I work at a video game store. We had a teenage boy who would come in and hang around for thirty minutes to an hour, staring at me until I acknowledged him. When I did, he would pitch me his entire Assassin’s Creed spinoff trilogy.

At first, I tried to rationalize it away; he was probably neurodivergent and excited about Assassin’s Creed but perhaps lacking in social skills. However, if I told him I had to pause on listening to him — he would talk for over thirty minutes, and I had a job to do — I could feel his eyes boring into me. The second I looked at him again, he’d move closer and talk louder. Sometimes he’d stare me down in total silence while I was facing the opposite wall.

My district manager wouldn’t let me kick him out, so whenever another manager was working with me, they’d pretend the store needed something from the dollar store and send me over there. The first time, he waited a full hour inside of [Video Game Store] for me to come back, so after that, I had to stay in the dollar store until one of them texted me that he was gone.

The last time I ever saw him, he followed me around demanding my phone number or email address.

And the worst part is, I know other women at the company had it much worse. There was an unofficially blacklisted customer at another store who didn’t get any phone calls about preorders or anything because he would sit in his car and attempt to follow the store manager home after memorizing which car was hers.

I was working in a video game store. This guy was trying so hard to get me to check the stockroom so he could run off with merchandise, but every question he asked I already knew the answer to or was able to look up in half a second. My store had an inventory search engine with a plethora of available search filters built into the register.

Guy: “Can you get [item] for me from the top shelf there?”

He clearly hoped I would have to go grab a ladder. I turned around to grab the stepladder right behind me and then went back to the shelf. He ran out of the store in front of my very eyes.

I was able to not only identify his general appearance but provide the exact time to check the cameras and a general idea of what he had in his arms.

Listen, buddy, we catch employees stealing money and merchandise in sneaky ways all the time. You think you can run out the front door and we won’t catch you?

A guy comes into the store, yelling, handing in a game for a trade-in.

Customer: “My sister is a store manager and I get a discount!”

He’s very clearly not sober, but I’m not sure what he’s on.

Me: “Do you have her employee number?”

Customer: “No!”

Me: “I will not be giving you a discount, sir.”

Customer: “Why the f*** not?!”

Me: “Aside from not having her employee number, also she isn’t here.”

I know for a fact she quit her senior manager job a couple of years ago and then came back as an entry-level part-timer. We complete the trade-in but then he later comes back in SCREAMING.

Customer: “You didn’t give me the employee discount! And the game you sold me was filthy!”

Me: “Sir, I disinfected it with gloves on when I took the trade-in.”

He threw the game disc at my store manager, who had just clocked in, and yelled at him to clean it. We did not and we made him leave!

Related:
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 19
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 18
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 17
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 16
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 15

Customer: “I need to return this.”

Me: “Can I see your receipt?”

Customer: “I don’t have one, but it was $300.”

After checking his item (a home arcade cabinet) I can say that we’ve never had it in stock.

Customer: *Intimidating.* “You will be refunding me!”

I’m 5’3 and 21 years old so he thinks he can intimidate me, but…

Me: “Unlucky for you, sir, I am the assistant manager and I have worked all the way through [Health Crisis]. Nothing can faze me anymore.”

He did not expect that… or get his refund!

This story takes place during the end of my tenure with a game store chain, after I’ve settled into a familiar groove of thirteen- to fifteen-hour shifts, six days a week — also known as “absentee coworker syndrome”. I’ve also gotten a chance to get to know all the regular customers.

One of my regulars is in the store checking on the stock of our Nintendo Wii units, wanting to know when we’ll get more, etc. The guy easily drops $300 a week in my store and has two adorable, well-behaved kids, so we’re on fantastic terms.

Unfortunately, our district manager is visiting our store and brought her friend [District Manager #2] with her for advice on how to run our store.

It’s worth noting one more fact. I am the sole white employee at this store. The neighborhood in question is predominantly filled with those of darker complexion than myself (African, Latino, etc). Both of the district managers in my store are, you guessed it, whiter than new-fallen snow.

I’m chatting up my regular when I get pulled over by the district managers to a corner out of earshot, where the following exchange takes place.

District Manager #1: “What the h*** do you think you’re doing?!”

Me: “Um, my job? What do you mean? Did I do something wrong? He already has the Premium Membership card…”

District Manager #2: “Not that. Why’d you tell him when you’re getting more Wii consoles?”

Me: “Because he asked? I don’t get it.”

District Manager #1: “We don’t give that information out to people like that!”

District Manager #2: “Exactly. When you give them that kind of information, you either get robbed or you get more of them. That’s not the image we’re trying to cultivate here.”

District Manager #1: “Yeah, we’re trying to bring in more… profitable clientele.”

Me: “I don’t… I don’t understand. What do you mean, ‘them’?”

District Manager #1 & #2: *In unison* “Blacks.”

District Manager #2: “We want bleach-white soccer moms, not a bunch of sooty street rats.”

My eyes must’ve popped out of their sockets in horror at what they just said, because my district manager immediately begins trying to backpedal.

District Manager #1: “What he means is that middle-class people tend to spend more money.”

The incredibly racist conversation continued for a few minutes before I promptly excused myself back to my store and helped my customers. Still, that little bit pretty much eroded any respect I had for Senior Management. 

Luckily, the parent company — which controlled two video chains and my game chain — went belly-up a month later, and both district managers lost their jobs overnight.

Me? I went on to a data center internship that paid more and was a ton of fun.