Radio Shack is Evil

Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. If you hadn't heard the news yet, Radio Shack just laid off a large amount of employees... by e-mail! After high school I worked for Incredible Universe, a lame store that was owned by the Tandy Corporation, the same company that is now remembered for making very crummy computers, and also owns Radio Shack. When the store went out of business, they promised all of the employees severance pakages if they stayed the remaining six months that the store would be open. What they failed to mention was that over half of those employed there were on "seasonal" contracts and would not be receiving the package, even though all of us had stayed on well past the holiday season. When I uncovered this and confronted the powers that be (and this is no joke), the store managers told me I could get a severance package as long as I didn't tell anybody else about it. I thought about it for about 5 minutes, then told every single employee in the store. It was beautiful.

And I still received a severance package (though it was half what it was supposed to be), along with every other employee.

That was my first experience dealing with the evils of corporate America, and is why I lean against shopping at Radio Shack, and other well-known exploiters of labor (yes, I know it severely limits the shopping I can do). So thanks for listening to my story, and please boycott Radio Shack, who can't afford to take the time to talk to employees before laying them off, but still managed to climb in the stock market yesterday.

Peace,
Matt

Still reading Jared Diamond's Collapse. I'm close to done, but am sick and have been watching movies instead, including Why We Fight, which is a great documentary on the American Military Industrial Complex. And of course tonight I will be glued to my TV watching season three of Arrested Development.