A eulogy for RadioShack, the panicked and half-dead retail empire

[SheilaT]

63. The manager or owner was being honest, ethical, and legal.

Some time back my two sons, then teenagers, worked at the local multi-plex. One afternoon they weren't working and we went there to see a movie. When we walked in the theater manager told my sons a shipment of supplies had just arrived, and could they help him put the boxes away. They said yes, and the next thing he said was, "Go clock in." The worked maybe 15 minutes each, and he was such a good guy they would have willingly worked off the clock, but he wasn't about to let them. They got paid for their time.

Every business manager and owner should be like that.

Back when I was an airline employee, we benefitted from the fact the industry was at the time highly unionized, although the ticket counter, where I worked, wasn't. One nice thing was that if you were called in to work you got paid a minimum of four hours, even if you worked less. That happened to me once or twice, where I came in, worked an hour or so, but got the four hours, which was actually at time and a half because it was in addition to the 8hours/day, 40 hours/week we always put in.