Gone are the days where you could at least hope to find what you needed at Radio Shack. Even if you had to pay a ridiculously high price for a component, you could at least find some of the things you needed to build a project. But, not any more.
I went into my local Radio Shack today to get a stereo plug for a mic connector that I want to build. The lady at The Shack looked at me like I was stupid when I told her what I wanted (1/8″ stereo plug that I could solder my own wires on to). She took me over to the extension cables. At least she was in the right aisle of the store where the plugs would have been in the past. Trying to be helpful, she stood in my way to find this thing herself that she really did not understand. She would have been more helpful if she would have just let me look instead of assuming I was the dumb one in the conversation.
After digging around a while I realized there were very few products for build it yourself projects.
I left with the comment that I would just have to go online and get what I needed and in doing so try to put Radio Shack out of business. She joked that my leaving the store to buy online could, very well, be their demise.
While Radio Shack is probably doing well in their new business, they are no longer a friend to hobbyists who want to build their own equipment. *Sigh*
I really miss the old Radio Shack. They used to have all sorts of cool stuff in the back of the store.