Prestidigitation
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/untitled
Spend Money or Be Fired
AnonymousWhile working my way through college, I held a position at a game retailer in my hometown. I was so excited, this was before I was actually working on games so simply being around them and talking about them as my job was fantastic. I was getting paid for telling people about something I loved.
But the job did not live up to my enthusiasm. Every day, we needed to sell a certain number of reservation for games yet to be released. The higher the number, the better. It usually took some persuading, but an employee could get a couple reservations every day and keep everyone happy. Sometimes, when no one was biting, we were told to really push the issue. I hated having that done to me, so I was hesitant. But I would push, because it meant keeping my job. That’s sales, right? We were then informed that if pushing would not work, don’t ring them up until they’ve become really angry with you. This seemed horrible - I don’t like people being angry with me.
It finally came down to, if you didn’t have any reservations at the end of the day, you had to reserve a game yourself to make the numbers look good. Cancelling that reservation later would count against you - so even if there was no game coming that you wanted, you had to reserve a crappy game to keep your job. This cost money from our paychecks.
I was fired not long after I failed to reserve a game and had a zero reservation day.
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The story makes me think of GAME a little.
I've heard they've gotten better as a whole, but a couple years ago, depending on the store, some places were absolutely terrible to work at. Basically, they made you work like you were on commission.
Except, instead of upselling to make a little extra money, it was to not get fired.
I agree.
The harassment is a big reason why I don't buy games from Gamespot anymore if there is any other place I can give my money.
I've heard of similar practices at Gamestop (probably '03 or '04) so I'm not all that surprised. Disgusted, but not surprised.
Also that story is really awful (that they would do that). One more reason to not like GameStop :P
That's not even the worst thing they had to upsell. Magazine subscriptions were much more difficult to sell, because for the average person it would be an additional $12-14 on whatever they were buying.
If you think trying to get someone to put 5 down on something they may actually want was hard, subs were way worse.
Other fun fact: Whoever handled the preorder cancelation had it count against their gained preorder for the day. Even if they didn't handle the preorder originally. So if you ever had a hard time canceling, that's why.
Also devaluing an entire mmo's currency probably isn't the decision of a brand new recently promoted developer. Also I am surprised noone nerded out over the Dr.Who mug.
Different managers have different tactics to hit sales numbers. An unfortunate fact of business is that many people (managers included) have no idea what they're doing, and then we get stories like this.
Nintendo Network ID - PirateLuigi 3DS: 3136-6586-7691
G&T Grass Type Pokemon Gym Leader, In-Game Name: Dan
Its brilliant. Makes it look like it was a planned event rather than an over sight. A giant planet of corpses does seem like an evil plan to me.
Reminds me of when I worked at Target. Ever been harassed to get a Target credit card? It usually meant the difference between whether someone was kept around after the initial hiring period or not at the store I worked at. There were even people there that were completely useless, but because they could badger people into getting a new credit card, they were "valuable and great employees"
IP clearences are a royal pain in the rear. I know someone who worked in clearance for a movie studio, and the main characters in the movie walked into a music store. Good god her her life was hell for a few months.
Glad I'm not the only person who thought that. :P
yea, I haven't either. but I usually say that I've already reserved the game, since I buy all my new games online and that's been that. mostly go to gamestop since there aren't any more local game stores where I can find old used games.
*raises hand* Guilty. Just a little.
However it's arranged, turning all coins into gold will apparently devalue gold to the point that it wont be desirable anymore, stopping people from going to the asteroid and leveling the playing field between those that had a lot of gold vs those that don't.
I'm not sure I follow why you'd still give them the sale if they're treating you like that, did you really have no other alternative?
Sorry to Gamestop employees who have had to deal with people like me, but if I have to listen to upwards of 2 minutes worth of your sales garbage or if I have to refuse my phone number to you multiple times, you have to realize there are inherent consequences.
If I had to guess Gold is sold for high amounts for whatever currency. By turning all the currency into gold they can drop the sell price to nothing and introduce a new currency based on a the next rarest element.
Kinda like Zimbabwe did with the US dollar.
The players will stick together as it's a real bedrock community.
I've been working in retail for years, and the truth is that corporate always tells you to "overcome objections". If someone tells you no, you ask why not. Credit Cards, for example..."No, I'm going to just pay it off" should be met with "Oh well if you do that on one of our cards, you get a $10 Gift Card back!" Every company has their things that make money, and they can be forceful about it. Gamestop has pre-orders and game trade-ins, Target has the Red Card, Best Buy has their credit card and services...even some fast food places try to annoy you into purchasing Gift Cards...plus, "Would you like fries with that?" came around for a reason.
It's part of the problem with corporations...most the higher ups have never actually worked in the actual stores.