[Family Computer]

So I just got this position as a sales associate at Gamestop. How horrible do you think this is going to be, guys? I've heard pretty bad things all around about working for them.

Is it going to make me want to stop playing games? This thread is to chronicle my journey in game retail.

On the upside I'm pretty good friends with everyone that works there, which is basically why I took the job. They aren't the typical douchey Gamestop guys who are in their 30s and hound you to trade in the game you just bought.

So this thread is about shitty retail jobs. Stories, experiences, pain.

Go!!!
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3DS Friendcode: 2337-3480-4823
PSN: play2forget
This summer, become Buried In Games.

[Greng]

I like to pop in to my friends skate shop on a Saturday and have a cup of tea and a cig out on the roof.

I get Mum's asking for advice on skateboards / rollerblades and I don't bother to tell them I don't actually work there. I just give good advice / steer them towards at least the halfway decent kit because I can see some poor kid embarrassed that his Mum is smothering his independence in the 'cool' shop. Also, steering the conversation to the kids and asking what THEY would like is good.

I'd work retail if it paid a bit more and you didn't have snobby wankers treating you like 'the help'.

Expecting bloody James to come in here with tales of sweaty kids, pubes in cd cases and attempted trade in's of pirated games.
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Steam ~ Be Preying | Resident Evil.net ~ ElSpank

[UnitedBiscuits]

I was a business partner and partially ran my own record shop in Philadelphia with three friends from 1997-2001. I was student teaching and teaching private music lessons from my apartment at that time as well. I was making around $25k a year in taxable income (private lessons were under the table) hanging around stuff I love which was more than enough that a guy in his early 20's could ever hope for. After we closed the shop I took a hiatus from school (too burned out) and took a retail management job at POPULAR CLOTHING STORE FOR SNOTTY, PREPPY, JOCK TEENS that started me around $28k.

Worst fucking decision I've ever made. My staff and co-managers were great but I couldn't get used to cow-towing to district and regional managers, calling in numbers, follow merchandising materials, opening other stores in different districts, etc. I was just used to being my own boss. I made way less due to travel expenses and did way more work with no input in the decision making. Add to the fact that I had to listen to music featured on this week's episode of The OC or soundtrack to the hot new movie Blue Crush made me want to hit my balls with a hammer every day. I got out of there in a little over a year.

Now I work in an office doing office-y type stuff but I make way more so I guess that makes it okay that I'm dead inside.

So yeah. If the people you work with are cool that's great. Just don't let the part time job you need to stay alive become your full time life.
And if your DM starts talking about your future in retail management fucking RUN.

[evnvnv]

[Isfet]

with the right coworkers, any job can be enjoyable. the inverse of this is also pretty accurate.

[Talbain]

I worked at American Eagle and Party City for about 3-6 months each and I can pretty much say that you really don't want to work at either of them. At Party City it's mostly that they'll hire anyone, including people who just sit around staring at their ass all day. Then the manager swoops in and tells everyone to get to work, meaning that the people who are actually doing work start working harder and the idiots still sit there and waste away hours so they can go masturbate to the latest youtube video.

American Eagle was worse in that it was basically soul crushing. My managers were good guys, but god if the employees weren't incredibly stupid. One of them actually mocked other people who left the company for better jobs. I don't know about you, but folding clothes, managing new sales racks, etc. is not my ideal job. This guy believed working as a paid clothes folder was a "real" job. My mother should be a billionaire. But, this is more anger towards the people actually being that dense, I didn't really hate or love American Eagle, it was just a place to make some pocket cash before I continued through college.

Then there's probably one of the best jobs I had, which was at Waterloo Records before they were shut down. I pretty much just sat around and on occasion, told people where to put things. Being able to basically just read and listen to music all day (pretty much any music I wanted) was awesome. But then again that was short-lived since Waterloo went belly-up (probably because of people like me). I liked working there, but I guess that's because I didn't do nearly as much "work."

At the same time, I don't really consider most retail jobs work, since I'm of the belief that simple physical labor will eventually be replaced by robots. I pretty much think that real work is work that requires a functioning cerebral cortex. Possibly work in the scientific sense. I dunno. I'm probably just rambling because it's 2AM in the morning and my head hurts a lot from the club I just got back from.
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[Sushi K]

I don't know if this counts but I was the "cart kid" at the local golf clubhouse for 6 months. It only required washing and parking the carts. Most of the time I was alone in the garage and read or slept.
And I closed up so at night I'd ride the carts around the course like a maniac, powerslides and everything.

I'd only see my boss once a day usually and never said more then "hey" to a customer, so it was fairly awesome for a crummy job.
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[UnitedBiscuits]

[invisibleyogurt]

I was the clerk at a nearby little-old-lady-style gift shop (Hummels, birthday cards, "whimsy" ceramic pots and such trash) through most of senior year in high school. The guy running it was amazingly awesome and completely trusted me with the place (I was usually alone there). He paid pretty well considering how old I was too.

As you might expect, it was really quiet, except for the occasional old lady. I spent most of the time with my GBA Original. Probably the best job I could have asked for back then, all I ever really ever had to deal with was the old ladies in question trying to yak at me for hours.

I guess that doesn't count though! Thankfully for me.

[Lurky]

I worked at a convenience store briefly, seemed ok-ish.
Didn't pay well.

[PianoMap]

Worked at a Blockbuster for a year, leaving for a time to get on top of classes and coming back whenever there was time off. I guess that made the job really convenient, plus it was close to my house. I dunno, I worked with some pretty cool people, but that never stopped everybody from being under constant pressure to sell coupon booklets and shit. About eight out of ten customers were assholes/just assumed that I was out to cheat them out of their eighty cents or some bullshit.
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o-/< --- o-\< --- o-|-| --- o^-<

[dementia]

I worked at gamestop for like a month.

I sold Halo 3 pre-orders like a motherfucker.

[Sushi K]

[google]

I think those that rag on working at Gamestop and the like, arent aware that retail jobs are what you do when you're usually not in the right frame of mind to do real work.

By this, I dont mean one is a retard for working in retail.

Simply lazy.

Bored.

Unmotivated.
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http://playerrant.blogspot.com/

[extrabastardformula]

[GalaxyHead]

I've worked in retail for 6 years, mainly because no other company would give me flexible hours to study. Two before I went to college, and four while I was in college. Granted it was a photo lab position, but looking back, I think I almost quit in a blazing fury about 20 times, and I should have. It was actually tolerable when I had good management.

Don't work in retail for 6 years.

[Family Computer]

[Felix]

I worked at Gamestop for the latter half of high school, when I really wanted to HAVE A JOB and GET GAME DISCOUNTS and DRESS BUSINESS CASUAL. At the time, it was great; I tried going back after my freshman year of college and it was not.

[CubaLibre]

I worked at a Regal each summer after I graduated high school until I graduated college. Four summers at a movie theater. Pretty unremarkable as a whole, the only thing it taught me was that corporate jobs are bullshit. Those pretzel bites are damn tasty though.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[BIGJ420COOLDUDE]

working at a video rental place is the only acceptable retail job

[shrugtheironteacup]

I worked at a Target, but it was IN THE BACK, so I rarely had to deal with customers. I moved boxes around. I eventually became the only person there who was barely competent at my stupid monkey job, enabling me to be openly disrespectful to my team lead, and generally act like an ass.

The stockroom was like my forum axe, in physical space, before I knew such a thing existed on these internets.

They offered me a raise when I gave my notice.
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[PianoMap]

[GalaxyHead]

Perks are I get 15 days paid vacation. This blew a 21 year old intern's mind. but then, most people only keep jobs like these for a year or two at most. And who can blame them.

[nakysnaky]

The first retail job I worked was at a theatre that was close to closing down. I had gotten the job under duress from my friend, with whom I was supposed to raise money for a trip to Japan, so I took it really fucking seriously at first but soon realized I was the only one. The theatre was closing down for a reason. We had a ridiculously small clientèle, the majority of which was made up of intoxicated kids. I would joke that we had more rats than customers (which, actually, wasn't too far from the truth). I remember hanging around the patio smoking in our uniforms, which was apparently grounds for getting into SERIOUS TROUBLE, with my supervisors, when none of us were on break.

After working there, I worked at a Whole Foods Market as a courtesy clerk for the next year because it paid 10 DOLLARS AN HOUR HOLY SHIT. The management made it seem like the most important job in the fucking universe at first, but after a few months I was thought of as the hardest worker when I didn't really do much more than anybody else. The work was never really that bad. I was just always a full time student while working about 50 hours a week, which means I was always sleep-deprived and extremely fucking tired. The most dreadful part of the job was doing cart runs in the summer (when it wasn't hot, I'd stay out for extended periods of time just walking around the block, visiting friends that worked/lived nearby, etc.), and dealing with the horrible customers we would get. Whole Foods apparently attracts a lot of assholes as well as straight-up insane mother fuckers. It seemed like every other week we were banning a violent bum from the store. The best part of the job was always my coworkers. They were all older than me, but really cool. I always had access to alcohol and marijuana while I worked there. By the time I was about to quit, I would actually look forward to going to work. =/

[gambrinus]

Worked at a gas station when I was younger for a couple of summers. Not a convenience store deal, but actually pumping gas at a full serve station. The perks were that I could listen to whatever I wanted to on the radio as long as it didn't offend customers, and that I could have a cigarette any time there weren't customers. The downsides were pretty much everything else, including the fact that the pay sucked (although it was under the table, so that helped), running around in 95 degree weather, and the fact that people are generally dicks. On the plus side, if someone was a dick, I could fuck up the paint job on their fancy car by spilling gas all over it. (The biggest dicks were almost always the ones driving fancy cars)

[Hot Stott Bot]

i have never worked a retail job

[taidan]

[Lick Meth]

I did a job in a department store once. It was really small, and even though it presented itself as a classy joint (from the ground floor), it was a shithole on the top floor (where I worked), and the staff were paid fuck all. Fortunately it was only a temp job, although I do regret passing out on my last day (diabetes and contradictory medicine).

[rye]

i spent most of my high school job career pushing carts at the local target. i liked it because i was the only person in the store that had the ability to leave the large rectangular prison freely while being on the job. i'd go out in the parking lot when things got really busy in the store (especially around the holidays). oh, hey, is that a single cart all the way down by safeway (also in same shopping complex)? i'd better go save that from those bastards. who knows what they'll do with it.

really if you think about it, i was the shepard and those plastic red carts were my sheep. i took care of those boys.

fun fact: when target started not giving me good hours, i went down the street to safeway and pushed carts for them.

now they have like this automatic robot cart pushers that bring in like 20 carts for you, you don't have to even push. i did that shit by my own BRUTE strength.
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[km]

Not precisely retail but pretty close: I worked at Best Buy on the Geek Squad. I hear it really sucks now, but back in the day it was actually about helping people with computers. I met a lot of really cool people there and had one of the best times of my life.

They may as well have paid me in gift cards though, shit. The discount was ridiculous: 10% above store cost. USB cables were no more than $1.50. Video games, music, and DVD were usually about 30% off. On some computers and TVs the margins were so thin the discount made then more expensive.
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vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

[internisus]

Yeah, I quit Geek Squad last week after exactly 3 months. Mostly nice coworkers, some fun times hanging out, but almost always it was crazy fucking busy (so busy I often couldn't take the breaks that I was entitled to) and the poor resources (perpetually understaffed, can never find a pen or a sharpie or tape, printer jams, boss won't let me keep a drink anywhere, seriously, besides home & student all we had for all the varieties of ms office were empty display boxes wtf) really pissed me off. Plus you know big company and all kinds of policies.

Ridiculous job; it's much more about customer service than actually working on computers. And there are things they wouldn't let us do on computers; we weren't allowed to reset CMOS for example because other than slotting chips we weren't allowed to touch motherboards basically. More and more as I was there it became clear that GS "Agents" are responsible for everything. Have to be capable of every fucking thing anyone does in the damned store. Returns, customer service, sales, shipping & receiving, etc. Extremely convoluted service sets, policies, computer system, and paper trails, and everything has to be done precisely by the book. A book no one actually has a copy of. Training is basically as-you-go, so you make mistakes and get written up for them. There are these jackass e-learning things they make you do where you read about what a monitor is for example and what the difference is between CRT and LCD. Plus you don't just work on computers and ipods and cameras and phones and gps things and tvs and dvd players and stereos; you actually have to service fucking vacuum cleaners. Not kidding.

What kills me is that I got good at all of that shit. I persevered and got good even at selling. And I enjoy being good at things. But I never stopped hating the job. I would wake up in the morning hearing in my head that "I just wanna tell you 'bout it, I just wanna tell you 'bout it" song they have on the tv all the time. The store is just a big warehouse room, and the ambient noise in there is horribly dulling. I would work a twelve hour shift to close and then have to be in for a meeting at 7:30 the next morning. Most customers in that area have way too much fucking money, are damned idiots, and seem often to blame employees personally for the shit that's happening with their computer. The service centers that we send stuff to are totally autonomous; there is almost no capacity for communication between them and the stores. Policies get in the way of adequately servicing or replacing obviously defective products. It never gets old explaining to customers how they will have to wait another 3 weeks for another repair on their clearly broken laptop and how they will have to go through this two more times before it can be replaced.

I hate constantly trying to provide (informed) estimated timeframes on existing service orders to impatient assholes on the phone. I hate how other departments often flat out will not answer their phones, so customers will call geek squad and then I will have to try to get in touch with that department myself. I hate how we were told to be like sharks and never stop moving because there's always stuff to be done. I hate how the few times I got into interesting talks with customers someone would whisper in my ear to wrap things up. I hate how many times I had a supervisor over my shoulder for an entire 30 minute interaction with a customer for an evaluation thing despite excelling every time. Man it just goes on and on and on.

The whole Best Buy culture thing is disgusting. "Chalk Talk" meetings, making budget for your department, pegging customers to lifestyle groups, organic growth, unknown needs, blue crew bucks, geek squad branding and uniform recognition, and so on. They made smokers go around to the side of the building because a customer complained after seeing someone god forbid sitting on a bench. They threatened to fire employees who didn't park all the way down in front of this other store. I got written up on two separate occasions for being--literally--one minute late punching in. I had to sign a piece of paper acknowledging my rebuke.

The discount is truly amazing, but I could only afford to make use of it once. I saved a shit load of money on some RAM to replace defective chips I had gotten from newegg and got a decent price on some computer speakers that I haven't hooked up yet. I really wish I had been able to buy more shit while I was there.

Made about $11/hr. Totally underpaid for what the job entailed.

My work history as I can remember, because I want to see how many food service and retail jobs I've had:

-Drug Fair (sort of like CVS if you don't know it) cashier/stock/etc.
-a pancake house family restaurant as a host
-Super Stop & Shop slicing coldcuts
-a coffee shop making drinks and doing dishes and trash
-editing audio and websites for a woman and failing to sell her stupid original keyboard music to gift basket stores
-a college cafe, actually pretty fun when i got to cook
-writing tutor
-office job for a bridal jewelry design/manufacture company
-physically compiling business proposal binders for united healthcare
-freelance proofreading
-geek squad
-resident manager for a ronald mcdonald house

I guess that's six. Really only two retail, but I'm not sure whether retail or food services is worse. I felt like I had more retail, anyway.

[luckystrike]

I worked at a Best Buy selling appliances for about a year during college. It fucking suuuucked. I firmly believe that the store owners exist in some alternate dimension. Every single thing that ever came down from corporate was so out of line with what I would expect a normal train of thought to be I couldn't comprehend what the higher-ups were thinking. The lifestyle groups (is this person a Ray or a Jimbo or a Bill) or whatever was completely demeaning to the workers and the customers.

It was eventually the absolutely preposterously useless 6:30am saturday morning meetings that did me in, though. After Best Buy and a movie theatre that both had Saturday Morning meetings, I swore that I would never work an hourly job that had them again. Lucky for me I graduated college a month later and now never again have to worry about such bullshit.

I think that is my metric for hourly job quality: existence/non-existence of Saturday morning meetings.

[km]

[Zebadayus]

I've never worked retail, thank god.

- Air compressor factory
- Some sort of metal and plastic tube factory
- Amazon.com
- Phone survey guy
- Italian restaurant prep guy/dishwasher
- Car part factory
- Pizza delivery driver
- Amazon.com again
- Pizza delivery driver again
- UPS at the airport (this job ruled and I'd love to do it again but my current job is a goldmine)
- A place that sorted lenses for military goggles
- Deli
- Some place that shipped GE parts
- Cardboard box factory
- Delivery driver for a gourmet pizza place

Hm thought I had more jobs than that.

[Family Computer]

[manmachine plays jazz]

[CaineDNA]

I've been working at Microcenter for about three years now. It could have to do with the relatively smaller scale of the store, but it's been pretty awesome for me. Pay is good, they reward knowledge, and hours are pretty flexible. Discount is decent too, 5% above cost. Selection is like having direct access to Newegg warehouses too.

Pity there are only like, 21 of them in the country. I'll move on at some point, but it's actually kinda cushy.

[boojiboy7]

Microcenters are THE DOPE SHIT in terms of stores.

The one east of Cleveland had like the oddly best selection of original X-box games on Earth. At one point they had like 10 compies of Outrun Coast to Coast.

[GalaxyHead]

[Option2]

For me, worst job was working at Wal-Mart after high school. I worked at the Courtesy Desk with returns. Maaan, I still get traumatized when I walk in there. Having to put back all the go-backs away. A old lady almost punched me once because I laughed at her dead gold fish she tried to return. LOL.