Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

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In many retail stores the latest management interest seems to be customer service. It used to be that you couldn’t find someone to help you and these days you enter the store and are greeted with plastic smiles and employees that feign an interest they don’t really feel. This is better than apathy and who cares if you can get someone to help these days?

To counteract this trend I have taken the approach of instead of being a “Glumly Gus,”, trying to be an effervescent customer with a genuine appreciation for the efforts of the salesperson providing the assistance. Instead of being hostile, grumpy or ambivalent, I seek to be pleasant, outgoing and genuinely appreciative. It gives the charade a little reverse English. This has yielded unexpected results as evidenced by a recent trip to Frank’s Hardware Store in Stevens Point.

As I have shared in the past, I have an interest in making foam wing cores for my RC model airplanes. In order to cut these cores, a device, known as a "hot wire" is used. It looks like a cheese cutter and works pretty much the same, using an electrical current passing through the blade. On U-tube I saw a design that I liked and resolved to build one. To find the components I went to Fleet Farm, Radio Shack, A Music Store, Wal-Mart, Home Depot and the local hardware store.

One of the components I needed was a Rheostat which is a device used to regulate the intensity of a light or the speed of an overhead fan. I need this to adjust the current flowing through my hot wire…. Too little and it won’t cut and too much… the foam melts, the fuse blows or the transformer becomes a fuse. (These are not good outcomes)

Now I know enough about electricity to get in trouble and not enough to always figure out what I need. Most store employees know less than I do and some are employed part time in today’s economy where they are over qualified and frustrated and bored. Anyway, to get on with it, I was looking for this Rheostat and I asked the “Helpful” employee if he had one and he immediately replied that they had nothing like that in the store. Noting my dissappointment, he asked "What do you need it for?" I enthusiastically explained my project making frequent reference to my wiring diagram.

“OH,” he answered perking up and looking at my scribble, “you mean a “Dimmer Switch.”

“Yeah,” I replied,” noting signs of deeper understanding.” One of those. “

“I don’t think our switch will handle the amperage you’re looking for.”

“Shucks,” I said, “How much amperage is the switch rated to handle?”

“Let me see…. It says here 600 Watts.”

At this point I was in over my head. “Watts” is a term I understand when it comes to light bulbs but beyond that…

“How many amps is that?” I smiled, playing “Stump the Chump.”

“Let me check online,” he answered.”

He was gone less than a minute and returned.

“That is exactly 5 Amps.” (This was the maximum my Radio Shack transformer was rated to handle.)

“How did you find that out,” I wondered out loud.

“I Goggled Watts to Amps… A site popped up that has one of those little find the missing value programs. On 120 AC house current you plug 120 then 600 and it gives you the amperage… 5.

“I’ll take it,” I said adding… “You’re too smart to be working here.”

“…You do what you got to do…”

I guess that's what “Underemployment” means.