Early working life

While I was working at Fantle's part time, I stumbled into a Radio Shack and started talking to John, the store manager.Radio shack is part of Tandy Corporation, an electronic chain of stores that spread throughout the US.I got my first sales job working for them sometime around 1988 and I was to stay there for the next five years working in both part time and full time basis.The company paid you either a commission based on your sales or a minimum wage if you were not performing at all. So this was my first chance at being paid based on performance.The company provided you with a lot of training and then threw you on the sales floor to perform.There was a lot of turnover,part of the reason was that people came in and wanted to make a lot of money right away.It usually did not work out that way.Selling takes a lot of time and effort, especially when you are a novice.You have to start with product knowledge.This involves having a thorough knowledge of all what you are going to be selling.In front of the customer,there will be no time for you to go look at owners manual.You could consult with one of your colleagues, but this would not provide a good image for the customer.Once you have the product knowledge down, you have to then build on your confidence in meeting strange people and turning them into your friends.Sales is a trade for patient people only.You have to keep going at it until you can build up a good customer base.There are periods when everything is going to flow easily, mostly during Christmas, when people have a lot of money,have done their home work and are willing to spend it without any questions.Once the Christmas and thanksgiving holidays are over, you are down to selling skills to make a living.I got hired at the Radio Shack in Langley Park, just about the same time as a guy from India called Steve John.His parents and the rest of his brothers and sisters had moved from India and relocated in the US with their dad who worked with the federal government.I came into the electronic industry pretty blank,but he had quite a bit of knowledge.Our original staff consisted of John, the store manager,Tony,an experience sales guy from Jamaica,Donald,who had dropped out from Howard University to take care of family affairs.There was also,Raj,another guy from India, he was in the military and mostly worked part time.Debbie,the lone female in the staff,worked with the federal government full and spend Saturdays and Sundays working with us.At Radio Shack,it was welcome to the world of consumer electronics and later on,personal computers, cellphones and ham radios.The Internet was still to come.Steve introduced me to 401ks, the musical world and saving money in general.This was to aid me a lot latter.I started picking up also on the cultures of the society.I remember at one time one of my co-workers had asked me whether I owned a VCR at home, and I said no and everybody looked at me as if I was from the stone age.Latter on, there will be characters like Doug Posenberg,a guy who claimed to have been a walk-on at Penn State University.He would be dismissed later and investigated for shady activities.Our original manager faced the same problems.Tandy Corporation sued him for a million dollars worth of losses and he had to be tried in a court in Texas.Jeff was to come in later as a manager.He made a lot of noise when he came in about how poorly the store was being ran and he did not last that long either.He had a good looking automobile and his ambition was to own his own laundry business.Mike came in later and by this time, Steve and I were the guys with the know-how in the store.Bonnie Jacobs was to come in later.She invested a lot of money into company stock.You could have seen the expression on her face when Radio Shack stock started appreciating.At this period of time, the idea of owning stock was foreign to me.In sales,especially in a retail stores, there is usually a lot of down time,employees used this time to catch on various activities such as, improving on product knowledge,testing new products,keeping the store tidy and at times plane goofing around.We watched a lot of movies,football games on Sundays.Sundays were the slowest days.