Rant radio shack staff are retards

i wish i could. my choices here are wal-mart, canadian tire(the canadian version of wal-mart), or radio shack.

 

Stickeh has the answer:

Generic chain shops are managed by generic managers, who still believe that "good people skills" is the be-all and end-all of good salesmanship. Doesn't matter if the assistant actually doesn't know what he's selling --he just has to regurgitate the shop messages convincingly: "Ooh, it's the new Acer with a bigger 17" screen and the new Pentium Core 2 Duo (da-ding-da-ding) processor!". And managers don't know too much about the product in any case. No reason to: they just manage the shop, they don't sell the product.

As cpemma says, you'd need to go to a independent retailer. They make a living off knowing about the product they chose to sell for a living, whereas chain shop staff just do a job in a shop and a get paid either way.

 

I cant believe you just said that nexxo....i'm print screening that forum post, and i shall keep it forever.

 

That's still inexcusable. Just because you're not making much doesn't mean that's an excuse for not knowing jack about your job.

 

And office workers earning a lot more don't waste company time surfing? The ideal assistant in these shops would know about computers and their many peripherals, a wide range of audio-visual equipment, cameras, electronics, etc, in enough detail to satisfy someone who's already done a bit of homework in the one tiny niche they're after buying. Ain't going to happen; these "assistants" have left school with damn-all qualifications because they're not capable of such learning. I've a friend worked in Dixons for a few months - no technical knowledge but made a mint in commission because the mothers liked him. People skills. Now he's a self-employed plumber, the same empathy gets him work.

 

Maybe I'm just turning into a chrochety old fart, but I expect bad service everywhere and I'm seldom disappointed. The fact of the matter is that the people have spoken and what they have to say is that the only thing that matters is cheap crap. Quality and service are not important.

 

Can't be as bad as the conversation I had about speaker cable today. FFS, its just insulated copper wire!

Stupid woman could make head nor tail of wtf she was saying. It took 15 minutes just to find out how many speaker cables she had! She kept telling me over and over 'There are four wires'. Were there **** 4 wires. She had ONE cable in her hand and it contained 4 strands of copper.

 

We have mains cable with three wires, live, neutral and earth. So explain how she was wrong again?

 

well, if you count both ends that would be 4..

 

Perhaps he meant four intertwined copper wires in one jacket of insulation.

 

Ramble has it right.

Edit: Smilodon, you're right, but that would only compound the level of this persons idiocy. She couldn't even grasp what I meant when I said 'the top two red and black terminals, on the back of your speaker', she just blindly kept yelling at me that there were 4, because she had biwireable speakers. Christs sake lady, I ****ing know, you've said it about 6 times, but you only have two speaker cables, so you can't wire them all up at once unless you only want to have one speaker working!

 

well, "You should never underestimate the predictability of stupidity" (Cookie for the one who guesses where that quote is from)

What some people do just doesn't surprise me anymore. It's ok that someone doesn't understand something. That's why we have people that know their stuff, right? But when a person just won't listen to an experts advice/directions, i would happily call that person stupid.

 

I think there's a slightly more subtle reason.

They don't want staff that are 'too' knowledgeable because they will loose sales. If you have somebody employed in sales who really knows their stuff and is an enthusiast who uses this equipment, then they might be tempted to tell prospective punter "psst, don't buy that, we get loads of them back broken, it's really slow etc. just nip down to (insert store name) and get one of (insert name of product). It'll work much better, be cheaper, blah blah"

Whilst working for a manufacturer a few years ago we put out a model that was a load of old tosh. They were always coming back for warranty repair. The manager from one of our stockists asked me one night why they were so bad, I was drunk and I told him, that outlet never sold another one of those models. A little while later the model was withdrawn from sale.

 

It's from the character played by vinnie jones in snatch isn't it ?

What flavour cookie ?

Hey, we're not all that bad, sure you get some complete morons working in the field but there are also people like me that actually give a crap, know what they're talking about, and will answer any question thrown at them about a given product. Sure the money's not the best but tbh i'm not particularly money driven, as long as I have enough to live on, to go out on nights out/holidays, buy the occasional gadget and look after my GF then i'm happy. As far as the comments on a previous page about retail staff being thick and underqualified, I left education with 14 A-C GCSEs and 5 A-Levels, and i'm still doing the odd work based NVQ and private training course to keep the grey matter in check.

Of course some retail staff are as dumb as a pile of bricks, you'll get that anywhere you decide to work, people don't know EVERYTHING. Just don't tar us all with the same brush K?

Tbh if it's a turd i'll tell them it's a turd, I won't send them elsewhere but when they see you're being that honest they'll most definately spend another £20 to get the much better version/model, and thank you for your honesty

 

What about chocolate?

Hes name is Bullet-Tooth Tony, BTW

 

Ah yes i remember now, not seen that film for ages, might dig it out later on

And everyone knows white chocolate and strawberry cookies are the win

 

It's not always fair to blame the staff, often the issue is lack of training.
They may have the people skills to get the job in the first place, it is then up to the company to provide the appropriate training, but training costs time and money, so that's the last thing on many companies list of things to do.

 

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not so sure about the former".
Albert Einstein

 

Radio shack employees are smart compared to the staff at Walmart. One time I asked for a children's swimming pool and they showed me the large bath towels. Bestbuy was the same way about un-interruptible power supplies. They did not know the deference between APC BR1500 RS and XS.

 

Yeah good point, but its not like a serious job its just shop work.

EDIT: nexxo, yeah I guess I never saw it like that. Funnily enough the management at the shop I work in acts exactly like you describe, thats a fairly big shop chain to!