Any former "GameStore" employees here? Share your SC stories!

[MercenaryMuffin]

Ah, yes...GameStore. A cesspool of SC's if there ever was one. I've had the unfortunate experience of working for two different video game stores: GameCrazy (whom I mention by name because I actually enjoyed it there, and the business itself was far superior to GS), and, erm, "GameStore". Which I'm not even sure WHY I'm hiding the name, it's just something that seems common around here.

Before I begin, any of you who haven't worked in GameStore (and those of you who have) should Google "Zero Originality GameStop". Oops, there's the name. Silly me. It's a 90 minute long series done in the style of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, which I'm sure some of you are familiar with. Really hits the nail on the head.

Anyway, on to the horror stories.

Game stores in general are known to be filled with the biggest idiots this side of the Senate. SC's who make you want to pull out a baseball bat and start swinging while you shout obscenities in your underwear.
You'd think GameStop's most frequent customers would be gamers, right? After all, Gamers love video games, and GameStop is full of said product.
Well, you'd be wrong. The majority of the customers every game store gets are of four types:
1) The infrequent gamer, usually a college kid who wants to play Rock Band or Halo while getting smashed with his buddies.
2) The negligent mother and her legion of hell spawn, of which she doesn't have the slightest notion of controlling, much less keeping in line. She will frequently DEMAND that you show her where Mario is on Xbox, even though you've just told her that Mario isn't on Xbox. This is usually followed by her accusing you of calling her an idiot and a liar (which she is), and swearing at you before stomping out.
3) The Heavy Accent Guy. Usually impossible to understand, and gets furious when you can't decipher their alien-like tone.
4) The clueless relative, who has never bought a game in his or her life, and only gives vague hints like "It's a game for that one games system", or "it's the one with that man."

Of course, that's not all of them, but the majority. You still get the creepy pedophiles ("Hmm...Winx club...this looks pretty awesome" [Note: Winx Club is a game for little girls about fairies]), the Elitist Snob, The Console Fanboy, etc.

This particular story comes from the Christmas shopping rush of 2005, when the Xbox 360 was released. We were getting flooded with calls (NO WE DON'T HAVE ANY GOD DAMN 360s, YOU ASSHATS), with lines out the door from opening til closing.

On a quick side note, it pissed me off greatly that I couldn't say "Merry Christmas", or I would be fired. I mean...seriously? Who's going to be offended by "Merry Christmas"? I have yet to meet someone who I said merry christmas to, only to have them turn around and go "FUCK YOU!", and I doubt I ever will.
But anyway.

It was a few days before Black Friday, a day that retail monkeys throughout the country fear and loathe. Myself included. It had been a busy day, as usual, and we'd already had our share of idiots. This guy, however, takes the cake. And then tries to get a refund after eating it.

We were in the middle of a customer rush, and I was working the registers with Rob and Greg, the latter being my manager. Pretty cool guy, easy to work with. I had just finished ringing up someone's purchase when a guy in his early 30's walks up to the counter holding a PSP. Uh oh.

Me: O_o
SC: Pissed off PSP guy

Me: "How ya doin', sir?"
SC: "I'll be better once you fix this."
*puts PSP on the counter*
Me: "Can I ask what's wrong with it?"
SC: "It don't work."
Me: "...okay, but specifically what's wrong with it?"
SC: "It won't even fuckin' power on."

I shoot Greg a glance like "Great, he's gonna be trouble"

Me, after picking it up: "Uhh, sir, it looks like the power button and control stick have both snapped off, and the screen is cracked. And it looks there's a lot of water damage on it, probably shorted out the internals."
SC: "Yeah, so replace it. I want a new one. I got it as a gift for my six year old (!!!) son, and he dropped it on the pool deck and it fell into the pool."

Wait...you gave your son a $250 PSP and let him near the pool with it? WTF is wrong with you?

*preparing myself for the upcoming shitstorm*
Me: "Sir, the warranty only covers damage due to the manufacturer's fault, such as defective hardware or dead pixels on the screen. The damage to your PSP isn't covered by that warranty."
SC, turning red: "I don't care, just get me a new one."
Me: "I can't do that. We can't replace your system because your son dropped it, it has to be--"
SC, cutting me off: "Yeah, whatever, just say it's manufacturer's fault."
Me: "..."
SC: *angry glare*
Me: "I can't do that."

Greg steps in at this point, thankfully.

Greg: "Sir, we can't replace your PSP, and it's already been explained why."
SC: "I just fuckin' bought this thing two days ago. Are you saying I spent two-hundred fifty dollars on this piece of shit, and I can't even get it replaced?!"

Now everyone else in the store is looking at him.

Greg: "I'm sorry, but yes. We can't replace it, the warranty doesn't cover user damage (or damaged users)"
SC: "REPLACE MY FUCKING SYSTEM OR I'M GONNA REPORT YOU TO THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU."
Greg: "Sir, please stop yelling or I'm gonna have to ask you to leave my store. You can talk to the District Manager if you like, I can give you his number, but he's gonna tell you the same thing. It's company policy."
SC: "Wipe that stupid smile off your face or I'll slap it off!"

Oh shit, you've done it now.

Greg: "Now you can get out of my store for threatening me."
SC: "I'm not going anywhere until you replace my fucking system!"
Greg: "Then we can let the cops take you out of here. Your choice."

SC then gets this stance like he's gonna jump over the counter and attack Greg. Personally, I would have loved to see him try, Greg would have kicked his ass.

Greg: "You've got five seconds before I call the cops and have you removed."

SC reaches over the counter (ANGRILY, of course) and grabs his PSP, knocking our phone and several displays over.

SC: "SO THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE YOUR MONEY, BY FUCKING OVER YOUR CUSTOMERS!" (which is true in some ways, but not the way he was talking about, but that's a rant for later)

He finally left, slamming the door behind him. The next person in line says "That guy was a douchebag" and we all have a laugh at the SC's expense.
Thank god I don't work there any more. Next to working in the deli, that was the worst job I've ever had.

[ottid]

Ummm....Wow?

Did he want to spend another $250 to get one replaced ie a brand new one, or just a brand new one for free so his 6 year old could do the same thing again? I'm voting on the second because I doubt he would want to have paid $500 for the PSP.

I have known young kids who were quite capable of handling expensive handheld consoles, but that is usually while sitting and no where near water or a hard surface, or if it is near a hard surface they are usually sitting on it anyway, ie concrete in the middle of summer.

I wonder if you could have sent the PSP to Sony at the SCs expense to have them say the same thing, they would take one look, see that it was full of water and say no way. Guy might have learnt something that way, but he is an SC, so maybe not...

[infinitemonkies]

On a quick side note, it pissed me off greatly that I couldn't say "Merry Christmas", or I would be fired. I mean...seriously? Who's going to be offended by "Merry Christmas"? I have yet to meet someone who I said merry christmas to, only to have them turn around and go "FUCK YOU!", and I doubt I ever will.

We've never met

Personally, I despise christmas. I hate absolutely everything about it.
However, I also realize that most people in our culture don't feel the same way I do, and out of respect for their beliefs I'll tolerate public displays of x-mas spirit. Just because I hate it doesn't give me the right to ruin others' enjoyment of it.

There are places where I'll draw the line, though. If someone says "Merry Christmas" to me, in NOVEMBER, at my most polite I'll respond with "inappropriate remark." More commonly, I'll just say "Fuck off, it's November."

This past season, I had a woman check into the hotel on Rememberance day, November 11th, who immediately after getting her room keys demanded to speak to the manager so she could lodge a formal complaint that we didn't have a Christmas Tree up in the lobby yet.

Also, I once beat a stereo to death with a shovel for playing christmas carols on November 15th, when it was 30C (86F) out at 5:30 in the morning.

I'll put up with that stuff in December, leave the rest of the year alone.

[MercenaryMuffin]

I can understand November, as it seems the Christmas shopping season gets longer and longer every year, but it was a two weeks before Christmas, if that. I think it's acceptable to say it at that time, don't you?

[RayvenQ]

I don't work in one, but I'm in my local one that much that I may as well It's got to a point where, if I'm in (browsing as i usually am) the staff and managers sometimes ask me to help if someone is looking for a game, or type of game or even reccomendations.

That all started one day when I overheard one of the managers tell a customer that they couldn't find X game, right off the bat, I butt in "Oh, Manager there's one there" and point to it

One time I can remember was a man who had bought a PC game and was sure 1000% that his computer could run it, despite not being able to, trying to return it (PC games in the store can only be swapped for a new one of the same game), who was being highly obnoxious and near abusive towards my absoloute favorite cashier (which she still hold that place in spite of or maybe because she chased me round the store with a headcrab plushie one time)

I walked up and butted in "Do you have a Totallymade up" CPU and a "Totally made up" Graphics card" and he nods so I just snort laughter into his face "Piss off" I say "You know sod all about PC hardware, you've probably got a cheapo PC that can't run it, that you just think should, so get lost and leave Cashier alone"

and he did

I think that's partly why everyone who works there loves me, I will rip into people who are being abusive and/or stupid, on their behalf.

[Jack T. Chance]

Oh geez... this takes me back...

OK, first off, my first ever job in a game store was with the now-defunct Video Game Exchange back in the mid-'90s. I loved that job, and that store! But they sold their stores to It's About Games, who then went out of business!

Now then, onto the corporate juggernaut now know as "GameStore"... I worked for them a DECADE ago, when they were still known by their ORIGINAL name... you know, after that guy who invented a "computer" in the 1800s!

So, yeah... the only story I remember from my stint at "Cabbage's"... ...is this one very regular customer that decided he was going to take advantage of his shiny new CD burner to get his games for FREE! You see, some of you kids might not remember, but 10 years ago, CD burners were only just becoming affordable enough for people to start seriously thinking about adding one to their PC! So back then, this was a brand-new tactic!

So, yeah, the "genius" would come to the store I worked at, and he'd buy the following items, all on one transaction:

• A new PC game
• The Strategy Guide for said game
• BLANK CD-Rs.

Then, a day or 2 later, he'd go to another store nearby (say, at a mall 20 minutes away) and he'd return THE GAME... not the book or the blank CDs, mind you... just the game. Gee, let me think what THAT guy was up to!

Of course, we figured this all out very quickly, because our Store Managers talked to each other about stuff like that. So, while Mr. Slick Rick was doing this, thinking he was getting over like Rover, all the while, the Store Mgrs were just compiling a nice paper trail to show what he'd been up to, as evidence to ban him from doing any more returns!

And the moral of the story: Do NOT buy your blank CDs (or DVDs, in this day & age) from the same store where you plan to buy the game, then return it a day or 2 later because "you didn't like it"!

And... I'm spent!

[smileyeagle1021]

On the flip side, as a casual gamer, there is nothing worse than going into a "gamestore" and being served by the guy who is obsessed with video games and clearly spends all of the 16 hours between shifts doing nothing but playing games and has played every game in the store... and you ask a simple question like "what additions were made to Soul Caliber 3 over Soul Caliber 2" and they spend 20 minutes talking your ear off about every fighting game ever made and you still don't know what was added to Soul Caliber 3...

I've seen some doozies in game stores though... most of them regarding the availability of the Wii (or lack thereof).

[MercenaryMuffin]

Sadly, there are two constants in GameStop: 1) 75% of your customers are NOT gamers, and thus clueless, and 2) the majority of the GameStop employees are terrible salesmen. Hell, knowing about games isn't even a requirement.

What matters is getting numbers, especially reservations and Edge cards. If employee A knows about every game in the store, and is a really cool guy and gets along with customers, but only does 2 reservations and 1 Edge card a day, he probably won't make it very far.
If employee B, however, knows jack squat about games, yet can do 7 reservations and 5 Edge cards in a day, then he's going to be there longer than employee A.
You should see a manager's eyes light up when a female wants to work in the store. She may or may not actually be a hard core gamer, but because she has breasts and can laugh at every stupid joke thrown her way, she is going to move product like you can't believe.
That may sound sexist, but it's the damn truth. I kid you not.

Hell, GameStop seems to do everything it can to distance itself from the very base that made it successful. Have you ever watched the absolute garbage that is GameStop TV on those in-store TVs? It always consists of two people: a bimbo who has never played a game in her life, and a vapid pretty boy who has also never played a game in his life. Yet GameStop still chooses them to be on their lame-ass in-store program because they put a pretty face on things.

Truth be told, you'll almost never see said program on the in-store TV unless the DM is coming in, because it's garbage, and everyone knows it's garbage. If your store is built upon the nerd masses, you might as well nerd it up as much as you can and put in Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or The Matrix. Hell of a lot more entertaining and welcoming than seeing some lame pop group for the millionth time. Being a socially awkward nerd myself (yet not the stereotypical kind), I like it when a store's employees know about games, and the environment screams out "You're a nerd, we're nerds, let us take care of you".

I mean, our store's ringer on the phone was the Final Fantasy battle victory music, for crying out loud. Doesn't get much more nerdy than that.

What was this supposed to be about, again? Oh, yeah, employees who will talk your ear off instead of answering questions...

On a final note, back when our store was EB Games, it was awesome. Now that EB has been bought out by GameStop, it blows. Formerly likable employees have been replaced by people I really don't like, headed by the biggest RPG elitist douchebag I've ever seen in my life.
When I come in and buy Lost Odyssey or Fable 2, DO NOT roll your eyes and scoff at my purchase, JOHN. I'm sorry you don't approve because I've never heard of Obscure Japanese RPG #472. Just sell me the damn game.

Which is exactly why I only shop at GameTag these days. So much friendlier and better business practices.

[EricKei]

The GS that I worked at the longest was...and still is...known by the [ahem] "Cabbage's" name. This is partly because the mall they're in has had them there, under that name, for over TWENTY YEARS in the same location-- the mall won't let them change the marquee because it's so well-known; and partly because, in this town, any "institution" store WILL be known by their original name 20-30 years after the original company goes out of business. It's just how it works here. At my store, everybody there except the SM were gamers. HE could do sports games, but that was about it. The great thing was, he had this wonderful attitude about it -- you could only get hired after you could prove your game knowledge, and he said straight out that he expected us to be able to field questions about games that he himself could not answer off the top of his head ("RPG's? Talk to my man EricKei over here. FPS's? Talk to Matt").

I shall have to detail my Black Friday story later...just keep this in mind. I live in New Orleans. Katrina hit in Fall 2005. Our store re-opened the Sunday before Black Friday. On the day of the 360 launch...

[MercenaryMuffin]

Ugh, new system launches. Always a pain in the rear, I tell ya. We had so many people reserve systems, but we just couldn't get enough for everyone to get one on launch day. Just couldn't happen. And yet we'd get people reserving a system three days before launch, and then bitching when they didn't get one. Well no shit, you ordered it three days ago.
Meanwhile, someone else ordered his four months ago and still hasn't got it. Stop yer bitching. But you'd get several people who called up, and yelled and complained and moaned, all the way up the corporate ladder, until we got a call from the DM saying "move them to the top of the list". WTF?
Because they bitched about it, they're going on the list ahead of people who have been waiting for half a year? Bullshit!

Needless to say, that was not a good time of year for us.

[smileyeagle1021]

On a final note, back when our store was EB Games, it was awesome. Now that EB has been bought out by GameStop, it blows. Formerly likable employees have been replaced by people I really don't like, headed by the biggest RPG elitist douchebag I've ever seen in my life.
When I come in and buy Lost Odyssey or Fable 2, DO NOT roll your eyes and scoff at my purchase, JOHN. I'm sorry you don't approve because I've never heard of Obscure Japanese RPG #472. Just sell me the damn game.
.

Ditto, I loved the employees at EB Games... they were always so helpful and cool people... the people I've run into at Gamestop on the other hand fall into two categories, those who don't know shit, and those who will make you feel like shit for not being as genius as them.

[MaggieTheCat]

When I come in and buy Lost Odyssey or Fable 2, DO NOT roll your eyes and scoff at my purchase, JOHN. I'm sorry you don't approve because I've never heard of Obscure Japanese RPG #472. Just sell me the damn game.

That really drives me nuts, too...I remember back when the Dreamcast was first out, I went somewhere to get a spare memory card (I don't even think it was a game store, I believe it was a Wal-Mart or Target.) I was in electronics looking around, and one of the guys working there approached me and asked if I needed help ("Oh, a GIRL, she obviously doesn't know what she's looking for so I better go hold her hand.") To make things fast and easy, I had no problem asking him where the Dreamcast memory cards were. He gave me this LOOK like I was out of my mind, and asked if it was for me or someone else. I told him it was for me, and he made some really rude comment about how he pitied me for having one. I was taken aback, and told him there were some good games out for it that I enjoyed, and he went off about how some other system was so much better. He did eventually show me where the memory cards were, but even as he handed me one, he was still spouting stuff about how the Dreamcast sucked.

[MercenaryMuffin]

I remember back when the Dreamcast was first out

Marry me

[EricKei]

Ugh, new system launches. Always a pain in the rear, I tell ya. We had so many people reserve systems, but we just couldn't get enough for everyone to get one on launch day.

Two words: "Nintendo. Wii."

Our Cabbage's was, and is -- by far -- the busiest store in the state. When we started taking reserves for that little white monster in Spring or so, I pounced (I got one on release day as a result). At the time, Ninty had told us that we would be getting 120-something systems on launch day. Around late October/early November, they said 'oh, nvm, it'll be more like 80'. They sent us more updates in the next few weeks. I think you see where this is going. On launch day, we had a grand total of...THIRTY systems. Fortunately, we had been able to contact most of the customers to let them know what week in January...or February...their box would hopefully come in. It took us until early March to get enough to sell to the reserves (we went by a "first to reserve, first to get it" process).

Naturally, we were required to have the "NINTENDO WII NOW FOR SALE" displays up in the windows the whole time, whether we had any or not. I think we still had, literally dozens of calls per day asking for these damn things. Ninty even started shipping them to us at random *specifically so we could not tell people what day they'd be there*. All we really knew was, "delivery between 11am and noon, they'll be sold out within half an hour whether we get 6 or 40" (average was 16) (it was true, too. If you were in the store at the time and saw the logo on the hand truck, you could get one. Anyone else was generally SOL)

One fine Saturday morning during the XMAS rush season, we decided to actually mark down how many people had called asking for a Wii that day -- just callers, not walk-ins. We gave up at around a hundred calls. In THREE HOURS. Of course, people asked us if there was a waiting list/call sheet. At our store, at least, we were polite enough to not laugh out loud at that. Doing so would have required us to call several hundred people EVERY TIME a Wii shipment came in....despite the fact that they would have all sold out before we got 10% of the way thru the list. AND NO, WE CANNOT HOLD THE DAMN THINGS FOR YOU, EITHER.

This sort of thing was repeated with the DS & Lite, but it was neither as bad, nor did it last quite as long (shipments of 50+, more regularly, so we actually had enough to last a day or two).

*** Unrelated shoutout ***

Dreamcast 4 life. Mine still works. So does my TurboDUO.

[Dreamstalker]

I worked for them a DECADE ago, when they were still known by their ORIGINAL name... you know, after that guy who invented a "computer" in the 1800s!

They were originally"Cabbages"? I had a science teacher who worked there!

My Dreamcast still works and dispenses gaming love (Bust-a-Move, Grandia 2 and Skies of Arcadia FTW). I think I'm going to be buried with it.

My local store has some cool employees; I've considered applying there but I don't do too well in any positions with sales "goals".