Geeks and solderheads rejoice!
Anyone who ever needed to purchase a resistor at 8 pm on a Saturday can relax; Radio Shack has announced that it will no longer pester you for your name, address, rank and serial number when you make a purchase. Their press release quotes Tandy president Leonard Roberts as saying that "the practice of asking [customers] for names and addresses is time consuming and annoying and is not something that endears them to us." Well duh. I have long since lost track of the number of fights I’ve had with Rat Shack counter rats about whether or not I was required to give them my name and address, and have even been known to walk out of the store on a couple of occasions when said rat refused to sell me that crucial resistor without signing over my first born. I noted on the report that aired on All Things Considered tonight that the RS spokesdroid felt compelled to mention that nobody had ever been forced to give their name and that it was always voluntary. I wish they had told that to their clerks when I had so much trouble.
The Newark Star-Ledger today had an article (sadly not available online) that pointed out that this meant the end of the program to track the whereabouts of every American that had been in place since Radio Shack first opened in 1921, but then clarified that by pointing out that they had only been tracking everyone since 1967. Jeez, you’d think Radio Shack’s CEO’s name was John Poindexter or something....
Posted at 6:03 PM