There was a time
When i worked in retail for a local game store in the city centre. It might sound like a dream job buying and selling lots of electronic goodies and being able to purchase stuff at staff discount as soon as it was released but it definitely had its down side.
Aside from the obvious long hours and low wages you would expect being a till monkey in a less than glamorous industry the customers are what made it truly pants at times.

I would like to point out before this turns into a rant that most of our customers were perfectly fine and I was happy to spend time assisting them. But one or two could really boil your piss. Aside from the usual school kids who were 18 honestly and besides had their mums permission to buy the latest Grand Theft Pimp Meister 5 we would get people who would bring in bags of utter crap from 5 years and a console previous and get mortally offended when it wasn't worth the 30 quid per game they paid for it in the first place.
One or two people do stand out amongst the crowd though.

We had the guy who came into the store one busy Saturday afternoon. He seemed a respectable enough chap being suited and booted and browsed the aisles of shelves for around 5 minutes before leaving. It was only after he had gone that people started leaving looking disgusted and the smell wafted our way. What he had done, upon further investigation, was relieved himself onto the floor but instead of doing it just in one place had let a bit more go every time he had stopped so we were left with fragrant little puddles on the carpet all around the place. Whether he was demonstrating his superior bladder capacity and control learned through years of just wanting to finish a level before going to the toilet we will never know. My two co workers turned a delicate shade of green when it came to clearing it up and were having none of it. Having a new born at the time had made me more or less immune to caring about wee so it was left to muggins here to get to work with the mop and bucket.

We also had a guy who came into the store one extremely dull and dead Monday who we knew was going to be worth a laugh. He tried to engage us in conversation in what had to be the worst, most indecipherable Irish accent since Brad Pitt tried his hand at it in Snatch.
When we had worked our way through his mangled attempt at conversation he then proceeded to try to return a wireless pad sold as it didn't have a wire with it. We asked him if he meant the charging wire but no he said it wouldn't work as it didn't plug into the Xbox. We had to tactfully explain how it worked and the guys face was a picture when we tried it on the demonstration machine and it worked. The same guy then asked us on a later visit if Halo 3 was the third game in the series.

So please be nice to people who work in customer facing environments. You might be perfectly reasonable but they have to deal with an awful lot of numpties that aren't
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Thu 10 May 2012, 16:55, 3 replies)

I make a point of being nice to customer facing staff because their jobs are shite
and the last thing they want is a knob-head customer giving them grief.
I treat call centre staff in a similar manner, even if I can't understand a single fucking word that they are saying - they are yooman beans like you and I, just trying to get by after all.
( P-MONKE We're all fucked, Thu 10 May 2012, 17:04, closed)

I used to work at a Game store
And we also had a smelly, well dressed regular.

Although ours never got it on the floor (during my tenure at least).
(chuckle_h0und You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war, Fri 11 May 2012, 10:46, closed)

Ah, the parent buying the 18 rated game for their kids thing
That used to brass me off.

The best one I had was an oldish lady and a 7 year old girl, bringing a copy of Silent Hill 2 to the counter. Alarm bells started ringing so I politely asked who the intended gamer was. Expecting to be told that it was for an older person, she glared at me and pointed at her little girl.

I knew that she'd go ape if I refused the sale, but also I knew I couldn't legally sell the game to her so I refused the sale as politely as I could, pointing out the 15 certificate and explained the law.

It didn't stop her demanding to see the manager, screaming at the security guard and sending an angry letter to head office.

It became quite a big issue within the company, with lots of staff saying I was wrong for refusing the sale as I was selling it to the mum, not the daughter, but I know the law would have found fault with me for providing the game with the knowledge that the girl was the intended recipient.

I'm not in retail anymore, fuck that!
( h3donist tryin' to play me out as if my name is Sega.., Fri 11 May 2012, 13:31, closed)