Yeah, but that was back then. In today's litigious society you'll get
sued in a split second for anything when things go bad, even though you
meant well and your intentions were to do the person a favor and help
them out. I doubt that Radio Shack would want their employees doing
these "outside of their normal policy" services today as they'd be
worried about the consequences if ever that BASIC program accidentally
erased the contents of the lawyer's hard drive (as unlikely as that
is), or if the electrical circuits that you built accidentally
electrocuted somebody or started a fire.

Unfortunately, it seems that today you should only do what you are told
/ authorized to do. If you try to be helpful and go outside of those
boundaries and things go bad, you'll get SLAMMED. Pull somebody out of
a flaming car wreck and you'll get sued if you accidentally got them
paralyzed in the process.

Too many hungry lawyers out there.