I did hobbyist-level electronics design in the 80s and used RS parts and so forth whenever I could, because they were available nationwide (and even a bit internationally). (As a reader of the magazines and such, I really hated projects with parts only available to electronics engineers and those with accounts at parts distributors… if not from a single unit-level specialty seller.) (As **ME **says, those before-the-webz days were a PITA.)
I interacted with a couple of different stores and the main company in Texas, working on a number of projects that never went anywhere - if you remember Forrest Mims III and Don Lancaster, you’ll have a picture of what I was doing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as big a name and so the crew in Plano or wherever the hell Tandy HQ was yanked me along for years on some things, taking rewrite after rewrite of proposals and book drafts and project plans without ever getting off the treadmill. (Or, I should note, paying me a dime or so much as an extra free Battery Club battery. I had to go buy my own bits and pieces from them to design and propose kits and the like.) It wasn’t the usual sort of thing - as, basically, a freelance writer I was used to being dragged around on a string. Tandy/RS was… different. It was more like dealing with Scientology or Mormons or Amway or something - there was a weird cult-ish, insider/outsider mentality that got in the way of absolutely everything.
As, basically, a freelance writer, I was never averse to extra income, so a couple of years I tried to sign up as Xmas help at the stores. I knew the managers well - first name, special orders, occasionally lunch at the McD’s next door, that kind of thing - and all three told me, over time, that they could not hire me because I was too knowledgable - they were bound to hire only iggerant neat young men in white shirts and ties who knew nothing about electronics, so that their knowledge would be RS-approved or nothing. They actively did not want anyone with wider knowledge.
In the course of these long waltzes, I spoke at length with - well, their star writer of such things. He reinforced the whole vaguely cultish, us-v-them atmosphere by turning the conversation to JEEzuss at every opportunity.
It was long, weird trip. Visits to RS stores over the years have only reinforced their IKEA-like oddness and against-the-grain retailing attitudes. I’ll be almost sorry to see them finally go… but it’s a faint “almost.”