So I worked for Radioshack for a long time and it left me extremely bitter and resentful. I just recently left after a giant pay cut and I felt the need to voice my long term issues with them both to vent my own feelings and to give them insight into what their policies do to their employees, I sent them an e-mail. I mentioned this on Facebook where multiple people immediately wanted to see it (probably because it got the ridiculous length of 1,900 words or because I still know many employees). Instead of e-mailing it 15 times, I’ve decided to just place it here. Maybe others at the company will see it, maybe some of them will even agree, who knows. Do with it what you will. (Disclaimer: And I realize, objectively, it may sound like whining and complaining as some people experience much worse in their workplaces but these kind of things are relative. Also, many times when the problem is pay, it’s tied to the possibility of the employer failing. I don’t believe that to be the case here.) Here it is:
I apologize in advance for sending this e-mail to customer care but I can find no way to contact upper management directly. I only hope this ends up somewhere meaningful.
I left Radioshack in the middle of August after roughly nine years as a sales associate. I was not simply any associate, I was an ideal associate. I worked under nine different store managers between seven stores in three states and was looked at as the most reliable person to leave in charge in each case. My numbers were good enough that I was consistently in the top 10, sometimes consistently in the top 3, at all times. I rarely used sick time. I regularly trained new associates, not just in operations but in sales, an area of training that is extremely neglected in most Radioshacks. I was even trained early on to be a manager and upset my district manager greatly when I decided to go back to school and remain an associate instead of taking a store. I was around long enough to know what it was like to be a T4, a status that I doubt most upper management is even able to remember at this point.
The reason I preface my e-mail in this way is not to brag but to give Radioshack a sense of what type of employee this is coming from so that it perhaps holds more weight. I hate Radioshack. It’s not that I think the products are bad or the organization doesn’t have nice people in it, it’s because I hate the disconnect between upper management and those at the bottom of the hierarchy. Working at Radioshack, even as an associate, is a mentally exhausting job. One is expected to know a huge amount about the inner workings of electronics, the nuances of multiple contract based services, and be able to communicate all this information clearly to customers who mostly have no idea what’s going on. I dare say that no other entry level retail position in the United States requires the level of expertise that working at Radioshack does. Sure, some associates get away with knowing very little but they’re not successful. They get by, barely, and are often more of a detriment to the business as a whole than a help. No, good associates must be extraordinarily knowledgeable and patient.
With this in mind, Radioshack offers an exceptionally unrewarding work experience. When I started at Radioshack, in my small town in southern New Jersey, I went in to work with pride. It was shocking how rewarding my efforts were. I would leave some days knowing that I made $200 gross in just 8 hours of work. It was a lot of work, as mentioned above, and a lot of effort, but the results could often be amazing. Compared to the other work available in my area, I felt a bit like an aristocrat. I was doing a job that could pass as professional work for an income well above what everyone else was making other than hard laborers or people who had to commute 2 hours away. To top it off, promotions were easy to come by. Within 6 months I was part way through the manager in training program and I had already seen multiple coworkers who started before me get their own stores in that time. Everything seemed perfect.
Then came pay plan updates. Every year or two brought a new pay plan with it. These became the bane of my existence. My first pay plan change was actually beneficial. It came, I believe, shortly after Len Roberts left the company and yielded a significant increase in my gross earnings. Of course, Radioshack realized this very quickly and many of the boosts were removed before being in place for even a year. That seemed okay to me. If the company changed the pay plan in a way the could make them go out of business, it wasn’t worth it. That was the one moment of reward that I’ve ever experienced at Radioshack, though. I must have experienced some 5 or 6 pay plan changes in my time there and literally every single one other than that first was realized as a pay cut for myself. It was amazing. At first it was just a little aggravating but as it happened more and more I developed a sharp sense of bitter resentment at the company. My motivation to excel at my job was drastically reduced, as it was for all my coworkers as well. Radioshack became the thing I would be doing until I could find another job. It was convenient enough that it could pass as a job until there was something better. This essentially became the mantra of every coworker I’ve ever had after my first year or two with the company. This is absolutely the worst situation I can imagine for a company that survives on the sales skills of its associates.
The final blow for me came during the last pay plan change. I was already about to transfer to a new school and focus on only that but even if that weren’t the case, I would have quit Radioshack even in the absence of a new job. I went to the meeting where my district manager explained the pay plan changes and my stomach grumbled as soon as the topic came up. She spun it well. People in the room were mostly convinced that they could actually make more money because of the change in mobile upgrade SPIFFs. I knew better. I kept a spreadsheet detailing my pay on a daily basis for years and I knew I made half of my money in performance SPIFFs. That portion of my pay generally accounted for $2/hour but the max that could be earned under the new plan was $1/hour and relied on the entire store performing, not just me. What’s more, the goals for the drivers that had to be hit were set across the board instead of by store. This was incredibly short sighted (or not?) as, for instance, never in the history of the store I was in did even a single person end a month with a 33% RSSP attach rate let alone had the entire store averaged that. It was full of tourists, foreigners, and rich people who saw money as expendable; there was no way to achieve this kind of result. Similar problems were obvious with other goals but even if everything was reached, like I said, it was a 50% cut in performance SPIFF earnings. Ok, so cell phones are to make up for that, right? Prepaid would pay an extra $2 and upgrades, the majority of post paid phone sales, would pay an extra $7. My store did not have a lot of post paid sales but we had an unusually high amount of prepaid sales. So, I did some calculations. I knew exactly how many hours I worked every week in the past year so I compared that with my phone sales over the past year and found that not once did the extra phone sales make up for the cut in performance SPIFFs. I casually voiced my disdain for the new plan to my manager who seemed baffled that I thought I would make less money. Of course, my math skills showed to be true once the pay plan went into effect.
I received two full pay checks and one partial pay check before leaving the company. I found a roughly 20% decrease in pay on those two pay checks. Coworkers of mine couldn’t calculate their cut but also told me that their paychecks looked significantly smaller. This cut was much larger than any other cut I’d received in 9 years and was completely uncalled for. The last earnings report from Radioshack claimed that the company was doing just fine. There wasn’t as much growth as hoped for, to paraphrase the report, but the company was in no way struggling. And how could the company be struggling? Most large electronics chains that competed with Radioshack had already gone out of business more than a year before this change. No, just as every other pay cut Radioshack gave to its associates over the years, there was literally no reason other than a desire to grab more profits to the detriment of the people who serve as the front line for the business. Pay cuts have happened consistently, in good times and bad, during recessions and during times of general economic growth. There was no excuse.
So I left, with a fierce sense of disdain. So did everyone else in my store. Within a month, my store, whose employee base all had between 2-9 years of experience (most being 5+ years) had literally one employee left who was just about to leave the job for another also. I’ve been to sites like Glass Door over the years to see what retail life is like for at other similar businesses. Four years ago, entry level associates at every corporate cell phone store (Verizon stores, T-Mobile stores, etc.) reported making at least $10k/year more than what Radioshack associates were making. That was well before this 20% pay cut. Today, I can’t even imagine. My store literally has not made even the minimum of the 5 targets for performance SPIFF that are required to date (I’ve kept up through my manager and coworkers who stayed there a bit longer). There is simply no way that working for Radioshack is competitive with other businesses. One can literally work at a hot dog stand and make significantly more money (I know because my roommate was doing just that and averaged $13/hour with tips while my pay had shrunk to an average $11/hour in San Francisco where the minimum wage is $10.24/hour already).
I suppose Radioshack is intent on turning over their workforce until they have, essentially, a bunch of cashiers who don’t realize that Radioshack at one time was a profitable company to work for. It was a company to be proud to be a part of. If that’s the goal, then you are well on your way. If you want to have one of the most knowledgeable and helpful associate bases in the country on your front lines, you’re failing miserably. My personal bitterness has extended beyond simply not wanting to work for the company, I have literally suggested to friends and family that they not go to Radioshack for anything because it’s a company that does not care (and I say this having multiple childhood friends who are store managers). If nine years of dedicated service are rewarded by regular and painful pay cuts and nothing more, what does that say about Radioshack?
I apologize for the length but I feel this really needs to be said, maybe even just for my own sake. In a way, I hope this reaches someone in the company that has a voice and can be swayed to actually change things for the benefit of employees at the bottom of the hierarchy. After all, the business can only be as strong as those who act as its face on a daily basis.
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Wow you couldn’t have hit the mark better, good luck hearing from Ft. Worth, I wrote to Human Resources about problems like this and got the standard we’ll look into it
We have shared your article on Facebook and Twitter. Glad to hear that you promoted yourself to customer!
You are not alone my friend, I have a website full of persons just like yourself who have experienced the same things you have.
Goof Luck !
Your experience, unfortunately, is not the exception but the norm. My husband was a manager of nearly 30 years and who was fired for 10 missing price tags. He had been a leading senior manager and was a sales leader. However, after the reign of terror of Julian Day started, and with the hiring of Bryan Bevins as VP/Store Ops, all senior retail personnel who had >15 years experience were deliberately targeted and eliminated, regardless of what reasons had to be made up.
Like you, with each pay plan change, his pay was cut. And like you, the DMs sought to BS all personnel that it was to their benefit, but the blatent lies were soon apparent in the paychecks. Working 60=80 hr/week with the constant threat of firing at such low salaries is now the norm at RSH. It is no wonder that they have become a total joke in the comsumer electronics world and it is also no wonder that they are on the verge of bankruptcy.
I can feel your pain.I am still a ASM at Radio Shack.I have worked for the company for 3 1/2 years now,I was like you in some sense.I started as a seasonal associate for christmas.The manager thought that I was doing really well for being a new associate without having previous sales exp. They offered me a job and I accepted the position.Few months went by then I was put through the MTI program.I was loving it Now where I live pay is alot smaller from anywhere else because of the state and surrounding states but I was making a average of about 11-14 dollars a hour,which was pretty good.About after the first year in a half they cut our pay like yours and I was upset,really upset.My wife was going to school so I decided that i would continue to work there until she got out of school.Not
Not long after I was put in the ASM progam,then promoted to ASM at the time I got back the difference in pay because I also took about a 20% cut and ASM get paid 20% more than associates.Then bam they transfer me to another store because that store needed more leadership and it was a failing store.Since I have been down there at the new location ive seen what good manager are and what bad managers are I currently work for a store manager that has a addiction to pain pills and dosent do her job at all I basically get paid ASM pay to do a store managers job.after a while I finally let my voice be heard because I was still happy with my employment.I have called my DM had multiple conversations with him over the phone and with store visits.he and everyone else in my district knows what is going on and they choose not to do anything about it her numbers dont even match the store.Of course I am not stating that I am the best,but my numbers are way better than anyone else in the store/surrounding stores .I have let my Dm know that I am not trying to take her job,because at this point and time in my life I do not have what it takes to work the hours that they require for a Sm to work that is why I would like to stay where I am at because im only required to work 34 hours a week and SM have to work 48 hours a week.with all that said and done She is still employed with the company I have busted her with multiple things smoking inside the store stealing being high at the work place,just not taking care of what managers are supposed to.The reason why I am even on here today is because I was woke up at 730 this morning with a call that my manager would not be coming in today because she needed to take care of some things.I was overwhelmed with this because in the last month I have attended her Sm manager meeting 2 weeks later i attended the ASM meeting and 2 weeks later I attended Sm manager meeting again She takes every Thursday off because she dosent like doing truck.She has told my Dm this and nothing gets done over it Also LP has been in my store yesterday and he found a few other things that he watching her on.Ok enough of me crying I am just really upset that I work for a company that does this.Who does this?
I have been working for Radio Shack for six months and when I started, I was given a bunch of lies about how many hours I would get to work, the expectations of the company, pay scale, etc. I watched coworkers grab the ten dollar coupons before they got out of the printer so they could use them themselves instead of giving them to the customers. I heard disgruntled coworkers complain of pay cuts and the policies of force feeding the customers sales pitches for cell phones and attach. People called in sick regularly and I started filling in shifts at other stores. I got injured at work less than a minute after punching out and the company fought me tooth and nail for workmanship compensation. Then, the entire store management and key holders up and quit one week, all found other jobs, and rather than promoting from within as expected, the DM brought a new manager in the store from New Jersey who knew nothing of the area and used his religion of Islam as an excuse not to work, citing that everyone was against him taking his prayer times and customs seriously. He sat at his desk, paranoid that he was being targeted, broke all the company policies about appearance and took long breaks to pray and order takeout from the Halal market across town. He especially disliked me because I am a United Methodist and Caucasian, even though I knew more about Halal and Islam than he expected, and I was older and more experienced. He was an argumentative boar and I walked off the job when he started arguing with me constantly.
I came back after a week and had been transferred to another store. The manager at the new store was a real cast iron belle, and one of the other coworkers, Delores, was thick as thieves with her. They regularly scammed the store , took extended lunches together, etc. when I complained about it, she yelled at me and sent me home. I didn’t come back until the DM called me and told me that there was a new manager coming to the store from one that closed and that the manager was reprimanded and her lackey gave notice she quit. One of the other guys at the store was hired on for a month, did no work at all, instead, he did all of the training modules, then went AWOL.
The new manager has some attitude issues, but seems more or less angry with the company, and the day I returned I got everything from his store he packed up put into place with the help of the other associates. Of course, Delores was upset that I blew the whistle on her and was giving me dirty looks and making snide remarks about me. She told me to make sure the store was faced and spaced towards the end of the night, and she got in my face when I told her I already had. She started threatening a write up if I refused to check again, reluctantly I went around the store. I returned and told her that I had checked for a third time and she got an attitude once again telling me that it wasn’t done and I couldn’t leave until it was finished. I clocked out, gathered my belongings and left the store and called the DM, telling him I’d quit.
RadioShack has been the worst job experience I have had, and I have worked some really wretched jobs as a mechanic, IT Helpdesk, etc… But I feel what makes RadioShack so bad is the above reasons that others mentioned (pay structure, age discrimination, theft, etc) is that RadioShack thrives on desperation, and this is the disconnect from the upper management – keep the salespeople under the corporate thumb and leverage the sales metrics against them, keep them hopeful like lambs going to a slaughter and don’t pay them enough as incentive to do a good job. The benefits suck, from the awful health coverage, to the purchase plan and the bad management, it is no small wonder people don’t want to work for Radio Shack anymore.
I am a back at the Shack again until I get a start date at my new employer. I have worked on cars from 1990-2010 and have my own tools and dozens of certifications with shop management experience and my own multimeter cost me five times the cost of the best one offered at the Shack. It won’t be long now.
While I have had some issues working as an associate at RadioShack, it hasn’t been all bad.
I think my store is unique in that everyone, including my manager, gets along very well. Well enough that we regularly have get togethers after work. Oh, and our store doesn’t have security cameras after the former manager stole them about two years ago. It’ll come back to bite us at some point I’m sure (Looking for a reason to fire the manager, LP would have a field day, though we have said things about it multiple times)
I do have a bug up my ass though. Announced earlier this month, RadioShack will no longer hire or promote associates to Asst Manager. This news comes after huge hour cuts. I went from 32 hours a week to 21 average. To counter this, I applied to become an Asst manager as my current one announced he was stepping down to go to school. After nearly completing all the training modules, nope. No more ASMs. Not to mention my manager is about to go on Maternity Leave. She expects me to start opening the store after she leaves and do all the work. Cage counts, deposits, all the manager responsibilities for 7.25 an hour….
Lately, I’ve been wishing that corporate would close our store so I have an excuse to go look for a new job. I’m torn. I love the people I work with, but I can’t stand corporate…
I feel your pain. I left RadioShack probably a week after independence day. I worked for RadioShack for about a year and 3 months and I was doing assistant manger stuff that even the assistant manager didn’t know how to do. I had to learn so much stuff on top of that I was going to school. I was doing extra shit but little pau after RadioShack decided to put commission on everything in the store which was to me stupid because the sales associate were getting hit hard. This work was pretty much like a professional job with little pay. You have to stay extra hours with no pay. And I got tired of it. Tired of being treated like crap when the manager and assistant manager didn’t do shit to help the customers in the store. On top of that my personal life was a huge topic between the manager and assistant manager. They had no right to involve my personal life outside of work to my work life. District manager was a dick. He only cared about numbers that were simply impossible to reach and didn’t care about the employees well being. Please people do your research on this company. It is bad news I can’t find a job now because of the company reputation. 4 months since I quit and I’m still getting bullied by this company. Do not buy from here. Just go to eBay or amazon at least there you would have a better interaction between you and the seller. And the sales associates in the district store did not do there job. Never work here.
seems as the powers that be…have again failed. the problem was the same with TARGET MOBILE that was operated by Radio Shack. they werent living up to Targets expectations and Target chose not only to not renew the contract but to give EVERYTHING Radio Shack was asking for to another company who was a staffing company and never did retail a day in their life. It was an absolute mess they were even worse than Radio Shack…but because of the reputation of the Shack and its hiring/staffing/pay issues, finding good employees was hard. So the Kiosks were often closed in the Target Stores because noone would work.
Thanks for posting this (old as it is). I worked at the Shack for three years through college in the late 90’s and enjoyed it, though that was when Len was still running things and through the Tandy/RSH shift.
I walk into a Radio Shack today and am shocked by the lack of interest from the clerks (yes, that’s a derogatory term… we were sales MAKERS) both in their dress code… t-shirts(!) and demeanor.
The store management has always been the driving factor in my opinion and I know they’ve been beaten like bastard step-children for a long time. My question, if you had to write the rules what would you change today to make Radio Shack a fun place? I’m working on a MBA paper now and that’s part of what I’m trying to address.
Hi LongLostT3. Honestly, just making it possible for sales associates to make a buck would make a huge difference, along with aligning company goals and metrics with the things that actually pay the associate well. For instance, before I left, service plans (i.e. warranties) were heavily focused on, to the point where you couldn’t even advance to a higher position if you didn’t have a substantial hit rate selling them. However, the vast majority of them paid practically nothing and required significant effort to sell. Adding a pack of batteries to a sale was often more profitable for an associate and didn’t require verbal gymnastics to convince someone to buy. If the pay for these warranties was commensurate with the effort required to sell them, the company would sell more, and associates would be happier selling them, and everyone would do better financially. It takes quite a bit of expertise to answer all the questions customers coming into Radioshack have as well, so why are associates paid barely more than someone working in fast food, and sometimes less, to do this job? That certainly doesn’t help either.
I worked for Radioshack for 4 years, my last day was in the spring of 2001. It was a sweet job at the time, the wireless boom was taking off and the economy was good. Being able to make $13-14 an hour on average was pretty good for someone working PT while going to school (FT during the summer months and December). Unfortunately when the dot com bubble burst I saw my earnings drop to around $7-8/hr and the job started being a lot less fun. This is still way better than a lot of other people have had it more recently but I saw the writing on the walls and decided this was as good a time as any to bail out since I was soon to graduate.
For those who are wondering, I can describe how we were paid back then. All salesmakers were paid a draw against commission. All new employees started out as a T1 or P1 (full vs part time) making $6 an hour or 6.5% commission, plus spiffs ($10 for direct tv, $15 for cell phones, extra 10% on ext warranty, etc). After 60 days they’d move up to T2 or P2. Full timers would have the opportunity, based on sales performance over time, to be bumped up to a T3 and maybe even T4. For each step up, base wage increased by .50/hr and commission rates by 0.5%. (Minimum wage was 5.15) And since I was a coveted T4, I was indeed making 8% EXCEPT for computers and other name brand merchandise, like a Sony boombox or cordless phone – those paid 3.5%.
Back then, there was definitely a focus on wireless phones and we loved it. And it was perfectly understandable – the industry was really starting to climb, Radioshack wanted to capitalize on a lucrative opportunity, they didn’t have room for a lot of large merchandise in their stores, and it didn’t hurt that Radioshack’s slogan « you’ve got questions, we’ve got answers » was something they used to their advantage. And Sprint was definitely on board, they LOVED Radioshack.
At the time, though, they were not just shoving phones on everyone who walked through the door no matter what they needed. It was still « Help them with their problem, Offer them a great deal, and Tell them what we’re famous for » – yes, in that order, making sure whatever we sell them, phone or not, MEETS their NEEDS. And don’t think for a second that employees didn’t get terminated for trying to be « cell-phone only » salesmakers, they were found out.
(Oh you need a resistor – talk to that guy. )
Remember, there is an entire store of batteries, cables, accessories, hookups, and other products that we needed to be familiar with.
Oh how the mighty have fallen – and judging how a lot of otherwise qualified employees have been treated by their DM’s, good riddance to the entire company.