some questions for those who work at EB/GameStop

Spoke to Bahn, reconsidered: you will get a little tired of the retards, but as everyone said, it's the same in all retail sectors (believe it or not, clothes retail is worse).

But there are those few customers that you'll really like. They'll pick up Ikaruga or Shinobi or that one copy of Third Strike, they won't look like freaks, and you'll strike up a conversation about random shit about the game. Shoot the shit. If you look forward to them, work's enjoyable.

Same goes for fellow employees; other gamers who share you likes/dislikes. You don't necessarily get that in other retail sectors (esp. clothing *shudder*).

I like the people at the local EB. They are all pretty nice (even the manager!) and I've actually held many conversations with them about all kinds of random crap. But this must be an oddity... I was in a Dallas EB a year or so ago, and remember an employee talking about how Microsoft bought Nintendo.

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Originally posted by Brisco Bold
Spoke to Bahn, reconsidered: you will get a little tired of the retards, but as everyone said, it's the same in all retail sectors (believe it or not, clothes retail is worse).

But there are those few customers that you'll really like. They'll pick up Ikaruga or Shinobi or that one copy of Third Strike, they won't look like freaks, and you'll strike up a conversation about random shit about the game. Shoot the shit. If you look forward to them, work's enjoyable.

Same goes for fellow employees; other gamers who share you likes/dislikes. You don't necessarily get that in other retail sectors (esp. clothing *shudder*).

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I work at Boots the Chemists.

Try selling fucking soap to fucking 80 year old women EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY! For £3.49 a fucking hour which isn't even fucking minimum wage but no one gives a fuck because you're not 18 and thus your time is not worth as much as people six months older than you. And having to put up with

"Excuse me, could you tell me where the cornflakes are, please?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Cornflakes. Where are they?"
"Erm... we don't sell cornflakes, I'm sorry"
I'm thinking: What the fuck? We have SHAMPOO and TAMPONS in the window. We haven't sold cornflakes for TEN FUCKING YEARS. Where the HELL have you been?
"Well... it's about bloody time you did"
(customer walks out, sometimes complaining to the manager about how rude you were to them)

CORNFLAKES! That's like walking into fucking Gamestop and asking where they keep the SANDWICES! :mad:

I hate my job. :( I want to work in Waterstones. I could sell something that I gave a fuck about, get a better job, more hours and be happy. But NOOOOOOOOOO. Boots the FUCKING chemists - the most incompetent company in the history of the fucking world. The word 'incompetence' was invented for the guys who run it, I'm TELLING you.

Thanks again everyone. Lot's of intersting comments here, enough to make me think over some things. I already know a bit about stupid people, I see it all the time at my local EB/GameStop, purchasing their Maddens (Fucking Cunts :p) and NBA Streets. I just laugh it off most of the time. I'm not expecting Ikaruga or REZ to sell out.

I don't think I can take that much of a pay cut. =/ $11.50 an hour + tips down to $6.50 is a bit steep.

If I were to still go into retail, no mention of flea markets or anything would ever come out of my mouth.

The guys I know at EB are good people, they're pretty much "hardcore" and we end up talking about random stuff as well. The guys at GameStop here are single system owners, including the fan favorite super Halo/Xbox fanboy.

Meh.

/me goes off to do some more job hunting.

Boots the Chemists?? What kind of name is that?? I'd imagine it to sell chemicals and lab equipment, with a name like that. I can't even fathom what the name means.

And oh, someone mentioned earlier that hours are given to employees based on much they sell at GS... EVERY retail job is like that. And you're looked on favorably if you should more than other employees, so if hours needs to be cut, it'll be from everyone else and not from you. Best Buy had horrible stat tracking too, and didn't care if it was a slow day or not.

I sold appliances there, mother fucking appliances, and we were told to push the service plan on every single appliance. The problem is, most people don't want it, since their old appliance lasted 10-15 YEARS, and would never listen otherwise. It was easy selling one on something like a ps2, but an appliance? damn. I managed to sell a ton of them though, got a bunch of hours, but one week was incredibly slow, barely sold any. The next week, I was down to about 10 hours, and it's hard meeting quotas for the week when you don't have as many hours.

Retail is a bitch. Tracer and Tragic are right about everything, and I did work in the games section at Toys R Us. They do want you to push the worst games, and I also caught hell for it because I didn't want to sell people copies of drek such as Sneakers and Shrek.

The WORST part about it though? The company reps. We had a ps2 rep who was the BIGGEST fan person I had ever seen. Anything negative about her system, was her reply that "ps2 has sold over xxx number of units, and are the leading console". Someone was talking about Xbox Live? It didn't matter, same response. Nintendo's first party games? Same response. She firmly believed EVERYTHING on a Sony machine was god, and everything else was crap. I got moved out of the games dept. because of her, when one day she gave me a demo cd of Gameday, and told me how it was the hottest football game, I should try it, I'll love it and I should definately push it.

I said "You've got to be kidding me, this is the worst football game in existence, and to suggest this over Madden is completely asinine, you must be blind to suggest this." I had enough of her crap, and found myself back on the sales floor, away from the video game dept. for good.

i worked at Software Etc for 5 years. they ENFORCED a 30% MST transaction rate, a 50% warranty rate and some odd number of reservations weekly. i always crushed them and was the best employee in the store (better than the managers even). people would only come in if i was working and would ask for my schedule. then we got a new DM, then a new store manager who wrote me up because i miseed numbers once in the 5 years i was there (kinda hard when i worked 1 day that week). so he wrote me up and in the coments section i basically told the comapny that their marketing is trash and in no way helps us to sell product. after that i was fired. quick and easy. no one is left at that store now that i knew. (that was 2 years ago)

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Originally posted by Roufuss
We had a ps2 rep who was the BIGGEST fan person I had ever seen.

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No shit genius... thats their job.

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Originally posted by 88mph
No shit genius... thats their job.

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I always loved visits from the Nintendo lady. Once just before the christmas season she went into Software Etc. only to find that the N64 section had shrunk to 1/5 it's original size. Rightfully so considering. Anyhow she got so rilled up by this that she started yelling at the Mgr. telling him that they shouldn't perform such a boneheaded manuver seeing as the N64 was going to carry their christmas season. His reply was classic "You see that over section there?! That's the Playstation 1 section, and that's what will carry our christmas as it has done every year before. It out sells the Dreamcast, PS2 and, N64." Adding insult to injury a few months later, after Nintendo shows off the GCN one employee commented that it looked like a washing machine with a handle when she showed them pics of it. :lol:

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Originally posted by 88mph
No shit genius... thats their job.

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Not to the extent that I added after that. The Xbox and Nintendo reps promoted their product, sure, but also admitted when games on another system were good. It would usually be like "Yea, Jak and Daxter was good, but Mario Sunshine offers a more complete experience, I feel, and I think you'd like it alot more". Both the Xbox and Gamecube rep were polite, had a moderate level of respect for the other two systems, and would give us damn cool shit.

The Sony rep would just say "Mario Sunshine? Nintendo is for babies, you should try Jak and Daxter, no real gamer goes with Nintendo this day and age, Sony owns most of the console market!"

She was like one of those rabid fanpeople on GameFAQ's. You can do your job, but not be a total asswipe on it. As a result, no one in the store took her seriously, our store complained to Sony about her poor attitude and how she would DRIVE OFF customers looking at other systems, about how great Sony was, how they need to pick up a ps2, etc etc. Our managers would get complaints because they thought she was an employee.

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Originally posted by Shinobi128
I don't think I can take that much of a pay cut. =/ $11.50 an hour + tips down to $6.50 is a bit steep.

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If you leave a tipped job for retail, you deserve to be unhappy.