Sacramento Fry’s off Northgate was my go-to store circa ’98. Whenever a friend wanted to build a PC, that’s where we went. The employees were great; the salespeople, not so much.
I still made the trip every holiday season until around 2017 but it had been going progressively downhill since about 2007. The expanded café, the drastic reduction in books and magazines, PC parts getting strip-mined and never restocked, audio/video media slowly disappearing; you could feel the shift.
I miss the SacBee flyer and the last-minute Christmas gift runs. Egghead Software, CompUSA, RadioShack, Borders (one of the only reliable places to find 2600), Tower Records...it was a different time.
This takes me back to 2004 when I inherited a NasRaQ, the original company file server, which had been replaced by a Windows Server 2000/2003 a few years prior. It became my go-to storage for Ghost and ISO images until the company gifted it to me around 2009. I may have had to replace one of the two drives while it was in service, but it was a rock-solid machine! Finally sold it on Craigslist in 2011, but I’m pretty sure it would’ve kept on trucking. Would've loved to try this out!"
Amusing because it's kinda true; although there are a # of startups in the area where the pay is decent (not big tech salary or crazy RSUs by any means). IIRC Sysdig was founded in Davis before they moved to SF.
Tech meetups in general have lacked but non-tech related meetups have always been good - board games, etc.
I think people are more well rounded and realistic about work / life balance than Bay Area tech and that's what makes Sac seem a little sleepy.
- 2004 custom dual boot gaming desktop is running FreeNAS at a friend's house
- 2007 custom desktop survived until 2019 when a power surge fried the motherboard, memory and PSU. I repurposed the case and drives (which survived!)
- 2011 MBP is really one of the best. Replaced the battery, memory and display over the years. Now dedicated shared kids machine because parental controls are super simple for all adults
- 2015 MBP is my personal laptop for freelance work, learning, etc. Will most likely repurpose it as the kids shared laptop after I do a battery replacement. The 2011 will then migrate to storage until I'm sure I won't need things like a CD/DVD drive, SDXC card slot, Thunderbolt port, Firewire, Ethernet, etc.
- 2009 Samsung SyncMaster 23" is still used as a secondary monitor
- 2007 Razer mouse still used today
- 2012 (?) original RaspberryPi is my wireless print and scanning server
It blows my mind (in a good way) that people are still posting this to Hacker news. I remember writing code for MenuetOS in both my Operating Systems and Hardware classes in ~2002. Love it!
I suppose we can take this further and say prop 47 attempts to address symptoms because of a failure to agree on what the problems are (what problems should we be talking about).
I suspect you're asking whether you'll regret taking a job for a local company with an option to work remotely rather than holding out for a more "tech" focused company that enables better networking opportunities?
Why would you hold out if you're uncertain? Or are you hesitant you won't like it?
Who says you can't test the waters for a few months while looking for other remote opportunities?
I don't know what's important to you but I'd ask that first. Remote opportunities abound; there weren't this many remote opportunities 10 years ago. Find what works you and don't be afraid of change. You can always relocate when your personal life settles or you may decide not to.
A week before Thanksgiving I went to the Fry's in Roseville. The Northgate (Sacramento) location has always been busy (haven't been back since 2018). Fry's has always been my go to for last minute electronics (i.e. I can't wait for next day shipping).
The entire computer/networking section was bare. They had a wireless IP camera and a $400 "small-business class" Cisco router (can't remember which model). No cable modems, no other routers, nothing. The only stocked shelves were media (CDs and Blu-ray). The Christmas shoppers were disgruntled they had made the trip.
A sales associate I talked to was confounded. When asked whether Fry's was going out of business he said they were told no. He mentioned there had been no deliveries in months and the storage they did have was empty.
I don't think it can be attributed to just Prime or better service at Best Buy. The market is saturated with tech. Everyone has a cell phone, laptop/desktop, TV, smart-device, etc. Fry's should've been downsizing about 10 years ago. It's possible they could've done more with their service department (the tire, car audio system installers always seemed busy)
I'll always remember Fry's as
- being packed during the holidays
- having ridiculous long checkout lines b/t 1998-2016 even an hour before close
- being able to find cool/rare last minute gifts
- massive selection of photography equipment
- in recent years (?) having price-match guarantee