fucking shoots giant magical fireballs, takes pictures, summons unicorns and gives you a handjob if you strike out at the clubs!"  If the customer responds with something like, "actually I'm just looking for a twenty-foot piece of coaxial cable for my TV", the Phone Shark will respond with something like, "no you don't.  You want the new RAZR phone, bitch.  Everyone fucking cool has one and if you don't then you're a FUCKING LOSER."  If the customer insists that they just want a $10 cable, the Phone Shark will direct them to the nearest Sales Associate and continue prowling for potential phone buyers.

Attempting to sell wireless phones and make money is basically an exercise in futility as long as the Phone Shark is around.  He could be in the fucking break room eating a sandwich but if a customer comes up to you and ask you about Cingular service he will charge out onto the sales floor, vault over the counter, give you a flying side kick and then proceed to sign the customer up for some bullshit Family Share Plan.  This is just something you're going to have to deal with, so just accept the fact that you're probably never going to sell a phone.

Management loves these fuckers though, because store managers are more or less judged by their superiors based on how many wireless phones their store sells.  If the jackass douchebag Phone Shark can sell twenty phones a week, he's the fucking employee of the month.  And when your manager asks you why you can't sell wireless, explaining that your idiot co-worker is stealing all the sales is not an acceptable answer.  In management's eyes, EVERYONE that comes into that store is a potential wireless phone sale so even if they say that they want a pack of AA batteries you better ask them if they want a top-of-the-line Nextel phone with that or your tenure at RadioShack will be short-lived at best.

Low Dollar-Per-Ticket Bitchwork

At my store, the only real motivation for me to actually try and sell anything was that whoever had the lowest dollar-per-ticket at the end of the night had to do some stupid bullshit job like clean the insides of lightbulbs or polish the cell phone display or spit-shine the fucking District Manager's shoes or some other stupid bullcrap the manager arbitrarily pulled out of his ass with the sole intention of making his employees miserable.

When faced with an issue like this I have found that the best strategy is to just NOT SELL ANYTHING, because your dollar-per-ticket total doesn't even register on the system until you've made at least one sale.  By hiding in the break room or stock room and not helping any customers all day you essentially exclude yourself from the competition, effectively eliminating any chance you might have had of doing the menial retarded bitchwork.  Your co-workers won't even mind because they'll be so busy trying to ring up every dumbass customer that comes into the store in a vain attempt to get commission that they'll actually appreciate having a little less competition.  Everyone wins!

Now I've already touched on issues you may have with other employees and management, but I have yet to mention problems with the customers.  This is in a large part due to the fact that I probably only saw about eight customers a day (I worked the 6-9pm shift on weeknights).  However this will not preclude me from giving you all advice as to what to expect from your customers.

Foreigners and Students

The location I worked at was about 80% foreigners and students, and they're all basically looking for the same thing - power adapters.  It's either some rich brat who's daddy is paying for her to spend a semester in Azerbaijan and she wants to simultaneously be able to plug in her Sidekick, hair dryer and iPod or some Eurotrash exchange student that doesn't want to drop the money on a laptop that will actually plug in to any outlet this side of the Moon.  Either way you should make understanding their stupid petty problems your first priority, because they are almost always spoiled rich kids and will make your life a living hell if you can't explain to them what the difference is between 110 volts and 220 volts without simply electrocuting them.

Other Assorted Idiots

You will also run into a heaping dose of complete fucking idiots who don't understand that an S-Video cable only transmits video and can't be used for audio or that you can't buy a piece of speaker wire and use as a controller for an Xbox 360.  Any attempt at explaining this sort of thing will be more often than not met with a blank stare, no matter how mind-numbingly simple you break the situation down.  "Well sir, it says VIDEO and you want AUDIO.  Those are not the same thing," will usually result in thirty seconds of contemplation followed by something to the effect of, "I'm going to get it anyways just to try it out because I'm so fucking smart that my head hurts and you must be a complete fucking idiot for even insinuating that I'm completely technologically inept".  They will then buy the incorrect cable and bring it back to the store two days later complaining to your manager that you told them it would work and it didn't.  Any attempt to remind them that you advised against their retarded purchase will be met with indignance and possibly even open hostility.

The Parts Guys

The Parts Guys are the opposite end of the spectrum from the Assorted Idiots.  These are the crazy-ass MacGuyver motherfuckers who spend a good portion of their spare time in their basements building advanced computer motherboards out of paperclips and car parts or hand-wiring giant laser-shooting robots designed to destroy the Earth.  Any attempt to talk to these guys is more often than not a total mistake as they are more often than not looking for crazy (possibly made-up) shit like parallel-plate capacitors or some other technical shit that you have no idea what it is.  Luckily, all that crap is in these special drawers in the corner of the store, so you can usually just point and let them go to it.  The Parts Guys are pretty harmless for the most part as long as you don't try to pretend that you know shit about what they're looking for, because they don't really expect you to and they know when you're bullshitting them.  If you try to talk to them like you actually know the difference between a fast-acting fuse and a slow-blow fuse they'll immediately sense that you're out of your league and you'll probably end up getting mind-fucked by them before you can say "2 amp single-side sensitive miniature relay".

If you can't name every component on this circuit board,
don't bother talking to the parts guys.


Sensitivity Awareness

Despite what you may truly believe, RadioShack sensitivity awareness training specifically mentions that you are under no circumstances to call customers "idiots", "retards" or "mongoloid idiots".  I found it a little insulting that management even felt the need to inform the employees that they were not to refer to the customers as "mongoloid idiots", but after I actually got onto the floor and dealt with some of the meatheads that come in there, I could see why they would mention it.

If you work the late shift at RadioShack, you will find that you have more than an ample amount of down time.  While some people may see this as an opportunity to re-stock the store or clean up the area, there are far more productive and exciting things that you can do with your time.  Here are a few suggestions.

Abuse the DISH Network and/or SIRIUS

RadioShack sells SIRIUS satellite radio and DISH network, and has displays of both set up in the store.  Well in your copious spare time, you can always watch pay-per-porn channels on the DISH or listen to SIRIUS.  In fact, quite a bit of our time was spent watching basketball on TV or listening to hardcore rap at obscene volumes.  If you're particularly bold, you can break out the remote-controlled cars and race them in the parking lot.

"Training" in the Break Room

One of the major differences between RadioShack and Staples is that there are really only three or four people working the floor at any given time at the Shack, so any absence is highly noticeable.  This combined with the small size of the store make it very difficult to hide from customers and co-workers.  However it is not impossible.  The store I worked in had a computer in the back that was used to take Training and Certification tests.  Since there were always new tests and certs coming out, I found that I could just be like, "I'm going in the back to take a couple of certifications", head into the back room and escape out the secret side door.  This would leave me free to wander around the street, get some food and pretty much bullshit outside for a while before coming back to the store and proclaiming myself certified in some random crap like automated electric bath massagers or something equally as useless.  It's certainly a good way to legitimately blow a half hour of work time without having to worry about getting into trouble.

Breaking the Chuzzle Record

My store also make the mistake of giving us computer register terminals that were connected to the internet.  Since all the good porn sites are blocked by the manager, I found myself spending a lot of time on Yahoo! Games, particularly Chuzzle.  I defy anyone to beat my score (I think it was 415,000 but I honestly don't remember) in that fucking game.  Once I had reached Level 14 and recorded such an astronomical score, I wrote it down on a piece of register tape and fastened it to one of the computer monitors in the front as a testament to my awesomeness.  Nobody ever beat it.