Massive amounts of suck, tales from the game store.

[marty]

It's been a while since I actually posted a plethora of stupid, seeing as to how I've been occupied by everything from moving to a brand new sparkly boyfriend (who actually buys me dinner, doesn't whine, and hasn't tried to get into a pissing contest with any of my other male friends ).

Commence the idiocy.

I will cut that hand off. I will feed it to my cats.
We have this one regular who comes in probably once a week. She's loud, obnoxious, and I try to avoid her as much as possible. I get the feeling she's kind of lonely and about my age, but I sure as hell don't go to work to meet friends. The worst thing she does, the thing I can't stand as it is one of my biggest pet peeves, is reach over the counter and touch things.

She brought in trades last night, and as I was typing in the titles, she reached over and started rearranging the games "to make it easier" for me to get them in. Here's a newflash, loudmouth--I know how top do my job, and I'm perfectly capable of setting things on the damn counter how I want them.

I will cut your hands off. I will cut yours hands off and I will feed your fingers to my cats, in case you were wondering. See the counter with the pinpad on it? Your space. Behind that? Mine.


WTF summer camp
Yeah, lady, I did just unplug the cables from the back of the tv while your little preciouses were playing guitar hero. You want to know why? Because I couldn't hear the actual customer I was trying to ring up, and I asked you morons twice to please turn the TV down (for reference purposes, the point where I cannot hear my customers is around 30 on the volume. They had it on 50). Just because you brought half a fucking summer camp in here doesn't mean you can interfer with my interaction with people who are actually going to buy things.


Really? Oh, really? There is a god!
Apparently our resident methheads were told never to come back. Joy!


I am not your mother. Therefore, I do not care
In fact, where the hell was his mother? nine year old kid spends half an hour telling me how much he likes MegaMan. Between my lackluster "Uh huhs." and the fact that I kept turning my back to him to do real work, he didn't seen to get the clue that I really, really didn't care. Not at all.


Math is fun.
SC: All these are 50% off?
Me: Yes sir.
SC: So what's 50% off ten bucks?
Me:

See kids? Stay in school. Stay in school or you may end up at my counter, one day, asking me a question like this. And I may kill you. Yes, I restrained myself that time. But I'm not making any promises.


Unacceptable!
Sc: I bought this XBox 360 from you guys and I need to return it. It's refurbished.
Me: Okay, as I see on your receipt, it wasn't refurbished by us, but by microsoft, so you'd have to contact them if you're having any issues.
SC: But it's refurbished here, and I need to return it!
Me: Was there something wrong with it?
SC: Well yeah IT DOESN'T WORK!
Me: Then you would have to contact microsoft as it was refurbished by them and not us. To us, technically, since it was refurbed my them, the system is new. And we cannot switch out new systems while they're still in warranty with microsoft.
SC: This is UNACCEPTABLE!

You want to know what else is unacceptable? The fact that you can't understand that you have no warranty with us. You were probably offered one, and you declined. You know what that means? That means fuck off, that's what that means!


I've got more. But I'm done for now. I must calm the nerves...

[rerant]

This is why I am SO glad I have never worked anywhere that attracts children in the same way that video games do.
If I had to listen to kids play Guitar Hero at 50 volume I'd toss the entire system out the damn window.

[tollbaby]

hehe I used to love watching the guy who owned the local game store when I lived next door - he owned and operated on his own, so he would tell people, "okay, you've hit your annoying quota for the day, get the fuck out of my store" LOL

I always wanted to go work for him, but he preferred not to have employees (less overhead that way).

[Snowbird]

WTF summer camp
Yeah, lady, I did just unplug the cables from the back of the tv while your little preciouses were playing guitar hero. You want to know why? Because I couldn't hear the actual customer I was trying to ring up, and I asked you morons twice to please turn the TV down (for reference purposes, the point where I cannot hear my customers is around 30 on the volume. They had it on 50). Just because you brought half a fucking summer camp in here doesn't mean you can interfer with my interaction with people who are actually going to buy things.

Time to jury-rig the front of that tv set to board off the volume buttons, eh?

The kids in the store would always push buttons when the movie went off (and I couldn't blame them, it was obnoxiously loud static) but thankfully not much more than that.

[South Texan]

Math is fun.
SC: All these are 50% off?
Me: Yes sir.
SC: So what's 50% off ten bucks?
Me:

Please tell me you told him it was $9.50. Anyone that stupid just might pay it.

[Hyndis]

A related, relevant website:

http://www.actsofgord.com/

Wherein the Gord delivers justice and boots to the head to SCs who dare enter his video game store.

[LostMyMind]

I thought gord been gone for nearly a decade now. However always a good read.

[HawaiianShirts]

...a brand new sparkly boyfriend (who actually buys me dinner, doesn't whine, and hasn't tried to get into a pissing contest with any of my other male friends ).

Morbid curiosity forces me to ask: Do you mean "pissing contest" as in "my life sucks more than yours does," or do you mean "pissing contest" in the literal definition? Because, if you mean it literally, then I think it's a good thing you've moved on from this guy.

I also know a five-year-old who could probably beat him.

SC: This is UNACCEPTABLE!

I have to say that I am really getting tired of this phrase. It's almost as bad as "ridiculous" now. In fact, it seems to be replacing "ridiculous."

I can think of a few things that are unacceptable.
- Ordering one kind of food in a restaurant (say, a double cheeseburger) and getting something else entirely (say, a plain ham sandwich)... (Me, yesterday.)
- Being charged health insurance premiums and having the insuring company refuse to pay any medical bills, including those the contract says they're supposed to pay... (Me, the whole month of July.)
- Renting a G-rated movie for the kids and finding it replaced with Showgirls instead, then having the video store employee argue that such a thing was impossible and that the G-rated movie must be returned before any more renting would be allowed... (My cousin, a year or so ago.)

But XBox 360 guy? No. That's a frustrating experience, sure. The answer is not what he wanted to hear, true. The answer is definitely acceptable. Or, rather, it's going to have to be if he expects to get his game system up and running.

[Imogene]

- Renting a G-rated movie for the kids and finding it replaced with Showgirls instead, then having the video store employee argue that such a thing was impossible and that the G-rated movie must be returned before any more renting would be allowed... (My cousin, a year or so ago.)

Sounds like the time TK from Chesterfield got told he had rented out some hot video game or other, and it was way, way, way overdue. TK would not be allowed to rent anything until said game was returned. TK walked into Bolockbuster and asked them why he'd rent a video game? He didn't own any of the systems.
Late fees, blocking, etc, removed.

[hinakiba777]

Ooo! Your boyfriend does sound shiny! You must check to make sure he is not a robot. They are tricky them robots are. :P Seriously, congrats on finding what sounds like a great guy.

That guitar hero kid sounds like a real bugger. My sympathies to you. The only loud annoying things are my job are;
1) THe Bell
2) The Whistles
3) THe pop guns

The kids aren't strong enough to ring the bell, so i don't need to worry about that Though sometimes the parents ring it HARD! As a migraine sufferer, I usually start reaching for the box cutter at this point.

All the whistles are in closed packages. So the kids can't blow them in the store.

As for the pop guns. I actually encouraged kids to play with them non-stop for my first two weeks. Why? Am i Insane? No. All the kids who played with a pop gun bought one. So the horrible popping cork noise stopped ten days after I started work.

If only that was an option with Guitar hero. Selling it all out and never having the kids play is again. Though I truly doubt that will happen.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

I remember when I worked at gamestop, we had demo units right on our counter but off to the side of the main transaction area.

These kids were in one day and were being really obnoxious, they hung out for like 30 minutes without buying anything. Finally I got fed up and discreetly disconnected the system from behind on them. You should have seen the WTF? looks on their faces when they tried to figure out what had happened.

[Mordecai]

hehe I used to love watching the guy who owned the local game store when I lived next door - he owned and operated on his own, so he would tell people, "okay, you've hit your annoying quota for the day, get the fuck out of my store" LOL

I always wanted to go work for him, but he preferred not to have employees (less overhead that way).

If only I could get away with that.

[Alpha Strike]

WTF summer camp
Yeah, lady, I did just unplug the cables from the back of the tv while your little preciouses were playing guitar hero. You want to know why? Because I couldn't hear the actual customer I was trying to ring up, and I asked you morons twice to please turn the TV down (for reference purposes, the point where I cannot hear my customers is around 30 on the volume. They had it on 50). Just because you brought half a fucking summer camp in here doesn't mean you can interfer with my interaction with people who are actually going to buy things...
*snip*
I am not your mother. Therefore, I do not care
In fact, where the hell was his mother? nine year old kid spends half an hour telling me how much he likes MegaMan. Between my lackluster "Uh huhs." and the fact that I kept turning my back to him to do real work, he didn't seen to get the clue that I really, really didn't care. Not at all.

When I was a closer at the local EB years back, these two things were among the bane of my existence: the demo units and unsupervised children. Moms would constantly drop off their spawn at the store for hours at a time and the more brazen ones would announce within our hearing-range that they would be back later and to keep themselves entertained at our store.

At least when kiddies got obnoxious with the demo units we were allowed to turn them off at any time. And I was almost never discrete about it either - I took great joy in rumbling over and turning off the machine in full view of whatever annoying little twit was disturbing us or the other customers.

Unacceptable!
Sc: I bought this XBox 360 from you guys and I need to return it. It's refurbished.
Me: Okay, as I see on your receipt, it wasn't refurbished by us, but by microsoft, so you'd have to contact them if you're having any issues.
SC: But it's refurbished here, and I need to return it!
Me: Was there something wrong with it?
SC: Well yeah IT DOESN'T WORK!
Me: Then you would have to contact microsoft as it was refurbished by them and not us. To us, technically, since it was refurbed my them, the system is new. And we cannot switch out new systems while they're still in warranty with microsoft.
SC: This is UNACCEPTABLE!

You want to know what else is unacceptable? The fact that you can't understand that you have no warranty with us. You were probably offered one, and you declined. You know what that means? That means fuck off, that's what that means!

One of the many reasons I'm glad I no longer do your job: warranty related issues. And I know from personal experience that the problem has gotten worse with Microsoft's involvement and in-house handling of Xbox 360 issues.

A related, relevant website:

http://www.actsofgord.com/

Wherein the Gord delivers justice and boots to the head to SCs who dare enter his video game store.

This is one of the most enjoyable websites I've ever had the pleasure of reading. The writer used to own a video game store in Canada, and the site is a collection of stories about the different SCs he would run across every day. Not only is it well-written but this guy actually gets to respond to the SCs in the way most of us can only dream of.

Unfortunately, as another posted pointed out, this guy stopped writing the Acts of Gord stuff a long time ago. Last I checked, he was overseas teaching in Korea (?) and had a forum up and running.

[marty]

Morbid curiosity forces me to ask: Do you mean "pissing contest" as in "my life sucks more than yours does," or do you mean "pissing contest" in the literal definition?

Haha, as in "my life sucks more than yours" and "look how much weight I can lift! I must be better than you!" The last one did that..a lot. Nngh. This new one is nice and chill


I don't think I hate anything more in that store than those interactives and unattended children...

[ShootMePlease]

Hey Marty -

You know what's even better ?

Guitar Hero, Singstar, and Rock Band - all in the same area.

All being used at the same time - Badly.

At full volume.

This is a typical day at work for me.

So from one gamer chick to another -