Sunday, February 28, 2021

Farewell to Fry's

From October 3, 2011 to October 8, 2018 I was Fry's Electronics employee. Employee number 150924 to be exact at store 22. I was either cashiering, doing returns, picking up items from in-store pickups, or stocking items. I wore company mascot Charlie Chip costume one time. On Wednesday my former work place closed their doors forever. Even I have left the company 2 years ago I got super emotional that day. I felt like I did on my last day at Fry's. Having hard time saying goodbye. I also felt a sense of loyalty to them. The reason why is they toss me a lifeline by hiring me at right time when I need a miracle Hail Mary touchdown. I end up spending 7 years at Fry's store 22 making it my second home and playground. I worked with many good co-workers that I still chat with some to this day. I have seen wrestlers from local indy fed shopping in the store once in a while. I have once checked Mario Ramos and Mark Saccomanno out. Both players have brief stints in the majors. The job paid decent at the time before they made changes that affected every position and department around. I knew things were going down in 2017 when they changed my position hourly with commission to just fixed hourly and it was lowball of $9.50 a hour which doesn't make rent in Austin. They would move me to another department with bump in pay including commission. A week later after they moved me they eliminated couple of positions killing off what's left of the morale at the store. Both co-workers left instead taking a big pay cut. Don't blame them especially when one became a parent not long ago. Things happened around Austin in 2018 that I viewed as signs as well my friend and roommate moving to DFW area. I used three months to contemplate my next move and at same time gauge what's going on at store. I realize things weren't getting better as well not enjoying being in Austin area anymore. I left Fry's and moved out of Austin. Through the good, the bad, and the strange I had fun good positive experience working at Fry's.

I found solace on Fry's Electronics Memories page reading and sharing stories with former Fry's employees from other stores. There be posts on Fry's lingo, the cheer, and the funny, weird, and nasty moments around the stores. From their experience it was like mines: we had fun time working there. The biggest thread is share your employee number. I posted a YouTube video of Animusic song asking anyone from my store who remembers walking in to tune of Animusic DVD being played. Turns out every store had played at some time. One of best stories told on the page from store 43 going to a Symantic and Intel training which had other competitors there. Fry's employees lead a company cheer everyone unknowingly partake til they were had. Owning one over the competition is worth the bragging rights.

I'm going to forever miss the place. Wish things turned around for them but it was too late. Farewell Fry's and thank you. It was best 7 working years of my life.

2 comments:

  1. Bummer. I didn't know they shut down their doors. Fry's was pretty big here in the Bay Area. There were two big stores my friends and I would hit in search of electronics, dvds, and video games.

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  2. I lived about an hour away from one years ago, but not being very computery, I never had any reason to go there. I do hate to see places going under though, as it just means more business and money ends up in Amazon's coffers.

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