[TRENCHES] Thursday, October 25, 2012 - Oblivious
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Oblivious
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/oblivious
But what if they stab me?
AnonymousI put in my time as a game store employee. I won’t say exactly which store it was, but suffice to say that they sold “games”, thus one might “stop” there. I was young, impressionable, and drawn in with the promise of all the games I could ever play.
Like any retail job, the holidays were hell. I had a woman throw not one, not five, but seven PSP games at me simultaneously. At one point I was so sick that I stood by the door handing out flyers with one hand and taking swigs of Dayquil with the other.
But the worst part? Corporate created a new policy. It was as follows:
When the line at your register gets exceptionally long, make eye contact with the person in the very last place and ask them “Are you having fun yet?”.
Not only was it moronic, embarrassing, and insulting to the customer, but corporate sent out secret shoppers to make sure the policy was enforced. On top of all that, we worked in a less than savory part of town, and I was pretty sure several times that I was just going to be outright shanked on the sales floor.
Gotta love retail.
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Maybe it was a regional thing? It's sounds like the kind of policy a really dumb store manager would put in place, but an individual store manager wouldn't actually hire secret shoppers.
But then again, maybe that was just an empty threat on the part of this particularly dumb store manager.
Nintendo Network ID - PirateLuigi 3DS: 3136-6586-7691
G&T Grass Type Pokemon Gym Leader, In-Game Name: Dan
Every day I show up to work is worst than the last, so every day you see me working is the worst day of my life.
I realize that not everyone has been as lucky as me, and I hugely sympathize with people who have to deal with the general public every day because that's the only job they can get. Sadly, the best I can do is be that quiet guy who patiently waits in line and doesn't yell if everything doesn't go his way for the individual retail services person who happens to be dealing with me at the time.
My retail scars came from working for Books-a-Million while in college. And yeah, holidays were the worst.
kingworkscreative.com
kingworkscreative.blogspot.com
Wait what
This is a real good'un. Like almost all Trenches punchlines fall flat for me, but this is genuinely funny. Bravo!
And I know I hate it when people read those stories about horrifying industry practices and get all "Nope. There is no way. It's crap." but as someone who's spent his entire working life in retail I call straight-up bullshit on this one. "Are you having fun yet?" doesn't even need to be misinterpeted; it's default position is "You are clearly not having fun."
I think that is a "banned" topic of discussion, or at least Tube always shuts the conversation down. In all fairness, who gets credited it between the four of them and what agreements they have in place.
Edit: From a few threads back (for your reference);
Are you suggesting that the comic itself might be an enhanced part of the experience? A meta example or even an ARG in which we discover that the systemic abuse by people in positions of power over newcomers to an industry trying to make names for themselves spills over into the comic world as well? In which we discover that the artist for this comic is like the QA guys, never getting enough credit for what they do and being used by the next guy up for profit?
That would be a most excellent ARG and would massively increase my opinion of the rather bland Trenches.
The "bottom of the strip" is the copyright section. She does not own the copyright therefore she will not be listed there. (Probably never will, unless she wants to trade in some of her income for a portion of the copyright ownership, which is unlikely to be offered.) Also, to my knowledge she has not yet written for the comic (Jerry, Mike, and Scott have apparently written far enough into the future that they won't be out of material for a long while.) and therefore is not an author. So she does not belong on the author's page either.
This situation is not unusual. The vast majority of your favorite comic books and graphic novels (and certainly most if not all of any Manga you like) have been drawn at least in part, and sometimes in whole, by someone other than the person who is listed on the cover. Many of these artists are never credited anywhere in print. That's the SOP for the industry, which is to say that it is not like the movies or television where anyone who picks up something off the ground must be credited as a grip and anyone who writes a single word on a script must be credited as a writer.
There is no requirement (legal, moral, ethical, or commercial) that the artist be credited, unless it's part of her contract. Just as there is no requirement that the person who does my tattoos put their name on the work either. I paid for him to draw on my skin, not for him to put his name there.
If Mary had wanted to be credited officially on the strip, I am sure she could have worked that into her contract. As it stands she apparently didn't care, so she's not listed. And if she didn't care, the rest of us shouldn't either.
Story: The shit employers want you to do when you're working any level of customer service is retarded and I really hate it. I almost always write it off and never bother, because I don't need lines to throw out to seem friendly and inviting. I can do that on my own. Employers come up with that sorta shit because they know not every employee is capable of being a friendly personality. Rather than train it though, they make some stupid goddamn mandate that makes us seem like puppets and I resent the hell out of it.
Re: the strip, ohhh... Lawstar is SWTOR.
I'm actually ready for this strip to reboot. The Lawstar storyline still has potential, but I think it's time for people to move on. They aren't really testers anymore. This game is much more about them playing their game on their own time now more than anything.
PSN: astronautcowboy 3DS: 5343-8146-1833
I have Sega, Nintendo and Xbox games and systems for sale. Please help me buy diapers.
A hat shaped rocket none the less.
Yeah very disappointing. Also, is it just me or does this comic seem hugely out of place? Almost like we've dropped the entire story line we've been following?
If you mean today's comic, I think they've just fast-forwarded a couple days/weeks to after the F2P transition Lima Bean Boss talks about in the "Oblivious" comic." Or maybe the testers are working on the F2P content hats. Either way, I don't see how it's hard to follow.
Well did they drop the whole mole and player revolt story line? Cora speaking for the players and all that?
Hmm. I think the player revolt/walkout is what prompted the switch to F2P - Lima Bean Boss refers to the "horrifying level of player attrition." I will agree the shift from the comic with Q discovering "Unoccupy Lawstar" to the meeting in LBB's office was a little abrupt.