It’s the RadioShack ad that played during the SuperBowl last year:
And last night–that’s just one year and three days days after this spot ran–RadioShack declared bankruptcy. An hour or so earlier I’d been on their site looking up stock numbers for a parts list in the final project of my new DIY book (*sigh*) Guess that’ll be one more thing for the copyeditor to sort out. I love you, copyeditor. I am sorry.
RadioShack, The Electronics Chain, Files For Bankruptcy : The Two-Way : NPR
I’m sure the Internet is already filling with eulogies for RadioShack today–eulogies largely written by folks who haven’t set foot in one or mentioned the store, apart from as a punchline, in years. I was in my local RatShack weekly, because despite everything that was wrong with the place–as a bricks-and-mortar businesses, as an online retailer, as a source of anything useful–it was still the only place to quickly get electronic components when you were in a pinch–and as a guy writing a book full of electronic instruments, I was often in a pinch. Yes, these components were mostly overpriced, and some were of relatively poor quality (their store-brand soldering irons were junk, as were their jacks; switches were occasionally janky). But they had a few components that I’m going to sorely miss: The funky, throwback hexagonal knob covers (part #275-507)–which weren’t really a throwback, since RS had been selling them without interruption for decades–the General-Purpose IC PC Board (part #276-159), their celebrated audio output transformer (part #273-1380), the many books of Forrest M. Mims III.
And, they had employees. Lots and lots and lots of employees (because they had lots and lots and lots of stores). And I’ve been in RadioShacks all over this great country, and I’ve gotta say: Those employees didn’t always know a damn thing about electronics, but they were always very nice and very helpful (within their capacity), and few of the ones I’ve spoken to over the last year were willing to admit that this day was coming.
So, yeah, I feel sad for my memories and sad I won’t be able to get a couple RadioShack-specific parts I like and sad that I’m going to have to revise some chunks of a book that’s already 90 percent of the way to printed. But I’m also really, really sad for the thousands of people who woke up without a job this morning.
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