PC World 2003/4
Around early December there was the predicable shortage of games consoles, with parents resorting to more and more desperate/violent means of securing a games console for their snotty little shits darling offspring.

This was the year that the slimline PS2 was released, and within a few days, you couldn't get one for love nor money - any remaining stock was quickly snapped up by eBay entrepreneurs. We fielded hundreds of inquires a day from desperate parents and, yes, we received a fair amount of verbal abuse for having the temerity of not stocking a magic supply of the most sought after games console.

In store, we had a big Playstation display stand with several dummy console boxes, but no actual consoles in stock. This inevitably led to customers thinking they had struck gaming gold, and dashed their dummy box to the till only to be told by the till monkey that it was in fact just a dummy box and we had none - the customer's rage level reaching stratospheric levels by this point.

Sick of this abuse from wild-eyed disappointed parents, I made a sign to go over our PS2 display stand, to say that we had none in stock, and removed the dummy boxes and put them in the office. Saves disappointing the customers and cuts down on enquiries and abuse for the staff A good idea, no?

Apparently not - as soon as I returned from my lunch break I noticed my clear and informative signage had been torn down and the dummy boxes of a console we didn't have in stock had been re-erected.

The management had decided in their wisdom that keeping dummy boxes on display for a console we couldn't stock was not only acceptable, but a great opportunity for us to talk customers into buying one of the huge surplus of Nintendo Gamecube consoles we had floating around, which were losing the company money hand over fist every day, in lieu of a PS2. This didn't work of course, as the kids instructions to get a PS2 were very clear indeed, and just caused everybody concerned a fuckload of grief and trouble.

All over a piece of paper saying "out of stock" - fucking DSG cunts :o(

So glad I'm out of that game now...
( h3donist tryin' to play me out as if my name is Sega.., Thu 23 Feb 2012, 16:29, 3 replies)

I know that feeling very well.
Games shops, people say 'all you do is play games' - which would be nice, but the reality is much more grim. Angry parents, excitable kids and strange overweight men who poo themselves in-store (true story for another qotw).
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 23 Feb 2012, 17:48, closed)

How very dare you
I am NOT strange
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Fri 24 Feb 2012, 13:12, closed)

I worked in a game shop
And can verify that this is exactly the case. We had one bloke who managed to piss himself in the shop and from the smell shit too leaving damp patches of despair on the carpet in a trail to the door.
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Tue 28 Feb 2012, 16:54, closed)