As an actual IRL GameStop Employee™, I can personally verify the following:
- Nobody fucking applauds in GameStop. No one in there ever wants to draw attention to themselves. Unless they're Nintendo nerds. God I hate Nintendo nerds.
- You will be written up for being rude to customers, because they're probably going to go and complain. Being rude to somebody you disagree with isn't gonna get you a round of applause. People are also a LOT more likely to gang up on you for having a dissenting opinion than they are to clap for you.
- There is no such thing as an "employee of the month" at my store or any store in my region. I obviously can't speak for every district, but IME, we're a very collectivist kind of company that doesn't value personal achievement as much as store or district achievement. The only personal achievements that the company cares about are your pre-order and warranty numbers, and even if your numbers are good, if the rest of the store has shit for numbers, you may as well be a speck of dust.
- Kids screaming at their parents bc the parents won't let them buy GTA after you give them the whole ESRB spiel is an actual thing. It is never not hilarious. The way that person described the whole GTA vs Pokemon scenario? Not likely an actual thing that happened.
- On that note, I'm a fucking nerd and 90% of the flair on my lanyard is Pokemon-related, and my lanyard itself is Bulbasaur-print. I've probably only gotten one or two negative comments the whole time I've been using it. Pokemon is huge with the older crowd right now and people have grown out of making fun of it.
- People actually do very often act like HUGE assholes to disabled customers. We have several regulars who have physical and mental disabilities and people shove their way in front of them in line, interrupt their questions to ask questions of their own, talk shit on them the moment they leave...yeah, the whole nine yards. I've had to verbally reprimand somebody for making horrible comments about one of our regulars who is Deaf, but that's probably the closest it's come to anything like that story. And generally, people get a clue after you give them a stern look anyway.
- Replica weapons are not allowed in stores. Even the foam Minecraft swords we sell? Yeah, brandishing those is not a good idea. Not necessarily because they look like real weapons; mostly because your average GameStop is not exactly a giant store with a lot of open space, and you could seriously do damage to our displays or to other customers.
- Cons overflowing into GameStops after the end of a con is common and it's also annoying as fuck. Con people stink, they're loud, and they loiter. They can be in our store wasting space for up to multiple hours at a time and it is the worst goddamned thing.
At least Orochimaru spent over $300 that one time. - I have been applauded. By my coworkers. For dropping things, walking into things, knocking things over...yeah, you get the idea. And that's about it.
That said, the most badass thing I've ever seen a GameStop employee do was when the Assistant Store Manager was dealing with a serial shoplifter he'd known from back when he worked for Sam Goody (rip). He caught the guy sneaking some accessories into his pockets (he'd done this before at our store), and when the guy came up to the register (because it's VERY common for shoplifters to actually legitimately buy some things even while they steal other merchandise, as other retail workers probably know), the ASM just looked him in the eyes, said, "I know you. You're <name redacted>. You've been stealing from me for at least five years now. What's in your pocket?" And the guy pulls out the accessory, puts it on the counter, the ASM and the shoplifter just fucking shake hands, have an amicable conversation, ASM tells him to never come into the store again, and bam. Haven't seen the guy since.
My ASM is basically a certified badass and is the person that I want to be someday. Sadly, he's quitting soon.
Oh, right, and nobody clapped. Because there were maybe two other people in the store at the time and they were minding their own business. As actual GameStop shoppers do.
One thing I will say is that GameStop is DEFINITELY one of those places where "lol that can't be real" stories
actually can happen (see above). That said, it's ridiculously rare and most times you deal with a rowdy customer or shoplifter are pretty mundane. Not the kind of thing you'd blog about. And if you're interested in reading stupid GameStop stories that actually did happen, see my thread
here! I'll hopefully be updating it again soon. In fact, lemme know if you want me to elaborate on any of the above, and I'll talk more about that in my thread!
also, darkrai distribution is currently going, so make sure you get your code before they're gone ;D 