SOLVED

Triple B

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SmokeStacks

You made a stupid new guy mistake.

Holiday help (I've never worked for GameStop, but I have worked for a different videogame retailer a few years ago) is almost expected to make a stupid new guy mistake. Kinda sucks you used yours up so early in the season, but it's not going to be a dealbreaker.

You'll probably get a stern talking to and maybe some paperwork, but it likely won't be an issue as long as it doesn't happen again. The amount of time they've spent interviewing and training you isn't worth firing you over a $60 loss.

As for retaliation, there is nothing you can do. The police don't care, Mall Security (assuming you aren't a standalone) can only ask the guy to leave if they ever see him again (although if he is a known shoplifter it can be grounds for a trespass order if they take their jobs seriously), and even if Microsoft cared there is no way to track that particular copy of AC2 to ban the guy's Live account.

Be satisfied in the notion that he has screwed himself out of ever shopping at your store again (at least, for as long as you and anyone you show the security footage to works there) for a one time $60 gain.

Take this time to score good deals on used games with your discount+first dibs, have fun, and start looking for a new job now, because odds are no matter how well you do over the holiday season, you're still probably going to see a significant drop in the amount of hours you work come January 1st.

Hey, do you have a copy of BattleToads?

Triple B

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ascannerlightly

talk to your manager asap about the situation and explain it to him. if you're up front about it and admit (as you've done here) to it being a rookie mistake and offer to pay for the game that was stolen if necessary as a show of good faith, you should be alright. you don't go into detail on your working relationship with the guy but depending on how understanding he is he might not even make you do that. even if he does, it's one day off your paycheck and a lesson learned.

BUT: prepare yourself mentally to be fired. some companies have a zero tolerance policy on stuff like this. i got fired from a gas station job i'd been working all of a month for forgetting to ring up a lousy pack of cigarettes. the guy was doing the shopping for the whole car, had 3 seperate groups of items he wanted rung up/cashed out seperately. i even offered to pay for it but the bitch mumbled something about "against company policy" and basically shuffled papers around on her desk in the little broom closet office waiting on me to get the message and leave.

also, take a good look around your store and ask your manager again. i seriously doubt there isn't one single camera in there. the GS i go to has at least 3 (visible) cameras.

Zombiemambo

Last I recall, you're never supposed to be working alone for this very reason.

Triple B

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FyreWulff

It's okay to feel violated.

But also there is no unique game id. the UPC is the same on all the boxes..

I mean you're still leagues a better worker than the dumbass that rang up Fable 2 for me without letting me pay for it. And sold me Gears of War 2 for 30$. New. And seriously nobody that works at Gamestop on these forums knows why he's still working there but he is.

Basically if that guy still has a job, you should be okay, because otherwise there is no justice in the world.

043

First of all, Zombiemambo is right. You're not supposed to work alone (aside from opening alone when it's not holiday season) for this very reason. A manager from my area had a PS3 shrunk out of his inventory because he was alone, someone asked for it, then their friend distracted him at a game section and his buddy just walked around the back counter and stole the PS3.

Loss prevention is a huge deal right now, but you just got hired. Yes, it is a rookie mistake, but I've seen plenty of people make dumb mistakes at my store who have worked there longer than I have (about a year).

My best advice (and your manager should echo this) is to leave any big purchases on the back counter until paid for and receipts are printed. 360? Scan it, the serial, ask for PRP, etc. Then after it's completely paid for, hand it to the customer. At least put it in the floor at your feet in front of the register.

Games? Scan them, lick your finger, get a bag open and hanging off the drawer next to you and drop it in. Keep it completely out of sight until it's paid for. If they ask to see a case, hand it to them and stand there until they are done. If it's a big purchase and you need to keep track of it all, stack the games, spine/title facing you and keep them on the back counter until you're sure of it and drop them in a bag.

The camera in a Gamestop is there to prevent employee theft more than customer theft. All you can do about the AC2 copy stolen is tell your manager, apologize profusely; just come forward with it. You've barely started working there and lucked out into a near-full time position - being on good terms with everyone above and below you in the ladder is key right now. Company policy is to report something like that to your manager immediately; his phone number is accessible through the POS, and everyone else who works there sould be too.

I really hope you don't lose your job over it, since you are so new, just be calm. Explain it, and do whatever you can to have the guy who did it banned from the store. There is absolutely nothing you can do aside from remember the guy's face, and talk to your manager/DM next time you see him about having him banned.

If you wanna PM me anymore questions, feel free. Or use AIM.

Also: be careful discussing Gamestop policy over the internet. I hear they troll for us; could be hearsay.

PaperLuigi44

My first and current job has been in games retail, and I will admit that beginners make mistakes, as I have done when I started. The important thing is to:

a) Not beat yourself up about it. What's done is done.
b) That being said, ensure that you are well prepared so that you don't make the same mistake again. I cannot emphasise this enough. 043's post has some very good points.


Also, I agree that you should come forward to the manager, as things will only be worse if you don't.

As for being fired, I honestly don't know how fair your manager is, but I have found that they will accept mistakes like this, up to a point. And yeah, you shouldn't be working alone.

E.Coyote

The manager would catch more shit than the OP for failing to have two people working at the same time if it came down to punishment for the theft.

Elin

E.Coyote wrote: »

The manager would catch more shit than the OP for failing to have two people working at the same time if it came down to punishment for the theft.

Incorrect. Part of Gamestop's business model is to have the keys work alone, especially opening and closing. They only do shift overlap during "busy" parts of the day. Part of why I quit. I am NOT closing a Gamestop alone, and then taking the deposit to the dark ass, bush screened bank.

That being said they'd probably let you replace the inventory before they fired you. And being that you're so new it probably won't be an issue. If you didn't say anything they wouldn't even find out they were short a copy until inventory. And if ACII isn't on the daily list they wouldn't even know until a full store inventory came up which isn't really the most frequent thing. There would just be a copy of the game on the books that the store doesn't actually have in stock, and that happens a lot.

*edit - I am not telling you to say nothing, just noting that GS isn't the most stringent when it comes to managing inventory. They count the high ticket shit daily, and a random assortment of games, but full inventory isn't often and there are MANY times they have a game listed in the computer as in stock that isn't in the store anywhere. Anyone that shops there even semi regularly has had that experience, or I'm just very unlucky.

Jason00

I don't work for Gamestop but I did work in management for Barnes and Noble for 5 years. B&N owns GS so a lot of the policies are the same.

The thing to do is to tell the manager. If you don't tell them and they do find out, you will be written up. Because you are in your 90 day probationary period, that will most likely get you fired. Shrink happens to everyone, but lying about it really reflects badly on you. If you tell them, they will understand that it wasn't anything other than a mistake, and you'll be fine.

Wulf

Please say you actually left a message on the machine when you couldn't get your manager. If so, then you're covered, and just make sure to remind them the next time they show up. Other than that, keep your nose clean and maybe call a friend who is off work to hang out in the store when you're there alone. Not to really shoot the shit with, but to be your trusted eyes on when you have to be elsewhere.

Cptn Pants

If you really fell bad about it, and have some extra money, offer to pay for the game. The manage will more then likely say no, but will take it as you trying to make up for your mistake. When i worked for radioshack a laptop was stolen on my shift and me and the other guy offered to pay for it, the manager said "it wasn't necessary" but was happy we told him what had happened and that the offer to pay for the missing item was "a class act move".

Triple B

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Werewolf Gamer

I used to work at Gamestop as a 3rd key back in the day. We didn't have camera's. Stuff got stolen a lot. In fact one of the days I wasn't working they had guys come in and grab 2 Dreamcasts off the top rack and run out. That was back in the day before they put mock boxes up and had live product in the store instead of the back.
Tell your manager about the theft. I'll be honest I can't tell you how many times i used to try to reach my manager and my DM when stuff went wrong in the store. Our registers crashed a lot (I was in a store where a new POS Point of Sales) system was being tested and it crashed a lot.
Your manager does need to know asap about though about the theft. The worst they would do is write you up. They shouldn't fire you over that, there is so much theft in the stores. Corp knows they understaff and so do your thieving customers.
Be most careful at opening and closing time. That is when they try to use the lowest amount of staff or you will be by yourself. It sucked for me outside of holiday season. I would open and there was a creepy old guy that would walk past our store window several times a day. When he started getting braver and started coming in he would just stare at me. It was completely creepy and I hated being the only one in the store until 2 or 3pm. We started to switch things up and creepy guy stopped coming by so much.
Our store didn't have a working detector either. You know like you see at the malls so that if someone tries to leave with the game the security alarm goes off? Yeah we didn't have that either. Now we are talking a good 10 years back or so but I have friends that work at Corp. and stuff hasn't changed much.
Holiday season can suck but if you can last through it the rest of the time it's a pretty good place to work.

AtomBomb

This should not be a big deal. That probably wasn't even the only thing stolen THAT DAY. Preventing theft is hard. Even if they're only stealing empty boxes, it's a product you're not going to sell.

I used to steal stuff in front of the LP folks at the record store I worked at, a couple of times while I was talking to them. Occasionally they would send in "undercovers" which were really easy to pick out. I would keep stealing stuff more and more brazenly until they finally caught me. Long story short, even "experienced" LP people, who are only responsible for LP, get stuff stolen on their watch. Don't feel bad.

Triple B

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THEPAIN73

Triple B wrote: »

I mean, I like my job. A lot. I like the people I work with, and I like being able to talk to customers because we're the same kind of people. I just never experienced having anything stolen (what feels like) directly from me before.

It happens man. Let this be a stern lesson to you and the best thing you can do is learn from it. Don't beat yourself up over it.

Theft happens. It's happened for Millenniums.

It's just your job to see that it doesn't happen a lot.

CJTheran

You're getting too worked up over this. Loss prevention is important, but something getting stolen isn't the end of the world. Two days ago, a $2000 dollar laptop made its way out the front door past like 10 employees at the Best Buy I work at, and no one's gotten fired/been hanged from the light fixtures by the management staff yet, and most likely no one will be. Just make it obvious that you've realized you made a dumb mistake, and be sure to not let it happen again.

illig

they let you work alone? the gamestop about 2 blocks away from me got robbed at gunpoint recently

Triple B

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Nick Soapdish

I worked at an EB for 5 years (admittedly, 10 years ago). One game is most likely not going to get you fired. I had a seasonal guy get tricked into losing 32 PS games. (two guys came in, one guy asked a question about a product that was in the corner of the store, the other guy then snuck behind the counter and stole a box of merchandise that just arrived and left). I didn't want to fire him, because it's an honest mistake, and I shouldn't have had him working alone. But I called the District Manager to see what I should do -- I didn't even have to write him up.

I'm pretty sure you're ok. If nothing else happens, you've learned a valuable lesson about how customers are dickbags.

PaperLuigi44

That's another thing you need to keep in mind, that customers aren't always what they seem. It's amazing how many times a customer has been quite friendly, looking to get a ton of stuff, etc, only to hightail it when it's found that their card is dodgy.

But that's getting somewhat off track. Let us know what happens, Triple B.

corcorigan

illig wrote: »

they let you work alone? the gamestop about 2 blocks away from me got robbed at gunpoint recently

Better one dead employee than two?

Triple B

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THEPAIN73

Good luck man.

DiscoZombie

if they have you working alone and have no cameras, I don't know how this could really even be considered your fault. Let's say the perp said he *just* wanted an xbox. You would have had to go into the back of the store no matter what. Then he could have snatched a whole bunch of stuff off the shelves and made off with it. Some PC games, peripherals, what have you. Would that have been your fault too?

Foolish Chaos

DiscoZombie wrote: »

if they have you working alone and have no cameras, I don't know how this could really even be considered your fault. Let's say the perp said he *just* wanted an xbox. You would have had to go into the back of the store no matter what. Then he could have snatched a whole bunch of stuff off the shelves and made off with it. Some PC games, peripherals, what have you. Would that have been your fault too?

That is what I was thinking too...

Unless your gamestop has everything behind glass cases for some reason, having only one person in the store seems highly irresponsible.

I mean, are you certain he didn't grab more than AC2 on his way out?

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DragonPup

Telling your boss was the right thing to do. While you did make a rookie mistake, while you were grabbing the xbox he could have swiped something else while you were in the back. Here's hoping your boss is understanding that leaving a store with no door alarms, no cameras, and one employee during the holiday season asks for someone to steal something.

Elin

Foolish Chaos wrote: »

DiscoZombie wrote: »

if they have you working alone and have no cameras, I don't know how this could really even be considered your fault. Let's say the perp said he *just* wanted an xbox. You would have had to go into the back of the store no matter what. Then he could have snatched a whole bunch of stuff off the shelves and made off with it. Some PC games, peripherals, what have you. Would that have been your fault too?

That is what I was thinking too...

Unless your gamestop has everything behind glass cases for some reason, having only one person in the store seems highly irresponsible.

I mean, are you certain he didn't grab more than AC2 on his way out?

This is how most Gamestops are, the only things not secured are accessories. Consoles are in a locked back room, hand held consoles are in a locked glass case, disks are in locked cabinets. That's why managers are called "keys" there. They are literally in charge of the keys to the merchandise. Regular associates do not have any access to anything in the store, they have to ask a key to unlock what they need. Associates where I worked didn't even have access to inventory information on the computer, for example, they didn't see when a game was at other stores or how many copies we had.

Cptn Pants

illig wrote: »

they let you work alone? the gamestop about 2 blocks away from me got robbed at gunpoint recently

that happened to me once at radioshack, luckily the local drug dealer (who we where cool with because he used to come in an buy prepaid phones every other day) was in the store. Snuck up behind the robber, smashed his head into the counter, kicked the guys gun out of his hand and then pulled out his own gun shouting "DON'T FUCK WITH THIS STORE! THESE ARE MY BOYS AND YOU FUCK WITH THEM YOU FUCK WITH ME!" It was pretty awesome actually... i mean, not at the time but the story i got out of it was lol.

Triple B

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Acebgd12

Jason00 wrote: »

I don't work for Gamestop but I did work in management for Barnes and Noble for 5 years. B&N owns GS so a lot of the policies are the same.

Gamestop is an independent, publicly traded company.

Captain Vash

Acebgd12 wrote: »

Jason00 wrote: »

I don't work for Gamestop but I did work in management for Barnes and Noble for 5 years. B&N owns GS so a lot of the policies are the same.

Gamestop is an independent, publicly traded company.

this is currently true, but the latter is formerly true, and the two companies still have similair policies and share employee discounts with one another. read up son!

SmokeStacks

GameStop has always been known for their lax security policies, coupled with relatively untrained employees handling large amounts of cash, and sitting in a store filled with large amount of highly-valued, easily fencible items.

This is why they get robbed all the time.

I'd have thought that they would have boned up their security after that thing the other year where the guy tied up the employees while he unloaded a bunch of consoles into his car, and the manager suffocated because the dude put tape over his mouth and nose.

But, I can totally see where GameStop is coming from. I mean, things like cameras or door alarms or having two people working at the same time are expensive, but replacement employees are dirt cheap.

cooljammer00

Can't some sort of government entity force them to provide a decently safe working environment?

Triple B

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Zombiemambo

Good to know you still have a job :^: However, I do know that if you get in a bar fight and go to jail for 2 days without telling your employer, you won't be employed any more.

cooljammer00

Hmm, working at Gamestop isn't as hellish as I hear?