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Why you should be nice to your video game clerk

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Dimmukane:
I actually know my video game clerks on a first-name basis! I am polite to them because I frequent their store quite often.

I do have my own stories regarding retail experiences, though.  I used to work at a Michael's Arts and Crafts that was right next to the Light Rail and a liquor store, so we'd frequently get drunk homeless people causing trouble.  However, I'm a bit busy, I'll have to post those in a couple hours.

Blue Kitty:
The manager of the local Gamestop knows me personally, even asking me how things are going and just generally shooting the breeze with me every time I walk in.  Then again I have been going there since I, "Couldn't buy M Rated games," and when it was an EB Games.

I find that I no longer have to deal with people being angry at me for doing my job, then again I deliver flowers.

0bsessions:
I'd have to say: I think this thread belongs in I LIKE HURR more than here. It really has more to do with people and their mannerisms than video games. The fact you work in a video game store is more incidental to the story than anything, this could've happened anywhere.

I worked in retail from the age of sixteen to roughly twenty-two, so I got a good six years of it. Across that time I'd worked at multiple retail spots (From Wal-Mart to Target to Circuit City Express to Best Buy to a cell phone accessory kiosk to part timing at another Circuit City WHILE working the cell phone place to a cell phone dealer for Nextel and T-Mobile). Honestly speaking, if one takes into account the sheer amount of people you deal with in retail, it's really not all that bad.

I can still remember my first "nightmare customer" at Wal-Mart. I'd been there like a week. On average, your worst customer at a Wal-Mart is going to be a middle aged guy. I was working in the electronics department and this guy comes moseying up (Oh yes, he entirely moseyed) with a carriage full of junk from other departments. Typically, we're supposed to send anyone with more than twelve items up to the front, but it was slow and I felt generous. Upon ringing him up, the guy starts berating me. Tells me I did it wrong and calls me incompetent and blah blah. I say fine and hand the guy a calculator. I tell him that if he's so certain MY REGISTER somehow added up his items wrong (I scanned down the totals and there were no duplicate items, so I didn't scan anything twice), he can add up the price tags himself and I'll adjust it appropriately to find my "mistake." He comes to the same total, starts bitching again and storms off.

First in a long line. I've been publicly berated, threatened with violence (Literally), SEEN coworkers threatened with violence, talked down to, called intimidating (This one actually drew a laugh from my boss), etc. I've dealt with countless situations mirroring each of the situations detailed in this thread (Through the majority of my job at the cell phone accessory dealer, I was covered in piercings and I've dealt with tons of hagglers).

Overall, though, in the grand scheme of things, even if you get one of these twats once every shift, that's still on average about one percent of all customers compared to 99% decent to really awesome customers. I've also now spent a good few years on the other side of the fence and noticed that a lot of retail workers really are condescending, patronizing twats most of the time (Guilty myself in retrospect) or completely incompetent. This isn't always the case, and when I deal with the former, I generally treat it with extreme praise. I had one occasion where I walked into a Circuit City with the intention of simply asking a question about cable converters and was sold on a digital camera that I absolutely loved. I hunted down the store manager, pointed out the clerk who assisted me and explained the details to the manager so the boss would know his employees were doing a phenomenal job. The thing to draw from this, though, is that the percentage of incompetent or rude clerks is a lot higher than the percentage of douche bag customers, in my experience from both sides.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: sack up, poor, misunderstood retail workers.

Dimmukane:
Anyways, one of the stories I had not involving drunk homeless people had to do with our terrible return policy.  I've personally seen a person take a clearance sticker (4 bucks) and put it on a 300 dollar item and try to get away with it.  Then there's the ridiculous amount of batty old hags that come in with handfuls of coupons that are mostly from other stores, even though we had a one-coupon-per-day rule.

Back to homeless drunk guys.  We had a guy come in one time, I think his name was Sheldon, who went straight to the women's bathroom.  Once he got inside, he apparently drank a handle of vodka over the course of 10 minutes and just sat there, waiting for the police to come get him so he wouldn't have to sleep outside in the winter.  Which creeped everybody out.  While on the subject of creepy, there was one married guy who would come in everyday looking for one of our female employees.  He usually had his kids with him, and would say things like "I haven't had a crush this big since high school."  He somehow found out her phone number, so long story short, he got a restraining order put on him.

And people used to completely destroy our toilets.  Seriously, how bad of a diet does a scrapbooker have?

As far as being condescending, this usually wasn't the case, because most of us were as clueless as they were.

Emaline:

--- Quote from: 0bsessions on 14 May 2008, 10:54 ---I'd have to say: I think this thread belongs in I LIKE HURR more than here. It really has more to do with people and their mannerisms than video games. The fact you work in a video game store is more incidental to the story than anything, this could've happened anywhere.
--- End quote ---

Actually, I had figured response to this would be more along the lines of discusson about video game retail, old GTA, and the like. I didn't expect people to post about their retail experience.




--- Quote ---Overall, though, in the grand scheme of things, even if you get one of these twats once every shift, that's still on average about one percent of all customers compared to 99% decent to really awesome customers.

--- End quote ---


Actually there have been quite a few days where my coworkers and I have kept a tally going on good customer vs bad*. Bad always wins. Maybe its because we are in such a small town. A small hoosiery, farming town.


*we didn't keep track of average customers. Just above average, and below average.

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