The unfeeling steel cock of injustice has bruised my throat for the Last Time.
The beginning of yesterday betrayed nothing of the huge amount of problems I would face at work. I got geared up, emptied my lungs of excessive mucus, and even squeezed in a bite of "breakfast". By "breakfast," I mean I neglected to polish off a few onion rings from the night before. I took an early bus to work to avoid losing any time to Blueser traffic, and shit got underway.
It was busy, but I've seen so much worse. We were understaffed that day with the way hours have been doled to us (and with how utterly worthless my boss is becoming), but we are getting by when someone calls and asks to speak to Brian. His down look that he'd been sporting all day began to look even downer, and I ask him what is wrong. He just says he's heard disturbing news, and goes into the back to take the call. When he comes out, he fills me in. Our sister store, the Gamestop on Ellsworth in Ypsilanti, has broken the street date for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Now everyone that I'm friends with on here knows what the game is. What you may not understand is what that game meant to the Industry. This is the most hyped, most talked about release coming out this year. Our goal for reservations at our store was 300, but some stores had to go to 600, even 1,000...and they were hitting those numbers. People would probably go for a week without eating to play this game. They would sacrifice their first born to get an advance copy. But almost every major release has a street date that we must adhere to. I've worked at my store for three years, and seen many policy changes, but selling a product before the street date has always been a NO-NO chiseled in stone. This is tough for publishers to regulate, so they offer a snitch hotline to call in and report street date violations. There is also supposed to be some sort of cash reward for doing this, but I've called in five different instances and I'm still waiting for my kickback. Snitches get stitches, but no riches it seems.
A small mom and pop store in Ohio got this dungball rolling by deciding to say fuck all, and start selling the game on Saturday, 3 days away from its release. The Ellsworth Gamestop had four reservations on the highly-coveted Prestige edition cancelled because someone was desperate enough to drive down to Toledo to get the game early (their store inspires that much loyalty in their customers.) Dana is the name of the manager there, and she is all that is cunt. Bossy, outspoken, overopinionated, haughty, and just plain out of her element 95% of her time, her one redeeming stroke of luck is that her store kicks ass in the areas the company ranks stores on. Now, a rational store manager would not be worried about losing 4 reservations when you have over 700; especially considering that the now unreserved Prestige packs will probably sell pretty quick. This is how I know now that she is not a rational person: she blows her top and gets our district manager on the phone (whom I have an impossible time trying to get a hold of when I need him, but Dana can conjure him out of water and ash). I can only imagine the horrible piercing whines he had to endure before he called up our Regional Manager, a doddering old man named Sam. Sam gets on the phone with the FUCKING VICE PRESIDENT of Gamestop, and an hour later they grant her and 1 store in Canton permission to start selling MW2 to customers who had it preordered.
All of a sudden I have a million calls from our reservation customers, demanding to know why they can't pick up their copies. I have no idea why you can't sir, I don't know why they give preferential treatment to this 'orrible shrew of a woman, Yes I don't blame you if you don't want to preorder with us again because this is a horrible way to run a business.
By the end of the night, signs were shaping up of a nationwide retail revolt against the street date. Blockbuster issued a statement saying they were going to start selling it on Sunday, and Amazon was starting to ship its copies out already. But I still hadn't received any word on whether our store, or any other Gamestops would be able to start selling it. I texted Amy, and told her to just be on guard for it.
I call this morning, just to see if it did happen. No, Gamestops are still not selling it en masse. The DM appreciated our frustration (he said so in an email!) but the rest of us had to wait until the 10th while Dana got a huge volume of sales. I should've seen this coming, but she sold every damn copy she had, even ones that weren't reserved.
It isn't fair to our customers to make this kind of confusion, and it isn't fair to the other employees who have been scraping and groveling for preorders all this year to allow one bitch to make her own rules.
I don't know how much longer I'll last with the company like this, but I'm going to take every opportunity I can to tear this bitch's power base down. With a shiny Hatepoon, made from my stolen silverware collection from Olga's and blessed by the Rev. Phelps, I'm going to dig around in her hollow chest until I find the second-closest thing to a heart. And I'm gonna throw it to the dogs, and lo, not even they will eat such poisoned meats.
It was busy, but I've seen so much worse. We were understaffed that day with the way hours have been doled to us (and with how utterly worthless my boss is becoming), but we are getting by when someone calls and asks to speak to Brian. His down look that he'd been sporting all day began to look even downer, and I ask him what is wrong. He just says he's heard disturbing news, and goes into the back to take the call. When he comes out, he fills me in. Our sister store, the Gamestop on Ellsworth in Ypsilanti, has broken the street date for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Now everyone that I'm friends with on here knows what the game is. What you may not understand is what that game meant to the Industry. This is the most hyped, most talked about release coming out this year. Our goal for reservations at our store was 300, but some stores had to go to 600, even 1,000...and they were hitting those numbers. People would probably go for a week without eating to play this game. They would sacrifice their first born to get an advance copy. But almost every major release has a street date that we must adhere to. I've worked at my store for three years, and seen many policy changes, but selling a product before the street date has always been a NO-NO chiseled in stone. This is tough for publishers to regulate, so they offer a snitch hotline to call in and report street date violations. There is also supposed to be some sort of cash reward for doing this, but I've called in five different instances and I'm still waiting for my kickback. Snitches get stitches, but no riches it seems.
A small mom and pop store in Ohio got this dungball rolling by deciding to say fuck all, and start selling the game on Saturday, 3 days away from its release. The Ellsworth Gamestop had four reservations on the highly-coveted Prestige edition cancelled because someone was desperate enough to drive down to Toledo to get the game early (their store inspires that much loyalty in their customers.) Dana is the name of the manager there, and she is all that is cunt. Bossy, outspoken, overopinionated, haughty, and just plain out of her element 95% of her time, her one redeeming stroke of luck is that her store kicks ass in the areas the company ranks stores on. Now, a rational store manager would not be worried about losing 4 reservations when you have over 700; especially considering that the now unreserved Prestige packs will probably sell pretty quick. This is how I know now that she is not a rational person: she blows her top and gets our district manager on the phone (whom I have an impossible time trying to get a hold of when I need him, but Dana can conjure him out of water and ash). I can only imagine the horrible piercing whines he had to endure before he called up our Regional Manager, a doddering old man named Sam. Sam gets on the phone with the FUCKING VICE PRESIDENT of Gamestop, and an hour later they grant her and 1 store in Canton permission to start selling MW2 to customers who had it preordered.
All of a sudden I have a million calls from our reservation customers, demanding to know why they can't pick up their copies. I have no idea why you can't sir, I don't know why they give preferential treatment to this 'orrible shrew of a woman, Yes I don't blame you if you don't want to preorder with us again because this is a horrible way to run a business.
By the end of the night, signs were shaping up of a nationwide retail revolt against the street date. Blockbuster issued a statement saying they were going to start selling it on Sunday, and Amazon was starting to ship its copies out already. But I still hadn't received any word on whether our store, or any other Gamestops would be able to start selling it. I texted Amy, and told her to just be on guard for it.
I call this morning, just to see if it did happen. No, Gamestops are still not selling it en masse. The DM appreciated our frustration (he said so in an email!) but the rest of us had to wait until the 10th while Dana got a huge volume of sales. I should've seen this coming, but she sold every damn copy she had, even ones that weren't reserved.
It isn't fair to our customers to make this kind of confusion, and it isn't fair to the other employees who have been scraping and groveling for preorders all this year to allow one bitch to make her own rules.
I don't know how much longer I'll last with the company like this, but I'm going to take every opportunity I can to tear this bitch's power base down. With a shiny Hatepoon, made from my stolen silverware collection from Olga's and blessed by the Rev. Phelps, I'm going to dig around in her hollow chest until I find the second-closest thing to a heart. And I'm gonna throw it to the dogs, and lo, not even they will eat such poisoned meats.