Saturday, July 29, 2006

Visit from a friend!


Kirby showed up in the store one day!!!! Really!!

Well, actually this girl (stop right there, I know what you're thinking: What's a girl doing in a game store? Well, most of the time it's a mom buying a game for her kids, or a female buying something for her boyfriend. I only met one girl under 45 who said she plays games for herself, and promptly asked her to marry me.) bought a game on credit, and her name was Kirby. Her NAME WAS KIRBY! I told her that her name was Kirby (which I'm sure she knew since people called her that all her life), and explained that was also a video game character, which she said she knew.

Not much of a point to that story, but Kirby visiting the store made my afternoon.....

Don't hustle a hustler

There's a good amount of friendly people who visit the store that you look forward to talking to and you form relationships with. But life being what it is, there has to be negative elements to balance out the positive ones. That would be the SCAMMERS. These are the desperate people who think they've come up with some brilliant idea that the game industry people have never seen before to get one over on us and wind up with more cash. I'd rather you just shoplift something from the stop than try to outsmart us, really, it insults our intelligence. Here's my top three from least creative to criminal mastermind:

1) The empty box - This one's so simple a child could do it. Buy a game, then bring it back the next day and say there was no disc in it. Note this usually applies only to used games, however I did have sometime attempt it with a factory sealed game. My BS meter was going off the scale, but I did open up a sealed copy of the same title, and that one WAS missing a disc. So looks like the distributor scammed us that time........but 98% of the time, the mysterious vanishing disc just doesn't work.

2) Selling a dead console - We always check consoles before buying them, because it'd be really stupid not to. Someone was attempting to sell an X-Box, so I hooked it up and the first game wouldn't load.......so I try another........no luck......third strike you're out, so this guy had a dead system. "It worked at home five minutes ago......", that's the one they always come back with. Well, I'm gonna pay you via a check, and when it bounces my reply will be "there was enough cash in the account to cover it five minutes ago.....". I gave a description of the guy to the boss, and it turns out he was in just yesterday trying to sell the same console to a different staff memeber. Nice try Ocean's Eleven, next time have George Clooney do some more recon work first.

3) There's a demo PS2 running in the store, and at the time we had Need For Speed Underground playing. A guy comes in with a NFSU box, and says the disc is missing (this is a variation of scam #1). He says it must be the one in the demo set, and we forgot to give it to him. So I check the receipt first, and it lists a NFS game, but since there are about 100 versions of that game, it's not the Underground one listed, it's Hot Pursuit or something. DING, my scammer sense is tingling. "Check the demo set, man, just give me the disc from there, you guys must have forgot....". Lemme tell you the feeling I had next was close to an orgazism when I got to tell the guy "THE PS2 DEMO SET HAS A HARD DRIVE AND THE GAMES RUN FROM THAT!" This guy just got PWNED! and just walked out of the store.

Score:
Postman: 3
Wanna be criminals: 0

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Perverts (July 26th)

So a normal slow wednesday morning....but not without the nutcase of the day. This skinny kid wearing a rush t-shirt and had long hair came in. Sounded like he was a little slow. Wanted to trade in some movies...Titles were like bottom of the barrel at walmart..you know..the ones you gotta actually dive in to get...like 1$ items...So i give em a price...he takes it...all is good...then about 10 minutes later he comes back in.

Here i am thinking ya know..prob left something...his keys on the counter..happens a lot...but no....he brings in a stack of hentai....for you who dont know..its japanese anime porn...yes...anime porn...So i tell em we dont take em...i wouldnt even touch em...and thats when it happened...

Kid: "Oh yeah...apprently gamestop and tunes wont take these either...i dont need em anymore ya know? now that i have the girlfriend"

Wow...so thanks for telling me you jerk off to anime porn...thats really where i wanted my day to go....and the damn kid had a girlfriend...prob the bearded lady in the freak show...

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Life imitates art.....and movies

In case you haven't figured it out yet, working at a game store is excatly like the movie Clerks. Hunter is the Randall to my Dante (I'm a bit bigger, he's Randall's build, and we both play hockey - go figure). Every customer you've seen in that movie has been in the store at least once.....

I had a younger kid bring back a Gamecube Wavebird wireless controller saying it didn't work. My first thought was that he didn't put batteries in, since we all know wireless technology is magic and runs on pixie dust and happy thoughts. But no, he had a full clip of AA's in the chamber.......

Then I asked if he set the dial on the controller to the same number as the dial on the receiver. The parents were with him, so the mother looks at him and says in a Mrs. Cartman voice, "did you know that, pookiekins?" And the kid was all like "sure, yeah, yeah, same number, yes, I made sure."

So I check the dials and the settings were not synched up. I fixed it, plugged it into a store Cube, and proceeded to play a game from about 10 feet away. The kid swore it still didn't work, and assumed since it didn't work at home before, it won't work for him still. Maybe he lives inside a smokestack and the signal can't penetrate air quality that thick. I talked him into taking it back home and trying it again. Ok, buying a used Wavebird without instructions may excuse you from not knowing about synching the dials, but don't say you did when you didn't, learn to trust the game clerks (oh, wait, Gamestop........never mind that last thought).

Boss number 1: Saggy Tits (July 24th)

I had to go in later on Monday becuase my boss's son had a hockey game. So i get to work...and about 45 minutes in i get a phone call.

Hunter: "Hello."
Lady: "Hello..I bought a Gameboy there earlier today and it doesnt seem to be working."
Hunter: "What seems to be the problem?"
Lady: "I bought a game from walmart and it doesnt seem to be working in your set."

Ok..lets stop right here....the lady bought the system from us...and went to walmart and the same game we sell for 10$...she bought there for 20$.....and she mentioned she got it at walmart twice....why does no one realize this is a slap in the face....since ya know...we sell games.....ok back to the story...

Hunter: "Sometimes ya need to clean the set...(here i told her how)...try that and if it doesnt work bring it back in"

Sure enough....about an hour lady..the lady walks in...The lady looked like a heavy set lady...she gave me the gameboy and all...then all of a sudden...it happened...She turned to the side to get her kid and i had to take a step back....her stomach wasnt in fact her stomach..but her god damn saggy tits...i swear...they came LOWER than her belly button..i was like wtf.....i had to be imagining this...i swear it looked like she had been drinking beer for like 40 years when u see her gut..but when she turned to the side..its like some magic trick where her tits sag lower than her bellybutton....some harry houdini shit.....

So when they gave me the gameboy...i couldnt locate the program..put the game in and it worked fine....i showed them it worked and everything....they told me they didnt get that far..never saw that screen...etc....so her little girl walks up...i show her the gameboy and she says....i shit you not...

Little Girl: "Oh you mean your supposed to push the game in that far?"

At this point i wanted to commit suicide....I swear our customers are retards...every single one of them.

So they walk outside...shes laughing and talking to her husband....who funny enough...looks like George Castansa from Seinfeld....which kinda explains a lot...

Monday, July 24, 2006

A New Begining

So...being bored at work...and sometimes having random time late at night i wanted to fill the void. In talking to Postman(This is our Sunday guy..and will be a regular in this blog) I mentioned how i wanted to make a blog. With Postman now being a regular at work and almost having a year under his belt..he has seen his share of craziness and said i should do something with that. So here it is...will be slow at first since i can't remember everything..but both me and Postman will be making entries. I will refer to myself as Hunter....the name I use as videogame screen names. Why you ask? Cause ya never know what happens...and i dont feel like dealing with customer shit if it ever happens to get to that point...so...deal with it ;). Also....I'm not a english major nor do i give a shit about my spelling, grammar, and all that useless bullshit...so...deal with that too ;).

So....with the intro said...Soon you'll be hearing about our friendly men in blue...JJ....(aka cheese boy......Wendy's kid).......the kid who ran down the highway......the gamestop lady.....the 360 guy.....the kid who john fought with.....the guy who tried to sue me......kelly...and so much more.......