Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!tekcae!vice!keithl From: keithl@vice.TEK.COM (Keith Lofstrom) Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: Radio Shack parts, quality of Message-ID: <2616@vice.TEK.COM> Date: 21 Jun 88 23:15:25 GMT References: <17492@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> <1988@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <17497@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> <5059@videovax.Tek.COM> Reply-To: keithl@vice.UUCP (Keith Lofstrom) Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 34 This is probably out of line, but: We had a marketing manager who told us we could sell our rejects to Radio Shack (he did at his previous job). We fired the son-of-a-bitch. He told us a story about the kits that "a certain nationally-known consumer electronics retailer" sells: ------ The following story is second hand. Don't sue me, please -------- The kits are put together out of rejects. Half the kits stay on the shelves at the store and never sell. The ones that do are bought as educational gifts for teenagers. 90 percent of the teenagers never open the kits, and throw them away. 90 percent of those that open the kits can't manage to put them together, and throw them away. Of the one percent that do complete the kits - which probably don't work - 90 percent assume that they didn't do it right, and throw them away. The last 0.1% take the kits back to the store and ask for working parts. So, the company ships a complete new kit (with working parts) for every one in 2000 kits they make. It's cheaper that way. Just think, if you had gotten your kits elsewhere, you'd now be an EE instead of a CS person... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'd better put a disclaimer on this. None of my managers want me to write bad things about big companies that buy equipment and employ lawyers, so I wrote this without approval. As a matter of fact, this is actually being written by a 14 year old kid who broke into my account. Yah, that's the ticket! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Keith Lofstrom ...!tektronix!vice!keithl keithl@vice.TEK.COM MS 59-316, Tektronix, PO 500, Beaverton OR 97077 (503)-627-4052