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RadioShack Stops Being Nosy
jackbang writes "One small but positive step in the gradual erosion of personal privacy and increase of corporate intrusiveness - RadioShack will no longer ask for your name and address when all you want to do is buy some batteries. Now if only they would agree to remove the motion sensor that rings a bell every time someone walks in or out of the store..." Always freaked me out being asked my address just to buy some solder or something.
....this will piss the Pentagon off. Just when they were all set to track consumer purchases...
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They have all our addresses now.
With this news, radioshack has killed my purchasing alter-ego, John Shamus of 200 Arroway Lane. See, I created a whole personality for use in radio shack. Besides a fake name and address, my character John spoke in a funny voice, had an interesting career (limo-bus bathroom attendant), and even had a wife with a kid on the way (which made it easier to justify my purchases of children's toys). He also had about a dozen cuecats.
Screw it, I'm going to keep going in to Radio Shack as John, anyway. It's not like my life was going that great to begin with...
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
The name/address question was redundant, since they're now doing retina scans as folks enter the store. The bell actually indicates a database match.
Ding!
I always used:
"Raymond D. O'Shack", you can call me Ray!!
Ha ha
M
Me: I'm looking for an RF Modulator so I can plug my DVD player into a TV without AV inputs. (Don't get me started...)
Shack Sales Clerk: Uhmm... That's like a VCR, right? We've got all our VCRs on that wall right over there.
Me: Uh, no. It's a signal adapater. (Surely someone who works around electronics every day should understand this, right?) It converts composite audio/video signal output to rf signal for a coaxial cable input.
Clerk: It's an adapter?
Me: (Thinking the light has finally turned on) Yes! It's got a coaxial output on one end and RCA style audio-video inputs on the other.
Clerk: Here ya go! (He hands me a RCA 'Y' splitter.)
Me: *Sigh*...
I did manage to get the guy to give me an RF modulator, but only after I retrieved a Radio Shack ad from behind the counter and pointed at it in the ad.
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"You don't need to know my name and address."
"I don't need to know your name and address."
"You will sell me this battery."
"Seven twenty five Please."
"SEVEN TWENTY FIVE! Are you nuts?"
"I am nuts."
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
I refused to give my name once, and on the receipt, it said "Thank you Dick Dick, for your purchase" (or something like that).
I noticed before I left, and was sure to thank the Dick helping me.
I can't think of Radio Shack without the obligatory Simpsons quote:
Homer: We'll search out every place a sick, twisted, solitary misfit might run to!
Lisa: I'll start with Radio Shack.
(www.snpp.com)
Follow this example, one of the winners of the 1991 rec.humor.funny comedy awards
Q&A at Radio Shack
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
All in all, it added 20 minutes for me. The store has great prices so we compromised. I gave them my ex-girlfriends phone number and home address.
I'm sure that spiced up dinner conversation when her husband finds my mail in his box!
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
When some nosy salescritter asks for my address, I always give tell them it's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20500. Sadly, 90% of the time they don't even get it.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?